subject: Important Elements Of A Robust Cms [print this page] There are numerous Content Management Systems available in the market. Almost all these are very costly for medium and small sized companies. Every Content Management System has its own unique features and have been developed with generic objective, thus they may not fully fit into your requirements.
The CMS is purchased often due to budgetary considerations and based on technology it has been built on. If you want to gain maximum advantage from CMS, there are other factors also that should be considered. A CMS implementation should have a clear and well defined objective, followed by systematic planning. Below are few best practices mentioned that need to be followed for successful and fruitful deployment of a robust CMS.
It is of utmost importance to have recognized goals that are to be achieved for which CMS deployment is carried out. The goals may be revolve around issues like efficiency, productivity, ROI, quality etc. In the absence of clear goals, the CMS implementation fails to achieve any significant changes to the company. Lack of well defined goals results in escalated budgets, extended deadlines, non productive resources etc thus leaving a huge hole in the company finances. Company should have a defined goal and objective for successful implementation of CMS.
While deciding on the content management system, one should have primary concern over how accommodating the CMS is as per your requirements rather than technology. Key areas to look for are the processes and business rules for the content.
Once you have enough information related to what kind of content you are looking at, you can then focus on other areas. Usually companies have more than one system deployed for business operations. While choosing the CMS, one should pay attention to the integration of CMS with existing systems of the company. If the integration fails, CMS may not be fully operational or successful. If the company has existing systems a detailed analysis of integration and compatibility between them and available CMS options should be done to avoid last minute surprises.
Another criterion for choosing a CMS is its user friendliness. A novice user should be able to effortlessly work on the CMS without undergoing much training. If the CMS is complicated for untrained users, lot of company budget will have to be allocated to train the current staff. This can increase the implementation budget.
Before selecting a CMS, proper planning, clear objectives, analysis of the requirements etc should be thoroughly considered.
