Choosing the appropriate content management system for your business will have a significant impact on the productivity it yields for you. User requirements, ease of use for non-technical users, and the level of distraction to your IT team are all critical items that should influence which CMS you choose.

Initially, there are a few basic requirements that every CMS should fulfill. Those are: an intuitive and easy-to-use interface, user friendly access to content, and the ability to make basic changes without technical knowledge. The theme with each of these requirements is user empowerment. This is an important concept for two basic, yet very critical reasons. First, by enabling users to perform tasks which they previously relied on IT to perform, you’re expediting and maximizing user effectiveness. Second, as a result of enabling users, you can potentially eliminate a large burden of menial tasks/user requests which were weighing down your IT team. If users can do simple content management themselves, IT can focus on heavier items. By consequence, you’re maximizing everyone’s effectiveness.

Before choosing a specific CMS for your business, it’s necessary to gather requirements and perform an analysis of your needs. From there, you can evaluate each system in light of your requirements. Keep in mind that your ability to support the system from a technical perspective also needs to be considered. If you have a technical support group and your requirements are fairly straight forward, then an open source solution may be a good fit. If you have complex requirements or need customer support, you’re more likely to benefit from a commercial solution.

There are several content management systems to choose from. Three that we often implement are SiteCore, Kentico, and Sitefinity. Between these three, there is a large overlap in features. For the sake of this article I’ll focus mostly on SiteCore which is the most complex of the group. On the surface, a robust content management system should provide social media integration, business application integration, and a multi-device access design. SiteCore offers these features as well as the ability to:

• Create and manage multilingual sites

                         -Set up unique workflows related to language and translation

                         -Integrate with translation systems

• Deploy and manage hundreds of sites from a single platform

                         -Share content across every site

• Personalize content based on specified segments of visitors
• Export Static Content
• Manage Marketing Campaigns
• Manage Advertisement

One attractive characteristic of SiteCore is its flexibility. The system permits you to customize your own extensions. In turn, companies have the ability to adapt SiteCore  more precisely to fit their needs. SiteCore is also very cost effective to customize because it allows developers to utilize existing tools like Visual Studio and Intellisense to develop content and extensions. This saves time and resources because it eliminates the need for developers to learn a new set of tools to develop within SiteCore.

Another great aspect of SiteCore is that it offers cloud integration. This was introduced fairly recently in 2010, but it has proved to be extremely practical. Using Azure, a cloud computing system run on Microsoft data centers, SiteCore allows you to upload web-applications globally without causing system slowing or downtime for the users. Essentially, this means companies can increase the functionality of their websites without investing in IT infrastructure. SiteCore websites aren’t bound by hardware and IT limitations, so companies have a much easier and more effective reach to global markets.

If your content management needs are fairly basic, there are also free CMS versions available that might be more cost effective. If this is the case, your only expense would be the implementation of the system. Integrant can offer a full consultation to help you determine which route is best for your company.