Choosing a CMS that matches your business needs is a monumentally important moment in the execution of a digital strategy. CMS development not only has to suit current business requirements, but also have the capacity to adapt to the growth of your business.

With the huge range of CMS development options available it’s critical to be given agnostic guidance – that is, not just given options based on the commercial connections of your provider. The following key questions are critical to getting CMS development right.

  1. Ask yourself why you need a CMS. Is it a question of wanting immediate control over content, rather than going through a provider? Are there risks for your business if content isn’t up-to-the-minute? Are there substantial costs involved if your content isn’t managed correctly? Do you require complex functionality to be custom built?
  2. Define the content to be managed. Is it copy only? Do you use enhanced content such as video? Do you need to store, manipulate and display complex sets of data in a variety of ways? Does it need to be presented in multiple languages? Are there specialist requirements in handling this content?
  3. Define your current workflow and content approval process. Is your content sourced internally or externally? Or both? What are the related processes for generating content? What are the milestones for content development? Who needs to sign-off on content before it is published?
  4. Understand your technical capability to operate a CMS. Do you need to address a staff shortfall? Or will training for existing staff be sufficient?
  5. Think about the future and what might be in store. Are you happy with your current IT supplier arrangements, or is there a possibility that you will want to move your current digital assets to a new provider?
  6. Assess your physical capacity to run a CMS. Do you need to purchase new hardware to suit your CMS development?

These are the basics of a CMS development conversation, and need to be thoroughly explored to ensure the correct CMS is chosen for your business.

Dean Mehmet