A common question that business managers and IT leaders face is how much to standardize when it come to vendors and product functions. The idea behind standardizing on one vendor for all a companies content management needs is that it will create efficiencies because IT only has to deal with one vendor and business units are all using the same interface so training and support can be the same for the entire organization. The argument is compelling on the surface and has obviously been encouraged by the handful of large vendors that can supply a broad “one size fits all” solution.
Content Management in practice
In practice the idea of standardizing on a “one size fits all” solution has not worked out exactly as described. There are many instances where a one size fits all solution does not solve a given business problem. Content needs comes in all different shapes and sizes and solutions that are designed to meet a wide variety of needs are by definition not going to be the best for every specific need.
Content Management is not like other IT functions
One of the things that have driven the interest in large “one size fits all” solutions is the fact that centralizing other IT functions has proven to be effective. This is the thinking behind big ERP systems. Data warehouses have also proven their worth. But content management is actually not the same as these other IT areas. Content management is fundamentality about communications more that is about number crunching or transactions. So consolidating content management functionality makes it difficult to meet the needs of individual groups with special interface, collaboration and deployment needs.
Emerging technologies to support diverse content management solutions
Organizations are starting to recognize these issues and gradually the pendulum is swinging back towards providing targeted solutions for targeted needs. This doesn’t mean though that companies will put up with having too many application silos. What is required in the future is a distributed architecture where diverse, targeted solution can share information or can be accessed by a common dashboard. Emerging technologies such as RSS and tagging are also gaining acceptance in corporate environments and make it much easier to create a distributed content management environment in which specialized, best of breed solution work together to provide a platform that meets the unique needs of teams, departments or an entire organization. Best of breed solutions connected together with new technologies like RSS can provide a unified view of the content and communications that are the lifeblood of the modern corporation.
