Choosing the right CMS for you

How are the CMS vendors responding?Some vendors have merged or are merging platforms and companies,

trying to shift large scale legacy systems into current delivery

platforms. Newer vendors have taken advantage of their lightweight

architecture and upscaled functionality. Some have moved to SAAS

models and others have integrated other business systems to

differentiate themselves.

I have broken the evolution into three distinct categories

which I believe now form the basis of the options available to

you if you’re procuring a CMS at the moment:

1. Basic2. Plug-in architecture3. ECRM-CMS

1. BasicBasic is the wrong word to use, as this is not a CMS that lacks

functionality in the content management solution sense. These products

are amazing at creating, maintaining and developing a website, with all

the features you need to complete these tasks quickly and efficiently.

They are designed with the end user in mind, namely the marketing

managers or content editors, ensuring the interfaces aren’t over-fussy

or complicated.

One drawback is building costs. Because of their open platform

advantages, upgrade paths, build times and security are still

considerations for some companies.

The downsides are minimal if you just want to manage content.

However with more content created in one year than in the sum total of

our entire existence do we just want to create more content? If you want

to engage a customer with different types of content, different channels

or different tools these may not be the best.

Best examples: Wordpress, MODx

2. Plug-in architectureThese are middleweight CMS products currently available. Newer

companies produce some of the best I have encountered; these don’t

have the architecture legacy issues of longer standing CMS vendors.

They have increased their basic content management functionality to

include some amazing business critical plug-ins such as: ecommerce,

document management systems, workflow engines, SharePoint

connectors, advanced image manipulation, elearning packages, social

networking tools (forget blogs or wikis: some are replicating Facebook

like functionality), flash integration, multilingual management and

content publishing to multiple sources.

The downsides are minimal; most issues are based upon the client

appetite. It’s said that 80% of the functionality you launch with isn’t

used, so starting with the essentials and enhance based on what users

do/want/say is vital. Otherwise you can quickly rack up costs.

Best examples: Kentico, EPiServer, Sitefinity

Laurence Cornwall-Watkins New Business Director

Agree/Disagree? Let Laurence know: laurence-cw@brightblueday.co.uk

To find out more please call 01202 669090 or visit brightblueday.co.uk

The CMS landscape is changing rapidly. Factors like the economic downturn, prevalence and evolution of Open Source platforms, commoditization of complex technologies, and legacy technologies failing, have all driven the current change. The recognition that content is king has also driven the CMS into a business critical tool.

3. ECRM-CMSA powerful and interesting combination if your website is delivering

a lot of information to a wide audience. They combine powerful CMS

technology which feeds into an ECRM layer capturing the interaction on

the website of an individual.

The result: you know more about an individual on your site than ever

before and can personalize, profile and serve content based on actions.

Very powerful stuff and in my opinion great future potential.

Downsides are quite a few at the moment. If you have an EMEA website

with hundreds of thousands of visitors and multiple servers, expect a

very high cost for the software and licences. There is the question over

what you do with your current ECRM and I have yet to see a website

truly be capable of changing the information architecture, content and

interface based on my interaction with it, but that could just be the

random way I browse.

Best examples: Sitecore, Sharepoint

The future – what’s next?I believe the shift they are making across the board is to integrate

themselves into all business critical content functions (just look at

what MS Dynamics and SharePoint have tried to do). It’s the logical

move, but until social media I think the appetite for this was relatively

small. However with social media comes a real need for content

dissemination. Your article, video, image, product etc. can’t exist

on just your website, or even your website’s forum. It needs to exist

through all communication channels.

Website, mobile site, your forum, Facebook page/app, Twitter accounts,

Foursquare locations, Flickr, YouTube, extranets, intranets, portals,

digital point of sale, the list is endless. And the CMS solution that

manages that single published, multiple location, content push will

form the next generation of CMS technology.

In summary – it is as complicated today as it always has been, but

business process and effective content delivery need to be at the heart

of your decisions.

Don’t be sold by the shiny veneer of some CMSs: within a short space

of time you will be kicking yourself that you didn’t get further under the

hood to understand the real delivery capabilities. In fact, and I don’t say

this often, maybe you should get someone from IT in to help with the

procurement. But get the one who owns a MAC as they will understand

that ease of use, beauty and technical brilliance can go hand in hand.

If you would like an honest opinion on what CMS is right for you or want

to discuss your current requirements then please contact me on the

details below.

We are happy to roll our sleeves up and get stuck into any CMS,

even ones we haven’t worked with before, but our core experience

includes: Alterian, EpiServer, Modex, Kentico, Sitecore, Ektron,

RedDot, SharePoint, Tridion and Sitefinity.

To find out more please call 01202 669090 or visit brightblueday.co.uk