Turning Content Chaos into Web Applying Web Content

Strategy Management Best Practices in

Your Enterprise
WHITE PAPER
November 2006

Applying Web Content Management Best Practices Into Your Strategy

November 2006

Executive Summary .............................................................................................................................. 3

Empower the business owner.............................................................................................................. 4
Think globally. Act locally. .................................................................................................................. 4
Embrace diversity.................................................................................................................................. 5
Get personal........................................................................................................................................... 5
See the bigger picture........................................................................................................................... 5
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 6
About FileNet Web Site Manager ......................................................................................................... 7
About FileNet Corporation.................................................................................................................... 7

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Executive Summary
In business today, the Web plays an increasingly important and complex role. As Web users have become more sophisticated, their
expectations for site content and caliber have dramatically increased. Add to this the addition of expanding Web functionality, including blogs,
wikis, multimedia components and personalization, and companies are faced with a growing management challenge.
This new paradigm has made the need for next generation Web Content Management tools obvious, although navigating the range of options
can be difficult without a clear understanding of the converging trends in Web content and business strategy. This paper outlines the primary
guidelines and best practices companies should consider in addressing the changing needs of their Web visitors. These include:

Empowering the business owner. By arming business owners with the capabilities to manage their own content, the best Web
Content Management tools can minimize the burden on IT, improve global brand consistency and reduce costs.

Enabling global consistency and local control. For international companies, localized sites can be critically important for business
success. Effective Web Content Management solutions must enable easy localization while ensuring consistency and accuracy in
content enterprise wide.

Integrating new content types. Blogs, wikis and other multimedia capabilities are becoming the norm on the Web. Todays most
successful sites can leverage Web Content Management tools to seamlessly integrate and manage this functionality to ensure
relevance for their audiences.

Personalizing the experience. Web users now expect to see content customized to their needs. By integrating Web Content
Management tools with your companys broader Enterprise Content Management strategy, you can create stronger customer
relationships and deepen loyalty.

Understanding the broader content context. Implementing an integrated Enterprise Content Management strategy that
incorporates Web Content Management enables companies to improve productivity, enhance compliance and deliver a more
compelling customer experience.

By using these key considerations as a guide during the evaluation process, you can select the optimal Web Content Management tools for
your specific needs and help make your Web presence a more compelling and customer-oriented experience.

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With the Web playing such an important role in virtually every type of business today, the challenge of maintaining an impactful and effective
site has become increasingly complex. Whether consumer or business oriented, visitors expectations for Web content and caliber have
become more sophisticated. Social computing such as blogs and wikis, multimedia elements including video, audio and flash pieces, the
demand for personalized information delivery, and even the growing globalization of business have made manual Web editing and
management arcane and are even challenging the limits of some of the early Web Content Management (WCM) tools companies have
employed.
The first generation efforts at managing Web content have included a wide array of home-grown and cobbled together systems. While these
approaches have recognized the need for a better approach to managing Web content, they have not succeeded in overcoming information
silos or the challenges posed by a growing cadre of content providers. Because theses systems frequently require direct IT involvement in
updating Web content, the Webmaster often remains the bottleneck, and the process for updating content remains rife with redundancies and
inefficiencies. According to Lou Latham, a Principal Research Analyst at Gartner, Companies continue to publish more on internal and external Web
sites, and in most cases, the large volume of content and constant updating overwhelm manual processes. Without WCM, companies send content to a central
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Webmaster (which can become a severe bottleneck) or permit different constituencies to edit their Web content (which invites anarchy). Beyond this, the
new pressures for records management and other compliance requirements have brought out an additional area of concern that early Web
Content Management solutions were not designed to address.
This has resulted in a new focus on WCM and the need for next generation capabilities. But, many companies have found navigating the
various WCM options challenging. To effectively evaluate the disparate offerings, it is important to understand how the trends in Web content
and broader business strategy are converging. With this foundation, companies can identify the key functionality and capabilities that will best
serve their Web content management needs over the long term. The following guidelines offer an important starting point for establishing your
companys Web content strategy:

Empower the business owner.

The proliferation of content and the need for personalized delivery have placed an unfair burden on IT for Web functionality. To date, this has
been due to the complexity of solutions for managing Web content. Too much time has been spent managing and editing multiple sites
manually. As a result, IT has been cited as the bottleneck in updating content, while marketing teams have had to apply a piece-meal approach
to global Web management.
With the new integrated Web Content Management and Enterprise Content Management solutions, IT can achieve its goals for empowering the
business user, consolidating vendors, and integrating enterprise systems simultaneously. The ease of use that comes with the new WYSIWYG
tools for Web updating and content uploading makes it much easier to train and empower business users with minimal technical expertise.
These individuals can easily master the capabilities they need to manage Web content for themselves with minimal IT involvement. At the
same time, these new offerings provide better control over brand standards and ensure consistency across sites and around the world.
By simplifying administration, off-loading updating tasks and consolidating content management platforms, these comprehensive solutions can
result in cost savings and more efficient use of IT resources. More than just translating content into HTML or serving as a publishing tool, the
most effective Web Content Management solutions will automate the process for content review and approval, cataloging and indexing,
selecting and assembling, and deployment. These capabilities transform Web management into a business function, enabling IT to refocus
attention on more critical operational needs without having to worry about the appearance and ongoing upkeep of the companys web
presence.

Think globally. Act locally.

In addition to expanding the need for updated content, the Web has dramatically sped up the globalization of business in todays market.
Companies in Singapore, the U.S. or South Africa are now immediately visible all the way around the globe. The speed of this exposure has
made creating a Web presence in localized languages and supporting the online efforts of local subsidiaries and offices increasingly important.
Maintaining consistency and accuracy in all of these efforts, however, has proven challenging.
To appropriately address these requirements, Web Content Management tools must first and foremost effectively support multiple languages.
Beyond this, one of the most important concerns is maintaining consistency in presenting the brand. In the past, companies often had to rely
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Latham, Lou, New Demands Have Revived Web Content Management, Gartner, January 13, 2006.

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on disparate agencies or Web design and development resources to update site content. This often led to inconsistencies and inaccuracies in
content. By implementing a shared content repository for information and imagery, effective Web Content Management tools offer all of your
Web contributors and content updaters immediate access to the most recent and consistent content wherever they may be around the world.
This facilitates better adherence to brand guidelines by simplifying retrieval of content elements. It also eliminates redundancy in the
development of content on a global scale. Rather than recreating the wheel, divisions or their Web agencies can repurpose any content used in
other locations or sites for their specific needs. Whether they need text elements for product catalogs or customer success stories, or imagery
that meets the organizations specific brand guidelines, all approved content resides in a single location to facilitate easy access and reuse. The
centralized content repository can also minimize your companys dependence on external resources by making it easy to leverage investments
in Web work completed by any individual or division in your company.
Beyond these conveniences, second generation Web Content Management tools can also simplify the review, approval and translation process
for added efficiencies and elimination of errors. The integration of business process management automates routing and approval for more
efficient oversight of translation. This enables Web-related employees to focus on actual content strategy and development rather than the
administrative tediousness of tracking down the status of in-process updates.

Embrace diversity.
In addition to globalization, new types of Web content have made management more complicated. Blogs have made the Web experience
much more personal and interactive. With many companies utilizing this tool as way to get closer to their customers and allow employees to
express themselves in a more compelling manner, it is critical that Web Content Management tools effectively manage this new source. This
management process becomes more complex in the case of wikis. A wiki is a type of content that can be edited by anyone with content editing
tools. While this may not be an appropriate customer-facing option for most organizations, more progressive companies have started using this
tool in a more controlled intranet setting to facilitate team collaboration.
While these less controlled content sources create the greatest challenge for people charged with managing a companys Web presence, the
proliferation of multimedia content, including audio, video and flash elements, and Really Simple Syndication (RSS) can further tax a system. It
is critical that Web Content Management tools can handle this full range of content types and allow for the introduction of new types of content
that are sure to become available in the near future. To accomplish this, it is important that your Web content management solution leverage
open-standards, such as Java to facilitate future-proofing.
Recently, the emphasis on content has also centered on the needs for Digital Asset Management. Growing graphic sophistication and rich
media have made storage, access and application of these elements a major concern. When considering Web Content Management tools, it is
important to ensure that they make it easy for business users to access and edit approved digital images across the globe to enable faster and
easier publishing.

Get personal.
The increased interactivity that blogs and wikis have enabled has transformed the expectations of todays Web user. Web content is playing a
much more integral role in our interactions with customers, who now demand content that feels more relevant and personalized to their specific
needs. To accomplish this, companies must approach Web Content Management as part of their larger Enterprise Content Management
strategy. This entails integrating existing knowledge about specific customers and developing intelligence based on previous interactions and
their existing relationship with the company.
By integrating Web interfaces with existing ERP, CRM and other enterprise systems, you can enable more targeted delivery of online content to
each visitor. This is a particularly useful approach for sites with self-service functions where customers must log in. Companies now have the
opportunity to more carefully target marketing efforts within self-service activities. This functionality begs for an open standards-based tool that
can seamlessly integrate with portals, search engines, syndication and aggregation products, and enterprise systems.

See the bigger picture.

From a broader business perspective, seeing your Web content management needs as fundamentally and inherently content management
needs will put you further down the strategic path of implementing a broader Enterprise Content Management strategy. Whether content is
created for the Web or other business purposes, by managing it using a comprehensive, integrated solution that facilitates creation, editing,
approval workflows, publishing and compliance assurance, your entire business can benefit.

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As a result, when looking for a WCM solution for your business, there are clear advantages of products that are already integrated into a larger
Enterprise Content Management suite. It makes no sense to implement a Web solution that introduces new content silos when improving
integration and breaking down silos is a broader business objective and increasingly a competitive and regulatory requirement. By looking at
WCM as a subset of your larger Enterprise Content Management strategy, you can position your company for added agility and avoid the future
pitfalls of having to stitch together a variety of solutions to enable enterprise-wide content integration and access.

Conclusion
The Web is a powerful and evolving business tool. With the right solutions and processes in place, companies can capitalize on this important
interactive opportunity, while streamlining its operational impact. In evaluating your options, it is important to carefully consider their individual
functionality as well as their fit within the companys broader Enterprise Content Management strategy. Focus your evaluation on tools that
offer:

an open standards-based approach, such as 100% Java

easy integration with existing enterprise systems

a comprehensive approach to content management that can grow with your business

in-context authoring for business user empowerment

digital asset management

automated workflow and approval

easy to implement multi-site management

multi-language capabilities and automated translation

dynamic delivery and personalization

With this extensive feature set, your Web Content Management solution will ensure that your Web presence will become an integral part of your
companys approach to content and a much more compelling experience for your customers.

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About FileNet Web Site Manager

FileNet Web Site Manager (WSM) is a dynamic Web content management solution that manages the user experience and delivers content for
large numbers of global Web sites, all from a single platform. FileNet WSM enables business users to manage Web sites on a global scale with
reduced dependence on IT for updates. Web authors can take advantage of an intuitive, easy to use Web content management interface or
simply manage their content directly in FileNet P8, portal environments, Microsoft Office or SharePoint environments.
This enterprise-class solution uniquely combines easy-to-use Web content management capabilities with integrated process functionality to
manage the creation, approval and publication of Web content and complex documents to multiple Web sites, in multiple formats and multiple
languages all from a single platform.
Web Site Manager allows Web content to be personalized and targeted to a specific audience, ensuring that content is timely and relevant. And
the product allows organizations to keep Web content up to date and on target across various business channels while still maintaining strict
control over the presentation quality of all content. Companies can also set up user profiles to better target content and improve interaction or
restrict access to certain users on any site.
With FileNet Web Site Manager, site creation and management are easy, thanks to pre-built navigation elements that eliminate the need for
coding of features such as sitemaps, bread crumbs and navigation. Pre-built components allow users to incorporate dynamic Web features
such as search, lists, forms, and other predefined content types easily. And the template wizard makes deployment of pre-built design styles
hassle free.
FileNet Web Site Manager also provides support for Web content that needs to be delivered to multiple channels in multiple formats,
eCommerce online storefront transactions, and the rapid creation and launching of micro-sites in support of specific Web or mixed media
campaigns. Companies can also use the solutions Advanced Content Management capabilities to create forms for emails, streamline the
creation of new content and capture customer feedback. And with a document importer, WebDAV-enabled tools for editing and a WYSIWYG
designer tool, FileNet Web Site Manager delivers the functionality companies need to create compelling, consistent and customer-driven sites.

About FileNet Corporation

FileNet Corporation, an IBM company, helps organizations make better decisions by managing the content and processes that drive their
business. FileNets Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions allow customers to build and sustain competitive advantage by managing
content throughout their organizations, automating and streamlining their business processes, and providing a spectrum of connectivity needed
to simplify their critical and everyday decision-making.
FileNet ECM products are designed to deliver a broad set of capabilities that integrate with existing information systems to provide costeffective solutions that solve real-world business problems.
Since the Companys founding in 1982, more than 4,300 organizations, including more than three quarters of the FORTUNE 100, have taken
advantage of FileNet solutions for help in managing their mission-critical content and processes.
Headquartered in Costa Mesa, Calif., the Company markets its innovative ECM solutions in more than 90 countries through its own global
sales, professional services and support organizations, as well as via its ValueNet Partner network of resellers, system integrators and
application developers.
To learn more about FileNets ECM solutions, please visit us at www.filenet.com. In the United States, call 1-800-FileNet.

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