Web content and experience management solutions already allow organizations to build and manage rich online experiences on the web across various digital channels and device platforms and will soon be offering much more.
Web Content Management (WCM) is used to create, to create, manage, store, and deploy web content. WCM is a subgenre of Content Management and is very similar to it in that it manage the lifecycle of information, with the collection, creation, revisions, and publishing of web content.
The great advantage of WCM solutions is that they enables non-technical users to create and manage content, all the while adhering to the technical standards and requirements. WCM can be used to manage a website internal to an organization (an intranet), external (an extranet), or publicly on the Internet.
THE WCM MARKET AND ITS CURRENT TRENDS
The Competitors
The latest Forrester WCM report (for the first quarter 2015) revealed that there are over one billion websites out there, and that every one of them is managed by a WCM system.
The market is sure large, but the competition is also fierce. Gartner and Forrester established each their own ranking of the best WCM providers.
As a matter of fact, Forrester’s own ranking was slightly different; excluding CrownPeak, Telerik, GX Software and Automattic, while including Ektron and EPiServer. However both reports gives the first places to Adobe, Sitecore, HP and Acquia.
Trend Analysis
Staying competitive requires to be aware of the customers’ needs and wants. Forrester and Gartner identify 5 trends that currently shape the WCM industry based on their analysis of the market:
- Customers are now looking at building a whole digital business around their website. The emphasize on digital experience and interoperability leads to the integration of other digital experience applications, such as online analytics, video distribution, CRM systems, digital asset management, marketing software suite, and so on.
- The appeal and extension to the Cloud, with recent SaaS (software as a service) offerings in addition to the original PaaS (Platform as a service) for some vendors.
- The rise of mobile strategy with mobile app support, even though a lack of native or hybrid mobile apps in the market is to be noted.
- The importance of system customization thanks to APIs, software development, and component ecosystem strategies. An analysis that resonates with the preference of customers – and marketers more particularly – for open source systems which are more flexible and customizable than prebuilt systems (as reported by Gartner)
- The increasing demand for smaller vendors, which gain momentum thanks to the novelty of their code and their potential of innovation. That being said, the demand for large vendors perceived as reliable and as offering fast time to market, remains strong
WHERE IS IT HEADING TO: WHEN WCM MEETS ECM
Hippo and EMC partnership marks the beginning of the alliance between WCM and ECM. An integration of the sort is set to deliver the best of both worlds: online business processes will be further streamlined into one cohesive and agile ecosystem, as customers benefit from surfacing structured content through managed sites on any channel.
The Benefits
- Easier integration of the business applications into the web, based on ECM technology
- Improved content efficiency, through data driven content optimization and delivery that makes content a business driver
- Improved editorial speed across channels that seamlessly integrates ECM content and publishes it to the web
- Consistency of workflow which enables users to run content through a secure validation workflow, maintain versions, and serve approved content to external audiences
- Ease of use with the freedom to integrate external data sources to deliver personalized and multichannel web experiences
- Option to run the WCM system in the cloud or in a hybrid solution, according to the ECM system environment
In the end, this collaboration is ultimately striving for a revolutionary Web Experience Management system: the creation of a customized, multichannel web experience that would deliver personalized content focused on the users and built on a large range of setting such as location, interest, browsing and social behaviours.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”70px”][vc_column_text]
