Delivering quality end-to-end digital experiences can be challenging for multiple reasons including lack of resources, legacy technologies, and disorganized customer journeys. Microsoft and Adobe have purpose-built integrations to overcome these challenges with a result of simplifying deployment and reducing overall cost.

Grounded in open software standards and a scalable, secure cloud, Microsoft and Adobe deliver end-to-end technology ecosystems for a modern, secure, and connected enterprise. The integration between our applications transforms data into insights that enable intelligent, targeted, and customized marketing campaigns. With Microsoft setting the data foundation and Adobe providing a comprehensive marketing activation layer, we can take organizations from traditional batch marketing to real-time, precise, and timely event-based marketing.

Marketing needs to be tailored specifically to how, when, and where customers want to shop. To achieve this, Microsoft and Adobe are providing tools to make collaboration between employees easier and smarter, such as digital signatures and document sharing. Meanwhile, automation tools enable organizations to source, adapt, and deliver assets for more personalized customer experiences. These sophisticated integrations between Microsoft and Adobe are enabling businesses to do more with less.

Microsoft and Adobe partner to create a connected enterprise

A 2023 commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting—The Total Economic Impact™ Of Adobe SaaS Solutions with Microsoft Cloud—uncovered how our partnership and technology collaboration with Adobe lowers time and resource costs, improves employee productivity and customer engagement, as well as the return on investment by deploying Adobe applications for the enterprise on the Microsoft Cloud. The study specifically focuses on Adobe Experience Cloud and Adobe Document Cloud running on Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

The study explores the challenges organizations hope to address by implementing the integrated Microsoft and Adobe solutions (see image below).

The resounding solutions to these challenges show the strength of the native integration between Microsoft and Adobe SaaS solutions, which enabled organizations to:

• Enhance customer experiences by leveraging consolidated customer data, and with cloud support across solutions, gain real-time insights and analysis about these customers and marketing efforts.
• Strengthen security and protection of data files across the enterprise with tightly integrated tools. With consolidated tools under an all-in-one vendor, tool deployment and IT team management is simplified.

Streamline data access and management across the organization. With tight integrations, organizations can improve collaboration, decision-making, and performance among their teams.

Integrated data means better customer journeys

As customers move between digital channels—mobile apps, social media, online chat, and so on—they generate digital records. Capturing insights from siloed data streams can be a challenge, impacting the ability to create personalized experiences in a timely manner for customers. By transitioning companies from legacy and siloed technologies to a connected, cloud-enabled tech stack, Microsoft and Adobe address the data issues that improve the quality of connections companies have to their customers.

According to the Forrester study, those implementing Adobe SaaS solutions on Microsoft Cloud say that managing customer experiences is the top goal of their organization (71 percent). This is also where organizations found key benefits of implementing integrated solutions.

• Some survey participants saw a 45 percent gain in customer loyalty that they attributed to integrating Microsoft Cloud with Adobe Experience Cloud.
• Data analysis was 15 percent faster, which improved the overall speed of work for marketers by 10 percent.
• Customer satisfaction, the number of transactions, and customer retention rates all increased due to the data-driven capabilities the integration presents.

AI and Machine Learning are pivotal in sifting through large volumes of data, pinpointing areas of importance or anomalies for marketers. The wide range of triggering events, including email, calendar invites, webinars, advertising, data changes, and ERP events offer a holistic view of the customer. A focus on a self-service model delivers speed and ease of use. In combination, organizations gain operational efficiencies, as well as fast, effective marketing from Microsoft and Adobe integrations.

Increase data security across the enterprise

Keeping the organizations’ data and files secure is a leading concern of enterprise leaders—especially with data spread between on-prem servers and the cloud and hybrid work arrangements. The fear is that, without tighter integration with cloud security controls, their data centers are vulnerable to attacks.

Security is inherent with the cloud. Additionally, data stored in Microsoft Cloud and imported directly into natively connected Adobe solutions with native connectors reduces data vulnerabilities. Interviewees of the Forrester study reported that data and files specific to Adobe had not experienced any compromises.

Reduce time and resource demands to streamline deployment

Without the tight integration between Microsoft and Adobe, IT teams—or consultants and contractors—need to code or build custom API connectors to implement solutions. Microsoft and Adobe have developed over 60 specific integrations that are purpose-built for common use cases, reducing the workload for IT teams in customer organizations. The Forrester study found that for the composite organization the integration of Adobe tools went from a multi-month endeavor down to one month and required far fewer resources. This led to overall IT and security team productivity going up by 20 percent. One interviewed company reallocated 15 members of their 40-person IT team to other organizational projects. The Forrester study found that a composite organization based on interviewed customers saw the following financial benefits over three years:

• 251 percent ROI
• 1.3M USD Benefits PV
• 925 Thousand USD Net Present Value

Because Microsoft and Adobe support global content distribution, with Microsoft having cloud storage services worldwide, organizations can increase efficiencies in creating and distributing the millions of content assets needed to create personalized customer journeys.

Read the study to learn more

The Total Economic Impact™ Of Adobe SaaS Solutions with Microsoft Cloud report provides a deep analysis of the key challenges organizations look to address when deploying Adobe SaaS solutions on Microsoft Cloud. Read the full study to understand why.

As global leaders in business solutions, Microsoft and Adobe combine the power of data and expertise in marketing to deliver innovations that are reliable, secure, and optimized to meet consumers wherever they are in the customer journey.