IT Management / IT Management

Every successful shopkeeper is an expert at sizing up a customer as soon as he or she walks in the door, making them feel welcome and comfortable, steering them in the direction of what they are most likely to buy, then guiding them towards a purchase. It’s called personal service and there’s nothing unusual or special about it. It's the sort of thing every shopkeeper does instinctively, without really thinking about it. It's also the sort of thing that's quite easy to do in real life but, until now, has been incredibly difficult to replicate online.

For organizations, the Internet is an integral strategy and a fundamental consideration when meeting business objectives. In fact, it has revolutionized how organizations do business. More than just a source of corporate information, the Internet is now an extension of business processes and communication strategies. As we have moved into the era of the customer, new requirements are forcing customer-facing organizations to rethink how to engage and inspire online audiences.

Forrester evaluated 10 leading Web content management (WCM) vendors across approximately 115 criteria and found that SDL Tridion continues its leadership in enabling organizations to deliver persuasive customer experiences on publicly facing Web sites. SDL Tridion and fellow Leaders Interwoven and FatWire provide business-user-oriented tools that enable not only the management of content, but targeted delivery, analysis, and optimization of content consumption as well. Strong Performers Open Text and Oracle provide solid WCM solutions that nicely complement (and integrate with) other products in their respective enterprise content management (ECM) suites. Strong Performers Vignette and Day Software offer functionality mostly on par with the Leaders, but fall short in strategy relative to the Leaders. Microsoft ekes in to the Strong Performer category with enhanced WCM functionality in SharePoint. Contenders include IBM, whose basic WCM integrates with its WebSphere Portal, and EMC, which is pursuing a unified content strategy.

Different needs, different technologies The choice ? and therefore debate ? between 'suite' versus 'best of breed' software is as old as enterprise software. Enterprise Content Management (ECM) technologies claim to fulfill all of the content management needs an enterprise may have. In reality, organizations typically need specific technologies for specific business requirements. SDL is a best of breed vendor that provides persuasive Web content management solutions that enable effective communication and interaction with multiple target audiences.

There is a theme in this paper which states that, to use online banking effectively, a financial institution must offer three things: integration, personalisation and relevance. Now I know that you, the reader, the seasoned and sceptical professional who has been there, done that and seen it all before will read that first line and yawn. I know that, because that’s what I did. Because we’ve heard it all before. How often have we talked about multichannel integration? How often have we pondered the issues of a consistent customer experience? How often have we discussed the ability to leverage online capabilities through branches and vice versa?