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Tony Byrne

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Is there a best CMS tool for your industry?

3-Jul-2009

Tags: Document Management (ECM), Web Content Management, Marketplace at Large, Selecting Technology, Higher Ed, Manufacturing

I frequently receive questions like this: "We're a major regional hospital, what's the best CMS for us?" Or, "What would you recommend for a mid-sized manufacturing firm?" Or, "What's the right WCM package for a consumer goods company?" Or, "What's getting traction among not-for-profit organizations?" And so on.

First, let's dispense with the idea that there is such a thing as a universally "best" or "leading" CMS. Instead, different vendor offerings "fit" better or worse against individual business scenarios. And of course your budget, architecture, and locale matter too.

So, let's consider the following specific case: you're the Intranet manager for a car parts manufacturer. You're looking to implement a Web CMS for your Intranet, and you've narrowed the choice down two vendors, both with local offices and competent consulting partners, both bidding approximately the same price. Do you prefer Vendor A, whose CMS has gotten implemented several automotive companies? Or Vendor B, who knows little about car parts but whose CMS offering was built primarily for Intranet environments?

For web content management I don't believe your industry matters very much. If it did, there would not be 30+ individual Web CMS vendors and open source projects with installations in the U.S. federal government space, and nearly that many among U.K. public-sector agencies. You'll find a similar breadth of WCM suppliers active within other verticals, like higher education, health care, and financial services.

Note that the situation is completely different in the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) marketplace. By ECM I'm referring to imaging + document management + records management. Document-oriented technologies are very process-oriented, so requirements can become very industry-specific. Consider the example of Autonomy (formerly Interwoven) Worksite, a product purpose-built for the legal profession. Moreover, resellers will frequently take a broad ECM platform and re-wire it for a particular industry. Consequently, in our ECM vendor evaluations -- in addition to functional and business scenarios -- we focus on the vendor's "fit" for twelve different industries ranging from Insurance to Pharmaceuticals.

Many Web CMS vendors will disagree, pointing to their industry-specific "solutions." Usually this entails turning off or on various modules, and serving the result up as a single license package. In my experience, when a vendor claims strong industry expertise, it is usually because they have honed their marketing and sales approach to succeed in that space, rather than offering very much that's functionally germane. Vendors who target your industry may know how to speak your vernacular, but that won't count for much after the vendors' account rep and sales engineers leave, and you go into development on what will become (I hope!) a 5+ year investment.

To be sure, I believe it's helpful to consult with your industry peers when selecting any technology. Joining a community of like-minded customers also has value. However, this gets out of hand when, as one U.S. university explained to me, they selected an obscure CMS package simply because they saw that an ivy league school had implemented it.

Selecting the right CMS tool for your enterprise means balancing a variety of different requirements, but a bare minimum, be sure you understand:

• What sorts of websites you intend to publish
• Your visitors' needs
• Your operational profile and goals

So, all else equal, if I were that Intranet manager, I'd give the edge to Vendor B. Of course, the best way to know for sure is to test both bidders head to head before signing any contracts.

In any case, I hope our WCM research can help you find the right fit. Good luck with your projects!