Meet Stephanie Pieruccini at OpenText CCM

She left the world of print behind to enter the digital; focusing on modernizing communications infrastructure and delivering impactful communications to Exstream Orchestration. Meet Stephanie Pieruccini, Senior Manager of Product at OpenText CCM, who has loads of experience and knowledge in the CCM space.

Name: Stephanie Pieruccini
Role: Senior Manager, Product Management
Workplace: OpenText CCM
Exstream experience: 12 years
Interest outside work: I left Boston and moved to a rural area in Pennsylvania where I have some egg-laying chickens, a duck, a dog, and a garden. I also like to cook, cycle, hike and camp, read, travel, visit museums and so much more.
Connect with Stephanie: Send an e-mail to spieruccini@opentext.com

Hi there Stephanie, what do you specialize in at OpenText CCM?

I am responsible for Communications Orchestration which consists of the management of communication production; from data ingestion through channel delivery. I am also responsible for delivering our Exstream Platform (server-based) roadmap, which includes StreamServe. I had the opportunity to work with StreamServe before OpenText acquired it and I also owned product management for the platform that uses StreamServe in a previous Healthcare role. 

How did it all start? What drew you to the communications industry?

Cereal boxes. Believe it or not cereal boxes are what drew me to the communications industry in the first place. As part of a demonstration of what we would learn in a printing vocational, the instructor pulled out a cereal box and proceeded to take it apart and show us the registration marks, color bars, and other print features used during print manufacturing that no one pays attention too.

It seemed so logical to me that a career in printing would provide me with plenty of opportunities while also enabling continuous learning. Printing and packaging is a functional science that is filled with art, which essentially translates to marketing. No one wants to buy cereal in a boring sack and that colorful art is what typically draws a consumer in. It was the perfect storm of secure and interesting for me. But that was only the beginning.

How do you mean?

In the midst of my exploration into the world of printing, the rest of the world was experiencing the digital revolution of smart phones and social media, so while I was fortunate to be given a full scholarship to Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), I didn't focus my degree in printing. Instead, I chose New Media to further my knowledge in this broader digital revolution that was happening. Of course the reality was, I chose to juggle new media, printing (including digital, offset, flexo, gravure, and Intaglio), as well as materials science. I even dabbled in color science, typography, and art conservation. I added a minor in Criminal Justice as my interest across all of these areas actually had value in counterfeit detection. While I didn't end up in a career there, I can still identify the print process(es) used and point out print defects.

So, how did you move from the world of printing to the digital world?

The job market when I graduated was a bit challenging, but I was fortunate to land a role at a company that did multi-channel publishing of municipal codes; basically the published law books for towns, cities, counties in the US. Everything was XML based which would serve valuable when I pivoted into CCM. Not long after, one of my RIT peers reached out to me for an Analyst role at InfoTrends (now Keypoint Intelligence) focused on production workflow software solutions. 

This started with production workflow, print MIS, DAM, and web-to-print systems but quickly expanded to include multi-channel marketing solutions and campaign management solutions to help service providers meet all of the communication needs their customers had. This also exposed me to composition engines so I could articulate the technical difference between creating high volume transaction communications with marketing-based communications which can be even higher volumes and delivery frequencies. While I love the critical and functional role that workflow management and print MIS systems provide, it only provides a view into the print production floor. It drove my interest in learning more about the systems upstream that enterprises use to manage the data, creation, delivery, and analysis of communications to better understand the overall communications lifecycle, whether CCM, marketing, call center, or other touchpoints that make up the overall relationship experience between a business and it's customers. This opened a whole new portfolio of software solutions to learn about including MRM, marketing automation, analytics and sentiment. My role expanded to also include consulting engagements, often working one on one with software companies as well as their customers.

Why product management?

I decided that I wanted to learn more about what it takes to delivery some of these software solutions and was presented an opportunity at Neopost (now Quadient) as part of a group focused on helping their SMB print customers embrace digital communications. While this was an interesting challenge and experience, I was getting drawn back into consulting. I spent some time working with Madison Advisors as well as Kaspar Roos as he left InfoTrends to start his own consulting firm, Aspire CCS. I almost moved to the UK as well, but a family health issue kept me in the US. I love consulting and helping my customers understand the trends affecting their customers and present ideas on how they can address these market changes. Unfortunately, there is little involvement or control in executing these ideas and that's where product management became an interest for me.

You now work as a Senior Manager of Product at OpenText CCM, how is it like?

I sought out this opportunity at OpenText as I felt the IP that OpenText has acquired in it's CCM portfolio and adjacent technologies has a lot of opportunity for companies looking to modernize their communications infrastructure to manage every touchpoint with their customers and ensure a positive experience.

I enjoy continuous learning and problem-solving which makes product management the perfect role for me. In this role at OpenText, I hope to bring my knowledge of the overall process management, automation, tracking, transparency, and ultimately ensuring delivery of really impactful communications to Exstream Orchestration.  

What are the biggest challenges you see within your area?

The biggest challenge I have is that there are so many features I want to add to Exstream CN Orchestratration, but I have to prioritize. From an industry standpoint, the pandemic has accelerated cloud adoption, but this is still a new area for many. Adjusting to the way the cloud changes how we create and manage communications, orchestrate these steps, and leverage UIs to manage and monitor takes some time.

What do you think are the most exciting things up ahead?

There are so many things to be excited about! We have spent a lot of time working on ensuring customers can do what they need to in Exstream Cloud Native. While we continue to expand that functionality to accommodate new and changing communication types and use cases, I also want to make sure we are delivering user interfaces that make the user’s job better. That includes providing more transparency and control of jobs, interactive and actionable monitoring, and enhancing orchestration flow models to make it easier to navigate complex workflows.