3 Points to Consider When Developing a CMS for an Enterprise Project

‘Enterprise’ is one of those business buzzwords that seems to be everywhere right now. What does it even mean? Well, to be honest, we don’t know what other people mean when they use that term. But here at Quba, when we talk about enterprise-level projects and solutions, we mean web projects that have big integration needs.

In other words, organisations—usually big ones or ones experiencing rapid growth—that need a CMS that is going to help many, or even all, of their business departments and systems work together. And usually they want something that’s going to grow with them in the future.

If that’s you, then here are Quba’s three most important considerations when starting on your journey developing a CMS for an enterprise project.

Know your position and trajectory

Understanding where you are in your enterprise journey before you start shopping around is pretty important. Your business has perhaps recently reached the point of outgrowing a static website. Or maybe you have been an enterprise player for a long time, but your CMS is ready for an overhaul because over the years new systems have come into play and the integrations aren’t as smooth as they once were. Both types of companies may need to look beyond the platform to which they’ve grown accustomed in order to find the right solution for their future. 

The reason has to do with ambitions for tomorrow. Once you understand where you are, you can have a look at what sort of growth your company is experiencing. Slow and steady organic growth or fast and furious start-up explosion? What’s been happening will inform what to expect in both the immediate and long-term future in terms of your finances, of course. But also in terms of incoming web traffic, geographical business locations, and other growth implications that may affect your need for significant CMS scalability. If you have plans to open 25 new locations in the next year or you’re expecting millions in new website visitors, you need to think about how your chosen CMS platform will be able to handle that.

Think inside the box

The fact is many top level CMS platforms have an unbelievable scope for customisation. If you want something made to order just for your business, it’s almost always possible. Possible. But it’s always at a cost.

It’s always a good idea to look carefully at what you’re getting straight off the shelf with your CMS. We recommend that at least 70% of your business function needs should be met by the capabilities already built into it. What that means is that if you find yourself casting around and feeling as though there aren’t any solutions out there that offer that, you may need to rethink your workflow for efficiency.

It also means that customisation requests should be very carefully considered. Each one should go through a robust process to determine their necessity, real cost, and return on investment before they’re put into play with your digital agency. That said, every single enterprise CMS build is going to have some customisation in order to ensure that it works for your specific organisational pattern. 

Plan for the costs of implementation

Getting the budget and time frame right is most of the battle of project management. And when it comes to building a CMS for an enterprise project, there are lots of pieces to that puzzle that can go missing or change shape. Starting the project with a clear view of how the decisions will get made, who will be involved, and what exactly it is you’re hoping to achieve with the CMS solution once it’s developed is key to a successful implementation.

Additionally, keeping an eye on the ongoing development costs is an important component to budgeting for this kind of project. Enterprise CMS is the opposite of a static website. Once it’s implemented, it’s dynamic just like your business. A good support team will be there to respond to changes in your organisation’s needs and to lend a hand to make it perform the way you want it to well into the future.

There are a thousand tiny decisions that need to be made to get a CMS up and running for your enterprise project. But for our money, if you’ve got these three things in hand, you’ll be just fine!

If you want to learn more about how CMS for enterprise projects can work for your business, contact Technical Director - Ben Franklin.

0114 279 7779 | bfranklin@quba.co.uk