In a recent advisory call, a Real Story Group client posed her incumbent Web CMS replacement dilemma in a slightly unconventional way: “Do you think I should settle for Mr. Right Now, or should I wait for Mr. Right?” she asked me.

The reasoning behind her dilemma is quite common in modern enterprises. You need to replace a technology that's no longer serving your needs – be it a CMS, Marketing Automation, DAM or ECM system – and you’re debating which route to take. You want to make the right choice, but you feel pressed to make it.

Mr. Right Now – as in interim technology for temporary deployment – could keep her web content and experience management (WCXM) activities afloat, as well as executives’ interest vested, while she decides what to do next. Finding Mr. Right would entail a proper, full-blown WCM system selection requiring time, resources, money, and likely no near-term ROI.

The usual disclosure applies: it all depends on your particular goals and circumstances as you’re making this decision. Mr. Right Now promises an easier and more readily attainable choice. Often cheaper, but more limited in features and functions, he can probably fill immediate gaps, inject some instant gratification, and help you get out of the contract with your previous fling, without too much pain and suffering.

However, all the courting, grooming, training, fine-tuning, migration of previous relationship’s baggage into the new relationship guarantees no contentment or stability. All you invest in Mr. Right Now will most likely evaporate as quickly as the densest fog over the Golden Gate Bridge on a good day.

Mr. Right, on the other hand, is a gem harder to find. It takes more time. You have to really investigate several options, sift through candidates. Do your research and homework, discard the losers. Go from a shortlist of possibilities to the one and only through vis-à-vis demonstrations, hands-on testing and close inspection, trial and error, eliminating the weak, taking it one step at a time with small pilot projects and soft launches. It takes more time and it’s harder to justify to your larger family of colleagues whether it's all really worth it.

From my experience in many-many technology selection projects, I must admit there may be a time, a place and an opportunity for Mr. Right Now. If you’re lucky, you may even find some temporary butterflies-in-stomach satisfaction and jolts of joy. It’s the immediacy appeal; the tantalizing, siren-like call of instant gratification. But the joy is almost always short-lived. And meanwhile, leaving Mr. Right Now becomes just as hard as leaving your current Mr. Wrong.

When you approach your technology selection projects from a perspective of long-term investment, serious thinking around pros and cons, greater possibility for expansion and mutual growth, a more calculated projection of possible ROI, involvement of independent evaluators and advisors – then you’re looking at Mr. Right.

What is your next Web CMS going to be?