Web Content Management

Chapter 14. Working with External Integrators

When it comes time to actually start an implementation, who does it? The organization wanting the CMS can certainly do it themselves, but there also exists a vast network of professional integration firms. Some CMS vendors will also integrate their own CMSs for their customers. Which option is the right one?

Many organizations have no development staff, making the decision clear. Even if an organization does have internal development staff, they might still seek an integrator for several different reasons:

• Their development staff is too busy with other work, and they simply don’t have the capacity to do the work in-house.

• Their development staff is not focused on the Web; in many cases these resources are concentrated on internal, line-of-business applications, not what they view as a marketing exercise.

• Their development staff might do web development, but have no experience with this particular CMS.

• The reality of organizational politics and relationships often makes going outside the company more attractive. Marketing and IT have not normally been good bedfellows, and this often manifests itself as a search for an external integrator in an attempt to avoid IT restrictions or conflicts.

In these situations, contracting the CMS implementation can be a wise choice, through varying engagement models discussed in the following section.

Before considering a project, organizations should look at their internal resources and determine ...