Just a few years ago the market for packaged content management systems was negligible: the only real option for web managers was to build a content management system from scratch.
Things are different now. Estimates by IDC, the analyst group, suggest that the market for content and document management applications could be worth $4bn by 2004 in Europe alone. And with companies such as Microsoft now offering content management products, businesses can weigh the benefits of an off the shelf solution against in-house development.
The choice, however, is far from clear cut. As Greg Peters, chief executive of Vignette, the content management company, points out, the most potent competitor to his company is often the customer's in-house development team.
An in-house content management system retains some significant advantages over bought-in solutions. Cost is certainly an issue. A licence for a content management server application can cost more than $50,000, while an in-house system built using open source tools, running on an existing database, can cost significantly less.
"Building a bespoke content management system can be much more cost-effective," says Peter Ahearn, a management consultant with PA Consulting's IT division. "We have built content management solutions based on XML and SQL or Oracle databases. Even if you buy a packaged solution, there are installation costs: you have to configure the workflow and design templates, and transfer data to the new system."
Attraction
Public sector organisations in particular are attracted by the low licensing costs of an open source based content management system. Further savings come from running the system on existing databases and servers.
Bespoke solutions appeal too to smaller organisations, where the upfront cost of content management packages are out of proportion to the amount of time staff spend on web site maintenance. Complexity is also an issue, especially for staff who are not full-time web managers. "The other advantage of a bespoke system is that we can put in the exact functionality a client needs," says Mr Ahearn.
Against this, content management vendors argue that their systems offer greater functionality, and are better placed to cope with the demands of large organisations.
"Bespoke systems and open source software offer companies flexibility and freedom," says Hilda Tingle, a senior strategy consultant at Dimension Data, the IT systems company. However, she says bought in systems scale better: "For large organisations with thousands of users, a bespoke system will not always be the best option."
The vendors argue that bought-in systems benefit from continuous development, making it easier for users to add extra functionality. Last year, Vignette spent $63m on research and development, according to Mr Peters. "Our customers are buying into that as much as the product itself," he says. "In-house developers would not be able to keep pace with that."
The packaged software companies say too that an off-the-shelf solution should be quicker and cheaper to roll out. "An integrated solution such as ours should be 30 to 50 per cent quicker to deploy than building a similar system from component parts," says Mr Peters. "We have had sites where the system has paid for itself in a couple of months." As an example, he cites Diageo, the international drinks company, which developed five portal sites in six weeks.
Businesses that see their websites as a core part of their business do seem keener to pay an initial premium for functionality and development speed. "Content management has become mission critical," says Martin Braun, chief executive of Interwoven, the US content management software company. "People do say that their business is unique and that a packaged solution could not possibly meet their needs, but that is rarely true."
Mr Braun argues that over the lifetime of a content management system, a package could be the cheaper option. He points to savings from more efficient workflows that reduce the amount of time staff spend on maintaining the website, and from enabling non-technical staff in departments such as marketing or product development to carry out updates, without reference to IT managers.
Nor should web managers overlook the cost of maintaining an in-house content management system. Online stockbroker E-trade, an Interwoven client, had 20 people maintaining its in-house content management system; the packaged solution eliminated much of that work."
Lately, we have had CIOs who have had to cut staff when looking to cut projects. At this point they often decide it is time to look at CM packages," says Mr Braun. "After all, we have 250 engineers looking after our code."
At the same time, web managers are understandably cautious about relinquishing control over such a core part of their operations. Even for non-web companies, online content management is a far from trivial task. At house.co.uk, the home services website run by UK utility company Centrica, as much as 10 per cent of the site is changed every week. A core team of four editors maintains the site. As Mark Inskip, marketing manager for house.co.uk admits, maintaining the site would be much more difficult without dedicated content management tools.
House.co.uk has the advantage of being built from scratch, although Accenture, the systems integrator, had to link the site to Centrica's existing customer databases. The site is built around BroadVision for e-commerce and Interwoven's Teamsite for content management.
For Centrica, online content approval, an audit trail and the ability for non-specialists to review web pages as they would appear on the site are all benefits of the content management system. But then Centrica can spread the cost of its system across a range of intranet and web sites.
Unfortunately for companies with smaller web operations, packaged content management is probably still too complex and costly. Interwoven suggests that a site needs between 30,000 and 40,000 files to justify Teamsite; Vignette also conceded that small businesses are not its target market.
For smaller companies, the decision to buy a content management package now or to use in-house tools may well depend on their ambitions for their sites. If they are confident of growth, investment in a packaged solution could well be justified.
