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The Evolution of WCM: From Usability to Mobility [EContent]
[April 07, 2014]

The Evolution of WCM: From Usability to Mobility [EContent]


(EContent Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) The overarching trajectory in the evolution of web content management (WCM) that emerged in 2013 largely reflected the trends that have been defining nearly every other comer of the technology sector in the last several years.The equalizing principle of ease of use for nonexpert users, a drive toward mobile functionality, a preference for a solution that integrates well with other systems, and a strong inclination toward user-driven or social content creation-these tenets are now the new normal for the creation, management, and distribution of enterprise content, particularly webbased content, and they drive expectations of technological functionality for both internal and external stakeholders in any enterprise.



Where WCM is concerned, mobility, usability, integration, and social functionality are now among the most influential criteria that organizations are using in selecting a WCM vendor, and they are among the key elements that come into play in crafting an internal WCM strategy. These factors, which as recently as a year or two ago were still considered fledgling, next-generation components of a web marketing strategy, are now deeply ingrained principles that everyone in the business life cyclefrom executives to customers-has come to expect from a web commerce experience.

MOBILITY "Consumers of web content demand access to content anytime, anywhere, which means that organizations must be able to deliver content in the appropriate format for the device it is being delivered to," says Sue Clarke, senior analyst at Ovum.


In Gartner, Inc.'s comprehensive analysis of a dozen or so WCM vendors in its 2013 "Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management" report in July, it gave Adobe and its Adobe CQ product the highest combined marks on the axes of "Completeness of Vision" and "Ability to Execute." Chief among Gartner's praises for Adobe CQ was its mobile capabilities.

"Adobe has the most complete and cohesive strategy of all the WCM providers for supporting mobility," the report states. "CQ's architecture ensures the integrity of a single authoritative content source to serve a broad range of established and new mobile delivery mechanisms and technologies, including device detection, mobile sites, mobile Web applications and hybrid mobile applications." Ovum's Clarke points in particular to the dynamic rendering of content for mobile devices that is no longer just a hoped for feature, but an expectation on the part of most WCM clients.

"WCM systems must be able to render content on-the-fly to a wide range of mobile devices.They should be able to recognize the device type and render the content appropriately using the features of the device," Clarke says. "For example, on touchscreen devices, buttons should be positioned far enough apart so that a user does not accidently select the wrong button, and if the device is a phone, then a box ... containing a phone number could be a button, which when selected automatically calls the number." Clarke also points to geolocation as another emergent standard in mobile commerce. WCM solutions should enable "organizations to target content to website visitors according to their location and ... embed maps and other local-based content on the page," she says.

Irina Guseva, senior analyst at Real Story Group, makes the point that most WCM users are now much more comprehensively up-to-speed on the processes and tools that make for good mobile experiences. In her view, it's the vendors that now need to catch up.

"Mobile remained on the forefront," Guseva says, "but compared to previous years, organizations are more educated and experienced when it comes to developing and managing mobile apps, mobile web, and hybrid apps. They realize that WCM tools are rarely the best tool for these types of activities-with the exception of mobile web, perhaps-and are seeking best-of-breed mobile platforms to integrate their CMSs with. Not many vendors focus on the fact that HTML5 friendliness is not driven by their tools, but by the code that is put into those systems." USABILITY Will Morgenweck, VP of project management at DNN, which offers a framework for building websites and web apps on MicrosoftASP.NET, sees the shift of ownership in WCM from the IT department to the marketing department as one of the most powerful forces driving the development ofWCM solutions.

The marketing professionals at an organization bridge the gap between customers and the organization via all channels. As the generators of content, message, and strategy, marketers crave as much control as possible over the technological levers that bring that content to the weband they are increasingly expecting the tools they use to be intuitive and simple.

"Marketing departments have long wanted more complete ownership over the process," Morgenweck says. "Certain responsibilities that were once managed by IT are now being taken on eagerly by the marketing content owners themselves." "As a result," he continues, "WCM systems have had to adapt to become more user-friendly. Simple website creation services such as Squarespace and Wix have created the expectation that a user interface for managing web content can be extremely clean and easy to use. Marketing professionals are starting to wonder why their own WCM solutions-while admittedly more complex-can't emulate those same principles. Not a lot of enterprise systems are there yet." Real Story Group's Guseva concurs. "While I am not saying that content management systems should become as easy to use as Notepad," she says, "I think the industry has a long way to go to improve user friendliness of the available products. Every client I work with wants a system that is 'easy to use,' but rarely do we find something that appeals to various roles in any given organization." Usability is also a concern on the front end of a WCM solution. How easy does it allow your user experience to be? How easily does it predict what your customers would like to see and do? Customer experience management (CXM) is another factor that is emerging as a fundamental of future WCM decision making.

"The vendors have been working on improving their CXM stories," says Guseva, "by either developing related functions internally or partnering with and acquiring third parties. Some vendors are way ahead of their customer bases in terms of chasing CXM, as not many organizations are ready yet for predictive analytics, super intelligent personalization, and so on." INTEGRATION Very much connected to but in some ways at odds with usability is a WCM solution's ability to seamlessly and thoroughly integrate into all of the pertinent systems and processes that make up a company's workflow.

"Complexity of the CMS world only continues to rise," says Real Story Group's Guseva, "as there is more and more need for integrations with other systems and for customizations due to specific scenarios in each organization. Stronger focus on APIs, standards, and other means of interoperability is something more and more vendors will be facing in terms of development of their WCM products." DNN's Morgenweck points to integration as another priority of the marketing department and other non-IT users of a WCM solution. And he notes that there are varying degrees of complexity to integrations. While a Google Analytics integration, for instance, is usually within the capabilities of most systems, an integration with something such as the marketing automation software Marketo poses more substantial challenges.

"When evaluating a WCM solution, marketers will be thinking along the lines of, 'How will this work with the tools we're already using?' such as Salesforce. They'll look at the responsiveness of the tools to make those connections, and if the system can't integrate, they'll look for something else." SOCIAL FUNCTIONALITY In Gartner's Magic Quadrant assessment of the WCM landscape, Massachusetts-based Acquia was one vendor that got high marks in one of the toughest nuts to crack when it comes to WCM functionality.

The report states that Acquia, which supports the Drupal open source content management system, is uniquely positioned on the social spectrum with its social software offering, Acquia Commons, to go along with its WCM.

"Many enterprises are struggling to conceive and implement a social media strategy," the Gartner report states, "but Acquia can claim successes based on a social culture indigenous to both its community and its social offering, enabling it to provide unique guidance in this regard." Social media strategy has emerged as a virtual necessity in many business sectors. Ovum's Clarke assesses that most WCM vendors are at least meeting the basic needs of this basic functionality.

"Enlightened organizations now have highly developed and sophisticated social media strategies that involve sales, marketing, and customer service initiatives," Clarke says. "These include advertising and engaging in conversations around a brand, including answering questions and monitoring and analyzing references to a brand.

"Most vendors providing ECM technologies," she continues, "particularly those in the WCM space, include support for social content. At the very minimum, WCM systems integrate with social media sites, allowing users to log in to a website using their social media credentials." The future of WCM from a social standpoint, however, goes far beyond merely providing a website login via Facebook credentials. "More advanced WCM systems combine analytics and social media, allowing social media content to be created and analyzed within the WCM system," Clarke says. "Therefore, all WCM vendors must be able to support these capabilities, but not all of them do as of yet. As organizations increasingly rely on social media, those vendors that do not support these capabilities will lose market share." The complexities of developing and implementing a social media strategy are great, of course. One of the greatest hurdles is finding a tool that can harness all of the information that is written about an enterprise's brand throughout the social media landscape. Analyzing social sites is a step above and beyond old-fashioned web analytics, but it's where WCM tools will need to head to match the expectations of customers.

"Not all products currently have the ability to monitor social sites for brand mentions, which is something that all products will need if they are to compete in the age of social media," Clarke says. "This brings in another aspect: analytics. Most products can analyze website traffic and individual visits in order to personalize content and segment visitors, but only a few currently monitor social sites. All WCM vendors need to ensure that their products are able to monitor social sites." THE CHALLENGES AHEAD Most analysts and operators in the WCM space agree that the next year or two in the development of the technology will largely be focused on the trajectories that have been in motion for the past several years. The bar for usability will rise steadily higher, the expectations for social functionality and integration will become greater, and the need to master mobile will track along with the migration of society at large from desks and cords to phones and tablets-and whatever may come next.

"The two biggest challenges faced by WCM vendors over the next few years will be ensuring that their products keep up with the demands made by organizations for mobile and social capabilities," says Ovum's Clarke. "This means ensuring that all mobile formats are supported with the ability to take advantage of native features of the devices, such as touchscreens and future enhancements, and in social ensuring that they are able to fully exploit social capabilities." There is certainly no shortage of WCM vendors in the marketplace. Gartner's Magic Quadrant mapped just 17 but listed dozens more viable alternatives. From a trusty stalwart such as Adobe to the scrappy niche players such as e-Spirit and Squiz, the ground beneath the feet of WCM vendors seems mostly to be shifting in the same direction. DDN's Will Morgenweck's assessment that the tool has to first and foremost fit the needs of the content creators is the reigning paradigm for most potential WCM customers, and any vendor will need to keep it in mind in order to stay afloat.

While the landscape of vendors may be vast, there is enough variety among all of the potential WCM solutions on the market that there will be a solution that fits your enterprise's particular needs. By prioritizing your organization's individual emphasis on the various metrics in WCM technology-usability, mobile functionality, integrative capabilities, and social functionality-the landscape of vendors will become a bit more navigable. K3 'WCM systems must be able to render content on-the-fly to a wide range of mobile devices.5 'When evaluating a WCM solution, marketers will be thinking along the lines of, "How will this work with the tools we're already using?"' 'Enlightened organizations now have highly developed and sophisticated social media strategies. ...' MICHAEL J. LOPRESTI (MICHAELLOPRESTl@ GMAILCOM) WAS THE ASSISTANT EDITOR OF ITl'S ENTERPRISE GROUP FROM 2006 TO 2008. HE CURRENTLY UVES IN SAN FRANCISCO, WHERE HE WDRKS IN THE COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT OF A NONPROFIT ARTS ORGANIZATION. HE IS AN OCCASIONAL FREELANCE WRiïER.

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