How to Select the Right CMS for your business in 2019

February 27, 2019

Reading time about 4 minutes

Content Management Systems are ideal cells of digital content. Its ability to create, modify, re-use and distribute structured content has earned accolades from leading enterprises. CMS have within them an umpteen number of features, many of which are in-built and some of which can be customized. With these options, enterprises and companies that rely of efficient content management systems are pressured with selecting one that suits all requirements.

Content creation is one thing, but publishing it effectively is another. Once the content has been created, there has to be easier ways to source and re-route it to multiple-channels. Therefore, CMS are required to have open source features that can be add-ons or extensions of an open source CMS development project. This has to not just manage web-based publishing, but also other important demands, such as, format management, history editing, version control, indexing, search, and retrieval.

In this blog, some of the salient characteristic features that are critical in selecting a content management system are discussed. Using these, will enable a business to technologically take a leap forward in documentation, and management of digital assets.

Leveraging Multiple Users in a Collaborative Environment
This is one of the most important features as to why a business has to choose a CMS. A business set-up is a collaborative environment where effective communication is a must. The documentation team will have to take up all responsibilities to keep a check on churning out product guides, product collaterals, customer guides, customer help pages and other documents. They are also entitled to architect resources that will leverage every team within the company to perform better.

In such cases, employing a content management system will enable the business to create, manage, and structure the digital assets in a desired way. There is a need to have an integrated online documentation model that can have multiple channels of publishing. This will allow every team working within a collaborative environment to access various resources as and when required. Therefore, a CMS in 2019 should support functionalities of a modular framework and group extensibility.

Efficient CMS Model
Efficiency of any selected CMS model should be based on whether or not it can solve a real-time requirement. Real-time requirements include the CMS’s readiness to adapt to various kinds of enterprise projects. These may include the following factors.

  • Ability of the content management system to publish on multiple channels
  • Architectural variation with respect to your business objective
  • Business requirement choice, on-cloud or on-premise
  • Is an upgrade needed?
  • Developer’s flexibility to use content management system on a daily basis

On analyzing these factors, one needs to understand what is needed in CMS and moreover, get an idea on whether an open source CMS development model will suit your business needs.

Using CMS for Multiple Projects
The overall purpose of using a centralized CMS in an enterprise or a company is to efficiently manage documentation and promote reusable content. This saves time and increases productivity concerns of employees. But using one common centralized CMS for all purposes can be tricky.

Often, the documentation of a product release is complex, and therefore, marketeers prefer a complex CMS for the entire documentation coverage. But quite often, there are other projects that are being handled on a small scale every quarter in a company that requires small time documentation processes. In such cases, using the same CMS facility might not be feasible. Companies usually go in for an easier version of a content management system.

A proper strategy to use set-centralized CMS has to be evaluated for both small and big projects. The chances of implementing temporary solutions in small projects should not be ignored. Thus, a desired CMS should always be complaint to all kinds of projects that will eventually be a digital content asset.

Hybrids and Hosting
Big tech firms publish their data on-premise and on cloud. They use different hosting services to publish and use content in-house and remote. So, selecting a hosting service is important with respect to the expectations of the channels that would be used. Traditional CMS do not have this ability. They make use of an integration API to add another functionality in lieu of upgrading into a hybrid CMS.  This may not always work, and therefore there is a need to select a CMS that can balance Hybrid and Hosting characteristics.

An End Note:
Finding all these components in the CMS will guarantee you that you are in the right direction. A powerful CMS acts as a solid foundation for any website as it transforms the way you interact with your customers. Choose yours wisely!