CMS as Platforms for Interoperability

Last week, while doing research for a new RFP response we're putting together, I read through the 2010 Gartner Magic Quadrant for WCM. It's an interesting piece of heavy analysis, and I'm always a little better informed after I've read a Gartner report. These lines in particular really jumped out at me:

"In more than 80% of inquiries that Gartner has received about WCM since 2H09, clients sought higher business value from their online presence, be it Internet, extranet or intranet. As a result, many enterprises replace their existing technology, in some cases, to interoperate with other components of their Web environment, such as Web analytics, an e-commerce engine or in-house business applications."

In almost every CMS implementation that we've done so far, the use of the CMS as a content management system is only the tip of the iceberg. All of our clients have wanted their CMS to do more -- integrate with more things, provide more features, expand their world. This isn't to say that the CMS isn't enough; rather, we are demanding more out of our CMS than ever before. Large enterprises, especially, want something that will make their web sites easy to manage and also let them integrate with social media, add eCommerce to their site, connect with SalesForce.com, add analytics gathering scripts, and use their LDAP for authentication. In fact, we had one customer did all of that and then went on to do even more -- like using the CMS as a portal in which a custom application interfaced with their back-end systems through a reverse proxy to allow automated customer self-service.

It's great getting a chance to push boundaries. Using a CMS as a platform instead of just a publishing application means creating a more tightly integrated environment. Tight integrations means fewer people supporting more features and functionality, which drives down costs while providing a great looking return on investment. It means faster development time and the lower costs that go along with it. It means integrated management, fewer administrative interfaces, and a more empowered user-base. And it's easier to maintain because everything runs off of a standard environment. No more one-offs that runs by itself on its own server, lonely and forgotten.

It does mean you're going to need a CMS that can handle the workload -- one that's as much an environment as a set of content management features. There are more than a few out there, though you'll want to do your due diligence since they all have areas of expertise. Of course, we'll mention the one we're the most familiar with here: eZ Publish. And you'll probably need someone to help you put it together. But most importantly, you're going to need to think about your web presence and the technology that supports it in a whole new way. If you do, you'll reap the rewards.