Feb 12, 2025
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) is a leading digital experience platform (DXP). It enables businesses to create, manage, and deliver personalized customer experiences across multiple channels.
Making the strategic decision to invest in AEM can help enterprises enhance customer interactions and generate revenue. However, AEM is also a complex product that offers a variety of features for customizing the solution to your business.
To properly take advantage of the incredible benefits of AEM, you need a trustworthy implementation partner to help you. This article will highlight some things to consider when choosing an AEM partner.
What is an AEM Partner (Adobe Solution Partner)?
An AEM or Adobe Solution partner is a digital agency and system integrator with expertise in Adobe Experience Cloud. Adobe partners help organizations with digital transformation projects, including implementing, upgrading, and maintaining AEM and other solutions.
Why Do You Need an AEM Partner?
Although many enterprises capable of investing in a product like AEM may have their own internal development team, it’s advantageous to consult and work with an AEM partner. Here are a few reasons why:
Complexity
Adobe's robust DXP offers a vast product catalog, including content management, personalization, analytics, customer journey optimization, and commerce. These highly configurable products can perform any marketing-related task.
Although this complexity offers several benefits, Adobe products have a steep learning curve. As such, businesses need the support of an AEM partner with deep technical expertise to maximize their investment and avoid implementation mistakes.
Oshyn, an experienced AEM partner, offers expertise across the entire development lifecycle, including design, implementation, and ongoing support.
Support and Maintenance Needs
AEM requires regular updates, security patches, and performance optimization. An experienced partner provides proactive monitoring, bug fixes, and long-term support to meet these requirements.
For instance, Oshyn offers maintenance services that make updates and enhancements easier and less expensive each time you need to upgrade.
Bridging the Skills Gap
Many enterprise teams lack hands-on experience with AEM, and the effort required to hire in-house talent can be time-consuming and expensive. AEM partners bring certified professionals who can upskill internal teams while ensuring projects run efficiently from day one.
Where to Start Your AEM Partner Selection Journey
Now that you understand why you need a partner, let's look at where to start.
Define Business Goals
Before evaluating partners, you must determine what you want to achieve with AEM. Is it time to migrate from another DXP, or are you simply upgrading or optimizing your current AEM setup?
If you’re implementing AEM for the first time, you need to consider your business goals and which features (headless capabilities, personalization, etc.) are required to meet those goals. Knowing your objectives will help you identify the right partners with relevant expertise and ask the right questions when interviewing your next partner.
Review Adobe’s Partner Directory
Next, you should review Adobe’s partner directory, which contains a network of partners with proven AEM expertise. Within the Adobe Solution Partner Directory, you can filter by region, industry expertise, and specialization to find partners who can help with implementation and other needs.
A good rule of thumb is to select a partner that operates in a time zone close to your company's. In particular, the primary development team, which will be working on your AEM project, should be in this time zone to enable quick feedback and adjustments during the project.
Smaller partners with local and near-shore development teams can guarantee this time zone closeness, unlike other partners that might outsource to development teams halfway around the world.
Also, consider the size and level of specialization of the development team working on your project. For instance, Adobe Champions aren’t just developers familiar with AEM but certified practitioners who offer deep expertise to help solve problems with Adobe products. Smaller partners with this advanced expertise, like Champions, can provide you with the right attention and expertise to help with your implementation.
For example, Oshyn’s combination of local and near-shore development teams, advanced Adobe expertise, and Champions provides what most enterprises need from an Adobe partner.
What to Look For in an AEM Partner
Once you know what your business needs and you’ve narrowed your list of potential partners, you need to find a partner that can truly deliver the value you need. Here are the non-negotiables that you should consider:
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Certifications and Adobe Seal of Approval: Adobe awards certifications to partners with demonstrated expertise in AEM. Look for partners in Adobe’s directory with certifications in tools like AEM Sites, Assets, and other Adobe Experience Cloud products.
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A Clear Implementation Strategy: The ideal AEM partner should provide a transparent roadmap for implementation. This should include how they assess your needs and define project success, what methodologies and frameworks they follow, and how they will empower your internal teams to use AEM effectively once the implementation is complete.
For example, Oshyn provides technical audits and design support to ensure the implementation runs smoothly before development starts.
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Experience Working with Enterprise-grade DXPs and Organizations: AEM isn’t for small enterprises. This is due to its price and total cost of ownership, as well as its complexity and feature availability.
Mid-sized to larger enterprises are best suited to getting the most out of AEM, and the partner you choose should have hands-on experience working with these types of businesses. This includes AEM and other CMSs and DXPs on the market, as they will have a deeper understanding of what exact solution you need and whether or not an Adobe product is the right fit for that use case.
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Knowledge of How to Build Using a Composable Approach: Several businesses, including those using Adobe products, are adopting a composable approach. A partner with experience building headless websites and adopting a composable approach, particularly in the Adobe ecosystem, is invaluable for those businesses on the road to becoming composable enterprises.
For instance, Oshyn’s guide to composable headless in the Adobe web ecosystem provides composable architectural options for AEM and explains Adobe’s offerings to support a hybrid architecture.
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Broad Experience Across Industries and Use-cases: AEM is mainly used by large organizations in retail, finance, healthcare, and media, but its flexibility means it can be suitable for any enterprise. A partner with experience working in your industry, but also across different sectors, will be able to help you innovate and proactively address challenges that appear, tailoring the solution to your unique business needs.
Oshyn, for example, has spent years working with clients across industries like utilities, healthcare, financial services, retail, consulting, and more.
Why Choose Oshyn as Your AEM Partner
Selecting an AEM partner isn’t just about technical skills and years of experience. You need to find a team that understands your business, can execute efficiently, and will support you as a long-term partner.
Oshyn is an Adobe partner with decades of experience building websites and implementing marketing technology solutions. We offer years of content management implementation experience, encompassing the entire lifecycle from design planning to development to post-launch enhancements and maintenance.
Moreover, our highly experienced experts keep up with the latest trends. We are also familiar with other leading solutions in the DXP space, including Optimizely and Sitecore. That experience allows us to guide you toward the best solution for your business. If you want to get started with AEM or another Adobe product, Oshyn is your ideal partner.
Contact us to find out how we can help.
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