How to Strengthen AEM Operations for Future Growth 

For C-suite executives, Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) is meant to be a competitive asset, not a maintenance drain. 

Yet many organizations watch their AEM platforms age into slow, costly liabilities that actively hinder growth. The platform that was supposed to accelerate digital transformation becomes the bottleneck preventing it. 

Strengthening AEM operations for the future requires a fundamental shift in strategy. It requires moving away from the unsustainable model of managing manual infrastructure and embracing a governance-first approach that ensures scalability, speed, and continuous improvement. 

The following three pillars define how high-performing companies structure their AEM operations to guarantee long-term success.

 

Modernize Infrastructure and Deployment 

The primary challenge of legacy AEM (on-premise or managed service) is the time and cost consumed by manual maintenance. Future growth demands automated, cloud-native stability. 

Implement Continuous Delivery 

Successful operations rely on reducing human intervention in the deployment process. 

Automate everything. Transition all code builds, quality checks, and deployments into a mandatory, automated Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipeline. This eliminates manual errors and significantly accelerates feature delivery. What used to take a change control meeting, three rounds of approvals, and a weekend deployment window now happens automatically in minutes. 

Enforce quality gates. Embed security and performance analysis directly into the deployment pipeline. Every code submission must pass automated quality gates before it can be deployed, preventing fragile code from crippling the platform. Now, bad code never makes it to production. 

Embrace cloud service. Full adoption of AEM as a Cloud Service (AEMaaCS) offloads infrastructure management (patching, scaling, security) to Adobe. This guarantees zero-downtime updates and transfers the operational burden away from your internal IT team. Your infrastructure team stops fighting fires and starts building features. 

Learn More: 4 Pillars of Adobe Digital Transformation

Standardize Content and Code Governance 

Poor governance is the root cause of AEM degradation. Allowing developers to use inconsistent component libraries or content authors to upload unoptimized assets creates technical debt that compounds over time. Future growth demands strict structural standards. 

Establish Component Consistency 

Adopt Core Components. Mandate the use of AEM Core Components for all new development. These components are standardized, performance-optimized, and supported by Adobe, drastically reducing custom code debt and long-term maintenance costs. Every custom component you build is a component you maintain forever. 

Model content for scale. Content must be reusable across channels. Teams should utilize Content Fragments and Experience Fragments to separate content from presentation. This approach ensures content can be adapted for any channel (web pages, mobile apps, voice assistants) without requiring developers to rebuild structure every time. 

Standardize the Operating Model 

Future growth must be structured within a comprehensive framework. 

Define talent roles. Clearly define ownership roles that transcend traditional IT boundaries. Content owners. Experience architects. Product managers. Success relies on breaking down functional silos and creating cross-functional teams that actually work together. 

Align goals. The platform’s operational health must be closely tied to broader business objectives, such as site conversion and SEO performance. Not just “uptime percentage” but “revenue per visit.” Not just “pages published” but “conversion rate improvement.” 

Integrate Data and Measurement 

A static website delivers diminishing returns. Sustained growth requires AEM to function as a dynamic engagement platform powered by real-time customer intelligence.

Connect for Personalization 

Data unification. Integrate AEM (the content delivery system) with a robust data platform like Adobe Experience Platform and your CRM. This connection creates a unified customer profile, allowing content to be personalized based on current user behavior and history. Generic experiences don’t convert in 2025. 

Measure business outcomes. Performance metrics must move beyond basic uptime. Teams need to measure platform health against real business impact: revenue per visit, conversion rates, and reduced time-to-market. If your main KPI is “system availability,” you’re measuring the wrong things. 

Leverage External Expertise 

To focus internal teams on core innovation, high-performing organizations delegate operational burden. 

Strategic offload. Engage AEM managed services partners to handle proactive performance monitoring, security checks, and platform governance. This frees your specialized internal talent to focus solely on high-value feature development. Your best developers shouldn’t be patching servers or troubleshooting caching issues. 

Extend platform intelligence. The principles of unifying data and leveraging platform intelligence extend to every corner of the business, including complex project management and sales cycles. When your content platform talks to your CRM, magic happens.

 Learn More: What Strong AEM Implementations Have in Common

What This Transformation Actually Requires 

Here’s what most organizations underestimate: the shift from manual to automated operations is as much cultural as it is technical. 

You’re asking people who’ve spent years managing infrastructure to let go. You’re asking developers who’ve built custom components to use standardized ones instead. You’re asking content teams to follow strict governance rules they didn’t have before. 

This creates resistance. People feel like you’re taking away their autonomy. Managers worry about losing headcount if automation eliminates manual work. Teams push back on standardization because “our business is different.” 

Executive sponsorship is essential. Someone at the C-suite must champion this transformation and clearly state that the old way of operating is no longer acceptable. Without that support, the initiative may get stuck in meetings, and decision-making could be hindered.

Strategic Summary of Operational Excellence 

Strengthening AEM operations is about transforming cost centers into accelerators. The shift from manual maintenance to automated, governed operations delivers clear benefits. 

Strategic Shift	Legacy Approach	Growth-Focused Operation
Platform Maintenance	High operational cost; unpredictable downtime; slow upgrades	Zero-downtime: automated patching, guaranteed stability, low TCO
Code Structure	Custom components; technical debt accumulation; slow development	Standardized: Core Components enforced; automatic quality checks prevent degradation
Business Impact	Static content; low conversion; siloed data; reactive	Continuous value: personalization enabled; faster time-to-market; metrics linked directly to revenue

This foundation of stability and continuous improvement ensures your AEM platform is ready for the future. Not just surviving, but actually driving business growth. 

The Reality of Timeline and Investment 

Let’s be realistic about what this requires. 

The technical migration to cloud-native infrastructure might take six to 12 months, depending on your current state. Establishing governance standards and getting teams to actually follow them? That’s 12 to 18 months, minimum. 

Budget for both technology costs and organizational change management. The technology is the smaller expense. Training, process redesign, and change management consume more resources than most organizations plan for. 

But the alternative is worse. Every month you delay, your technical debt grows. Your operational costs increase. Your competitors pull further ahead. The organizations that wait for the “perfect time” never start. 

The ones that succeed? They commit to the journey, acknowledge it won’t be easy, and start making progress today instead of planning forever. 

The shift from manual maintenance to automated operations won’t happen by itself. It requires expertise, executive commitment, and a realistic plan.  

NetEffect has successfully guided dozens of enterprises through this transformation. Let’s discuss what it would actually take for your organization to achieve it. Schedule a consultation today.