Information runs today’s modern economy. Businesses rely on huge amounts of information to conduct business, increase sales, target advertising campaigns, and analyze buying trends. Fortunately with the onset of technological innovation, this information can be maintained digitally because if one of today’s Fortune 500 companies had to keep its information in printed form it would take several multistoried buildings to store it.
Most of today’s successful companies have both external and internal presences on the internet and these require huge quantities of regularly updated information. A web content management system is a good way for companies to management these quantities of information. These content management systems have programs and equipment that help manage all this information.
CMS intranet systems use electronic systems to organize data so that it can be retrieved, searched, updated, and shared throughout an organization. Using database technology, CMS employs sophisticated search technology to help retrieve filed information quickly and efficiently. The CMS must employ a high level of document interoperability. All documents including spreadsheets, databases, wordpressing files, .PDF files, and all other types of files must all be cross-referenced and categorized, so that when any search is conducted all information that is relevant becomes available.
Additionally, intranet CMS interoperability also provides multiple organizations and many government agencies the ability to share information when necessary even when using different systems.
Intranet CMS can truly improve information sharing and because of this companies should set policies in place to ensure controls are established to secure the company’s information. Procedures should be established naming intranet CMS account administrators and account authorization access procedures. A secure facility should be established and the administrator should determine who should have be able to gain access to which content and how. Access rights to documents should be set down to the individual user level.
Other aspects of a good content management system include the ability to capture and store large volumes of documents, the ability to create a workflow that demonstrates how one documents links to another, and the ability to reuse documents and reassemble them into new documents.
Many content management systems contain collaborative features allowing multiple workers who are located in separate places to work on the same document or to collaborate in creating or editing documents and managing changing or revisions. A CMS collaborative feature will allow all changes and edits to a document from a team to be synchronized and then distributed to all team members for review.
When a company is considering purchasing a content management system, here are some things to consider:
• Do some research. To find a quality content management system, do some research. Talk with other companies who already use content management systems and get their opinions. Talk with the administrators of these systems and get their recommendations. Try and use a CMS before making a decision and certainly before purchasing a system.
• How easily accessible is the information stored in the content management system. The CMS should store and display the information in such a way that everyone can see it and understand it and it can be easily and quickly retrieved. This must be true for everyone in the organization, even if they are not technically handy.
Many organizations allow their IT departments to choose their content management systems without input from the users and the CMS ends up being too high-tech and too complicated for their employees and customers to use.
• There are content management systems which are so big information can actually get lost in the system. Companies should purchase a CMS that is sized to handle their information needs so that the information is managed, but doesn’t get lost.
Designing a perfect intranet for your company, the type of content management system you use is the single most important factor you will need to consider. The content management system is the set of technologies which will facilitate the management, processing, and collecting of digital information across a variety of mediums.
A quality CMS will allow your company to collect all relevant information from multiple sources, share it among your employees no matter where they are located anywhere in the world, organize this information, store it, present it to your customers, and even allow your customers to access it for their benefit and use.
The type of content management system a company uses can make or break a company so this is not a purchase decision to make lightly. Some companies take months of research, testing, and analysis before making a final decision on which content management system to purchase. The best content management system for your company is the one that meets your company’s needs, not necessarily the most expensive or the largest or the one with the fanciest features.
One thing to remember is that normal people will be using this content management system. True, they will probably have some basic computer knowledge, but they most likely will not be super technical and will not have the time to learn a very complicated new system. Your employees and customers will be much more comfortable will a content management system that is easy to understand and to operate. A good question to ask yourself is, “Could my Mother or My Grandmother operate this system?” Your Mom is probably a typical business computer type user capable of doing spreadsheets, email and word processing. If you can explain the content management system to your Mom, then you can probably teach it to your employees and your customers without too much trouble.
It would also be good for your new content management system to have a WYSIWYG editor because this just makes life easier for everyone. Most of your employees and your customers will not know HTML and really are not going to want to learn. A WYSIWYG editor is very easy to learn and is pretty intuitive for even the most non-technical user.
The system should load pages quickly without dragging. There is nothing as frustrating as having to wait and wait while a content management system churns and churns to load a document. Processing time is very important and that is why it is recommended that you test any content management system you are contemplating purchasing to see if it will meet your requirements.
Using an intranet CMS to manage and facilitate your company’s document management and processing is a good idea, especially if your information processing is of large quantity. Just ensure that your CMS is adequate to meet your needs, but not so large your information gets lost within the system.