CMS FAQs
What is a CMS?
A Content Management System (CMS) is a piece of software that helps organisations control their information. It will help them create, manage, and publish their content to a web site, intranet or other collaborative online application.
A CMS uses a database to store, manage and retrieve content in a consistent fashion, and radically enhance the way that organisations are able to market their content to their key audiences.
What is a CMS used for?
On a small scale, a CMS can dramatically improve the way an organisation controls their website or intranet. A larger implementation or ‘enterprise’ CMS can transform the way the entire company operates by improving the creation, management and retrieval of information.
The most common form of content management is Web Content Management which allows people to easily control and update their websites. When a website gets very large or it is published in multiple countries, a CMS allows content to be aggregated and re-used efficiently, and for a team of authors to contribute to the content creation process.
In addition, because a CMS separates the presentation of a site (the design) from its content, a CMS enables organisations to re-use content assets across its site(s). This feature allows sophisticated new marketing techniques to be implemented, as organisations can publish new services and offerings to key areas of their site – helping to drive new purchase paths through their site and to ‘push’ key messages at key audiences.
Do I need specialist skills to operate a CMS?
A good CMS should not require specialist technical expertise to author and/or publish content. This is critical since it allows organisations to break down the work flow in their web site production process.
A good CMS implementation will allow designers to focus on design, technical experts to focus on technology, and content authors to focus on the real driving value of a site – the generation of content. In turn, this breakdown of the works process allows organisations to deploy their production budgets in a smarter fashion, deploying specialist expertise only where it is needed, and to gain a higher level of control on overall site maintenance.
Is a CMS expensive?
No. Especially if you choose to work with an open source solution such as MySource Matrix. Because MySource Matrix is open source, there are no licence costs to pay, and you control and own 100% of the finished solution. In a typical CMS engagement, we estimate that the ongoing production savings can be between 20-40% compared to a flat HTML or custom coded site.
What technologies are used/required?
To run a CMS, you typically require a server running an operating system – Windows, Linux, etc; a web server – IIS, Apache, etc; and application framework - .net, J2EE, PHP, etc; and a database – Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc. Users will typically access the CMS through a standard web browser. MySource Matrix runs on a Linux environment and is developed in PHP.
What are the key benefits to businesses in using a CMS?
- Reduced website maintenance costs: by radically reducing labour-intensive maintenance activities, a CMS will reduce the need for website administration staff, and other associated costs (by around 20-40% in our experience).
- Improved User Experience: good content management ensures valid, consistent, and up-to-date communication. This in turn improves customer satisfaction and customer retention.
- Ease of compliance: a CMS’s allow you to keep up to date with evolving web standards – at the level of both technology and design (i.e. user interfaces).
- Reduced duplication of information: duplication of information across business units and platforms increases maintenance costs and error rates. Wherever possible, information should be stored once, and published multiple times.
- Improved business responsiveness: a CMS should support the development of new products and services, as well as other changes in corporate direction. This is achieved by providing a rapid and efficient mechanism to update key internal and external corporate information and resources.
- Development of new online services to reduce operational costs: a CMS will allow simple implementation of business-critical online applications - such as e-commerce and extranets - to provide ‘self-service’ style functions to key stakeholders such as customers, partners and media. Applications like these will reduce manual overheads in functions such as customer support, procurement, sales and communications.
- Improved publishing process: ad-hoc publishing processes prevent effective management and tracking. A CMS will optimise this, as well as providing greater transparency and accountability.
- Improved marketing processes: because a CMS separates the presentation of a site (the design) from its content, a CMS enables organisations to re-use content assets across its site(s). This feature allows sophisticated new marketing techniques to be implemented, as organisations can publish new services and offerings to key areas of their site – helping to drive new purchase paths through their site and to ‘push’ key messages at key audiences.
- Improved communications processes: a CMS will allow simple development of web-based communications tools and technologies such as bulk email, RSS feeds, and blogs. All of these functions enable organisations to communicate with their public audiences at a lower cost and with more speed and frequency.
- Improved staff efficiency: staff efficiency can be improved by supporting key business processes with sufficient information. The CMS must aim to provide staff with the information they need, when they need it. This will translate into direct time savings by avoiding fruitless searches for required information.
- Reduced legal exposure: all information presented on the corporate website exposes the business to legal liability. This should be reduced by establishing greater control and accountability over the review and publishing processes.
What kinds of business benefit most from CMS systems?
Any business can benefit from a CMS. However, the following breakdown explains specific business benefits:
- Small businesses: small businesses typically find that their website is a cost effective and efficient way of marketing their business. A CMS can reduce the cost of maintaining their site by allowing people without technical skills to update it. The CMS will also allow a small company to offer more advanced features on their site eg a better search facility, press rooms, user logins, etc
- Medium to Large businesses and Government bodies: if a large business or Government agency implements a CMS properly, they are likely to receive all the benefits outlined above. Most companies now regard the efficient management of content (documents, images, movies, etc) as being a core business requirement. A CMS has become an essential software tool for meeting this requirement.
