Content Management Software

Information drives organizations. As doing business becomes increasingly complex, companies generate large volumes of data that have to be managed, preferably in an effective and cost-efficient manner. Additionally, many companies are trying to go paperless and, as a result, are accumulating more and more digital content in an array of formats.

Many organizations are struggling to properly manage their content. In order to succeed, companies have to ensure that mission-critical information is up-to-date and stored in an affordable and reliable manner. Content must be organized logically for easy retrieval, made available to stakeholders across the enterprise, and completely protected against unauthorized access.

What Is a Content Management System?
A CMS is a powerful solution that combines technologies and processes to support digital information throughout the content lifecycle. It supports a range of content forms, such as electronic documents, video, audio, and other multimedia files.

With CMS, workflows related to sharing, file creation, and management are streamlined and automated. Digital content, even files in non-proprietary forms, can be archived and stored in a central repository. CMS also ensures that information is readily available to users, both inside and outside the organization, via an internal network or the Internet.

Key Benefits for Your Company
A CMS benefits companies that are facing the challenge of keeping up in the information age and that are seeking a better way to administer and manage digital files. Some of the key benefits include:

• Improved content consistency, accuracy, and timeliness through efficient updates and changes to content.
• Enhanced collaboration by ensuring that content is more accessible and easy to share.
• Reduced overhead by eliminating paper waste, which also helps companies go green by storing all documents digitally.
• Increased efficiency through better content re-usability.

Studies by Deloitte Consulting show that a CMS can cut costs by as much as 50 percent by minimizing the time needed to design, author, and publish online and printed documents.

A well-structured CMS strategy is vital to any business that is struggling to organize documents needed for the execution of business transactions. A CMS better enables digital information administration and offers a wide range of features to assist companies in better managing various types of content. Some of the primary functionality in the most widely-used CMS software includes:

Central Repository
A fully-centralized repository enables authorized users, both inside and outside a company, to easily find and retrieve the organization’s digital content. While many are network-based, the majority of CMS solutions also provide web-based access, increasing ease of use and convenience.

Workflow Automation
Content management systems allow companies to create a consistent workflow throughout the organization. Automated workflows cover creating content, approvals and reviews, editing, and required updates. Automating the approval process also helps companies adhere to established guidelines while improving productivity.

Rapid Content Import
By the time a business purchases and implements their content management system, they’ve already generated a great deal of digital content. That’s why content management solutions provide the tools to import existing files and unstructured digital information into the new system.

Dynamic Tracking and Alerts
Using content management systems, administrators can monitor all content activity, like file access and which users are retrieving content. This allows administrators to see how people utilize the information in the system, which in turn enables them to develop a more effective content plan and detect unauthorized activities.

Additionally, most content management systems deliver dynamic alert capabilities that will instantly notify key users when certain actions occur, such as adding, changing, or deleting files.

Version Control
As users store and update outdated files, many companies are plagued with an inability to manage numerous versions of one document. Content management systems offer comprehensive version control so that users can view all iterations of each file and identify the most current one. Version control also permits companies to revert back to previous versions if necessary.

Automatic Distribution
Many content management solutions allow rapid information sharing in order to increase efficiency by sending new or updated files to a pre-specified group of users.

Security
Protecting confidential information is a large component of any organization’s content management strategy. Most solutions offer multiple levels of security to lock out unauthorized access. Role-based protection is important in a content management system so that access to files and system functions is granted based on a user’s position within the company.

Security
A major portion of corporate information is extremely sensitive and confidential. It is very important that companies select a content management system that has numerous levels of security as well as role-based permissions. This will permit only specified users to access certain documents.

Enterprise Search
Combining the capability to search external websites with easily locating and retrieving corporate content can significantly increase the effectiveness of research and other functions. That’s why content management vendors are including enterprise search capabilities into their software, making repository files easily accessible via major search engines.

Integration
In order to maximize the value of content management software, it has to be seamlessly linked to other content-related systems throughout an organization. For instance, any graphic design or web publishing software should be integrated with your CMS so that the files generated and updated by these tools are included in the repository.