8 Things to Look For in an Enterprise CMS

Content and digital experiences are the driving forces behind several successful brands today. And the role of the content management system now extends far beyond simply managing content on a website.

Legacy systems and traditional CMS platforms typically put modern enterprise brands at a disadvantage. You also need to assess whether you only need a CMS or if you should be considering a digital experience platform (DXP) instead. These tools have evolved from the previous CMS and should be evaluated by any enterprise business looking to migrate.

As a member of your company’s leadership, regular assessments of your software tools are essential to understand whether your organization is still heading in the right direction or potentially falling behind due to a lack of up-to-date technology.

In this article, we’ll explain some things you should consider when evaluating your next enterprise CMS.

What Is an Enterprise CMS?

An enterprise CMS or enterprise-grade CMS is a content management system equipped with the tools, features, and capabilities that large enterprises require in order to create, distribute, and measure content and digital experiences at scale.

Enterprise CMSs enable global companies to deliver content experiences across different channels and ensure consistency across multiple brands. They also allow them to successfully manage multilingual and multicultural campaigns and create content hubs for various assets.

An enterprise CMS also provides entire departments with the tooling they need to accomplish numerous content-related tasks. It enables your sales and marketing by creating a dialogue with your customers, reaching them, engaging them, and propelling your business. It also assists with internal processes, including editing, workflows, and governance.

Developers can build digital solutions from websites and mobile applications to intranets and more. Meanwhile, marketers are given the capabilities to create and manage those experiences.

Moving Towards a Digital Experience Platform

While CMSs have proven valuable over the years, every brand should be considering building digital experience platforms to help them manage and orchestrate digital experiences.

The emergence of DXPs has come about because companies want more effective ways to reach and interact with customers, learn about what they are doing, and ultimately sell their products or services more effectively. This requires more than just content but the integration of personalization, search, analytics and other capabilities to manage the entire digital customer journey.

Whether you build a composable DXP using various SaaS products from one vendor or multiple vendors, if content marketing is a key component of your marketing strategy then the CMS remains the central piece.

Read More: Is Composable DXP Just Sales Jargon?

8 Features to Look for in an Enterprise CMS

With a number of different vendors all battling for your attention, selecting the right CMS for your business isn’t always the most straightforward task.

On the surface, many CMS platforms will appear similar. Plus, in the enterprise CMS world, this issue takes on a new dimension as it requires everything a standard CMS needs

1. User-friendly Content Editor

   Marketers and content authors need a robust content editor to create digital experiences. Platforms that support drag-and-drop editing with WYSIWYG tools are exactly what non-technical users need to create and edit content experiences on different channels. Everyone should be able to use the CMS as required, easily update content, create new experiences, and launch campaigns.

2. Search Capabilities

   An enterprise CMS needs to be capable of wading through your company’s wealth of information. A robust search engine lets global companies quickly search through assets and create digital experiences faster. Look for advanced search capabilities and functionalities such as search filters and facets. These search capabilities can also be applied to websites and other content applications, allowing customers to find the information they’re looking for quickly and easily.

3. Headless Architecture and Omnichannel Content Delivery

   A headless or API-based CMS~ separates the frontend presentation layer from the backend content management layer, providing enterprises the flexibility to build unique digital experiences on multiple channels. It also gives developers the freedom to use the tools and frameworks they prefer for each use case rather than constraining them to a templated design.

   
   

   It also enables omnichannel content delivery, better-integrated marketing campaigns, and seamless customer journeys that allow customers to toggle from one device to another without losing brand consistency.

4. Localization Capabilities

   An enterprise-grade CMS should support content localization to provide the best experience no matter where customers are located.

   
   

   Global brands must be able to simultaneously deliver content and experiences in more than one language and to many different devices. Therefore, an enterprise CMS needs to simplify the creation of multilingual content and assets and have rules and tags in place to deliver a localized experience to customers in different regions and countries.

5. Content Type Sophistication

   Enterprise websites with size and complexity will require several content types, many related closely to each other. Having content types that can “share” or “inherit” attributes or fields is an essential way to minimize the maintenance requirements of a large website. The proliferation of content types to support obscure requirements makes a system more difficult to evolve over time.

   
   

   Only CMSs that have evolved over a longer period to fulfill multiple use cases have incorporated this vital functionality into their core content management capabilities. The presence of various field types focused on a single essential task, such as Single and Multi Line Text, Rich Text, Image Link, Multi-Lists, Tree Lists, and even custom field types for more specific tasks, like connecting content to outside systems gives enterprises the flexibility to manage their content in the most efficient way, driving down long-term maintenance costs.

6. Enterprise-grade Security

   Enterprise security needs to be stringent to ensure that no data breaches occur. An enterprise-grade content management platform needs to demonstrate that commitment to safety by providing the tools to review and scan all its code for vulnerabilities, keeping up with the latest security concerns and tools, as well as addressing every potential issue proactively rather than reactively.

   
   

   System administrators should be able to perform checks, view application statuses, and understand performance bottlenecks to avoid compliance and security issues. Plus, the CMS should be compliant with GDPR, CCPA, and other regulatory requirements, as well as certifications such as ISO 27001, SOC2, and others.

7. Extensibility and Integrations

   An enterprise CMS is a key component of the software stack, but it isn’t the only system that will be required to manage the digital experience. The ideal platform should offer extensibility via APIs, allowing you to connect other tools and pull data from them to help improve the digital experience.

   
   

   Platforms that offer headless architecture can meet this requirement, enabling brands to integrate with existing systems as well as new ones to perform other duties such as marketing automation, eCommerce, customer relationship management, and more. Some platforms also offer marketplaces filled with compatible integrations with leading vendors across a number of categories.

   
   

   There is no one-size-fits-all solution for every business. As a result, an enterprise CMS should enable customization so that companies can select the tools that fit their needs the most, effectively “composing” their digital experience architecture.

8. Available Support

   An enterprise CMS without a solid support package won’t enable you to scale. Enterprise CMSs are complex, with several moving parts. When choosing an enterprise-grade CMS, support is everything. 24/7 support and a dedicated customer success leader are the markings of a solid enterprise platform.

Oshyn: Enterprise CMS Selection, Implementation, and Maintenance Specialists

After you’ve selected a CMS, then comes the time to implement it. You’ll need to build a to-do list and implementation schedule, as well as properly train your employees on how to use the new platform.

Like any software implementation, an enterprise CMS implementation can be a long and potentially cost-intensive process, depending on your current situation. However, that doesn’t mean it has to be complicated.

Oshyn is a Sitecore, Adobe and Optimizely partner and can help you at every step, from selection to implementation of the selected CMS. We’re also experienced with several other leading enterprise platforms and can offer CMS-agnostic support to ensure that you get the best advice for your enterprise based on your specific needs and requirements.

Learn more about how to choose a CMS or DXP in our ebook: Choosing A CMS: How to Select the Optimal Digital Platform for Your Business