Chris Dewey
In March 2010, Forrester Research released its survey results on the evolution of Web Content Management in the corporate enterprise. There are several findings to highlight, but in general, we are witnessing the maturation of this technology to a place on the curve that we frequently refer to as optimization. Enterprises are finally past the hurdles of implementation and adoption, and are now focused on achieving the best of the promises of technical capability and business value. Content management responsibilities are becoming more distributed amongst functional areas, and are no longer the exclusive charter of IT. An expression of this support is the 75% reporting of increased investment in the next 12 months, with more than half of those categorizing their objectives related to improving the customer-facing experience (41% Improved customer experiences, 5% Improved brand consistency, 10% New eBusiness initiatives).
Integration
The emphasis on integration of enterprise applications is a key sign of the optimization motive. Decisions makers recognize the strong points of value present in their enterprise applications, and want the content management capability to leverage them. The strongest survey responses concentrate on web analytics, Sharepoint, social networking, and CRM systems. The maturity of these applications makes the objective reachable, with the possible exception of social networking: still reachable, but certainly more challenging.
Adoption and Distribution
Enterprises are expressing a greater satisfaction and acceptance of the role of web content management within their organization, with a 20% rise in the very satisfied and satisfied responses, and double digit drop in expressions of dissatisfaction with their vendors. The maturity of the technology is lending itself to smoother implementations, and less-than-ideal implementations have likely mitigated their major challenges.
Web content management started as a nearly exclusive responsibility of IT, the website group, or the agency responsible for digital publishing. Under the optimization phase, marketers are taking a more significant role in the management of content, with 36% taking an active role in content authoring. This, combined with the growth of the use of WCM to support marketing initiatives, gives the marketing function a significant stake in WCM technologies for the foreseeable future.
Resources:
Web Content Management Will Weave Its Way Into More Enterprise Applications. (Forrester Research)
Image Courtesy: http://hbit.ie/images/pageElements/web/webCms.jpg
About the Author:
Chris Dewey is the CIO at SIGMA Marketing Group. Connect with Chris on , or follow him on .
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