From fragmentation to orchestration: The new rhythm of modern experience delivery ('The Experience Factory' ep.1)
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In episode 1 of 'The Experience Factory,' leaders from Valtech and Contentstack unpack why fragmentation is holding brands back and how to build an orchestrated, AI-powered operating model that finally gets the entire organization in sync.
Brands today proudly claim they’re “omnichannel.” The truth? Most are simply multichannel — excellent within individual touchpoints, yet struggling to connect them into a cohesive, consistent customer experience.
Successful omnichannel isn’t about having more channels, it’s about coordinating them with intentionality. This is the theme of the first episode of The Experience Factory, a five-part series hosted by Francois Haguel, VP, Global Alliances Lead at Valtech, in partnership with Contentstack.
In this conversation, leaders from both organizations unpack why fragmentation is holding brands back and how to build an orchestrated, AI-powered operating model that finally gets the entire organization in sync.
Here are eight key takeaways that Francois drew out of the episode’s guests, Contentstack Developer Experience Lead Tim Benniks and Valtech EVP of Strategy Gabriel Laliberte.
Watch the full episode here.
1. Fragmentation is “the invisible friction slowing every brand down”
No one wakes up deciding to create silos. Fragmentation happens quietly as teams run fast — but not in the same direction.
According to Gabriel Laliberte, you can spot fragmentation when:
- Different teams measure success differently
- Messages across channels don’t align
- Customer data is inconsistent or inaccessible across teams
- Technology stacks resemble “duplicate islands” with multiple CMSs, disconnected PIMs and manual workflows.
- Leadership makes decisions on instinct instead of insight
Fragmentation is what Gabriel calls “invisible friction.” Each team may be performing well individually, but collectively the brand moves slowly, inconsistently and without clarity.
As Gabriel says, “The cost is not just operational, it’s emotional. The team loses confidence, momentum slows and suddenly experience transformation feels like an endless cycle of firefighting instead of orchestration. To me, that’s what fragmentation is.”
2. “We need to transform” usually means “we need to align”
Transformation often starts as a reaction to pain — a campaign that underperformed, a new channel that launched too quickly, a competitor out-innovating the market.
But beneath the urgency lies a deeper problem: a lack of alignment.
- CMOs see fragmentation through the customer lens: experiences feel slow, disconnected, inconsistent.
- CIOs see fragmentation through the systems lens: too many platforms, too much dependency, not enough flexibility.
They’re both right. The real issue sits between them: the operating model connecting strategy, creativity, technology and delivery.
This “missing middle” is why so many transformations stall. Ideas exist. Platforms exist. But the infrastructure to scale, govern and connect them is missing.
Another big blocker when it comes to transformation is timing. “Brands often try to reinvent everything at once,” Gabriel says. “But transformation doesn't scale when everything changes simultaneously. It scales when one part of the organization proves a new way of working, then others follow that rhythm.”
That's the real transformation. Not a new platform, but a new rhythm.
3. The omnichannel myth: Strength in channels, weakness in connections
Brands often excel in each individual channel — great e-commerce, strong apps, beautiful stores — but still fail to deliver a unified experience.
Tim Benniks, Developer Experience Lead at Contentstack, has seen this from the inside while working for digital agencies, and as a consumer trying to solve a problem. He shared a recent example from his life:
While Tim was purchasing a tailored suit, a menswear retailer delivered a fantastic in-store experience and an amazing online chat experience, but because chat support didn’t know he had already made a purchase, it wasn’t able to move his fitting appointment.
Tim couldn’t achieve what he was looking for because the two systems didn’t talk to each other. The brand was strong everywhere except where it mattered most: the connection between touchpoints.
That’s why, as Tim notes, many brands aren’t truly omnichannel.
“[A brand’s] experience system or DXP has to be a surface for all the content to connect, and that's what we often see is missing,” Tim says. “So everybody who says ‘we are omnichannel,’ I tend to say, no, you're probably multi-channel and you do that really well. But the next step takes a little bit of effort.”
4. Orchestration requires a shift from projects to products
One of the biggest blockers to orchestration? Brands think in projects, not products.
“When brands want to do this whole incredible experience orchestration, they keep thinking in projects,” Tim says. “I'm going to do this project this month, this project next month and we'll see what happens.”
As Tim sees it, shifting to product-focused thinking creates a loop that breaks silos and makes real progress more likely. This loop contains five distinct steps:
- Intent – What outcome do we want?
- Creation – Produce the content or experience.
- Activation – Launch it into the market.
- Learning – See what worked, what didn’t.
- Iteration – Improve and deploy again.
This loop is what creates momentum. It is also the foundation for AI-driven experiences because it requires shared data, structured content and consistent patterns that systems can act on.
5. The three pillars of success in an orchestrated model
As brands transition from fragmentation to orchestration, success must be redefined. Gabriel outlines three pillars of success in a modern orchestrated model:
Alignment
All teams use the same experience KPIs — speed to market, reuse rate, engagement lift, customer satisfaction. Shared measurement = shared movement.
Agility
Brands operate in a rhythm. Ideas move to execution faster, not through more effort, but through repeatable workflows supported by AI.
Learning
Data becomes culture, not dashboards. Each launch informs the next. Insights turn into action. Teams evolve continuously.
“Traditionally success has meant volume, more campaigns, more launches and more content,” Gabriel explains. “But in an orchestrated model, success is not about producing more things. It's about producing more consistency and impact across everything you do.”
6. “Thin-slice transformation” (or the benefits of starting small)
Myth: Brands need perfect architecture before they take action.
In reality, orchestration should begin with:
- One shared process
- One cross-functional pilot
- One win that proves the model works
In other words, all you need is something that proves the new model can deliver both speed and control. “Once that happens, people stop seeing transformation as an initiative and start seeing it as a new way of working,” Gabriel says.
Gabriel calls this approach thin-slicing. “That's when you know you've redefined success,” he says. “You take a thin slice of your approach and you make it better.”
When one part of the org finds rhythm, others follow.
7. Why digital transformation is like jazz (seriously)
Technology alone won’t create orchestration. Teams must adopt a new mindset, new governance and new habits.
Tim uses a music analogy to describe what successful orchestration requires:
- A drummer (operating rhythm)
- A music sheet (structures + governance)
- Skilled soloists (creatives, marketers, technologists)
“A jazz song always has a format that kind of just works across the song,” Tim says. “And then people can start playing solos. And that's where they go off script and amazing magical things happen. But if that base is not great, if that hook isn't there or you don't have it on paper, it's just a trumpet solo. And not everybody is Miles Davis, right? What that means is you need to get that structured content and your domain data in place first.”
In short, without the rhythm and structure, a solo is just noise. With them, teams are free to innovate.
AI amplifies this even more. When content models, data and brand language are consistent, AI becomes a force multiplier — not a risk.
8. The new rhythm of experience delivery
Unity, not volume, is what drives impact.
When strategy, creativity, and technology stop operating in silos and start breathing together, brands can finally deliver experiences that feel connected inside and out.
Not a new platform. Not more campaigns. But a new organizational rhythm.
This is the foundation for everything The Experience Factory will explore in upcoming episodes — from scaling storytelling to adapting creative at speed to building AI-augmented operations that move with the customer.
If fragmentation is the old world, orchestration is the future.
And the brands willing to adopt this new rhythm will be the ones customers feel, remember and return to.
