Web content management continues its upward trajectory

In a dreary economy, it's always nice to hear about an industry that's doing well, or at least is projected to do well, and that's the case with web content management. As we wrote in Forrester report predicts web content management will grow in spite of economy, 72 percent of respondents reported that they plan to increase their investment in web content management in 2009. Although this may seem counter to everything we've been hearing, it's important to remember that the web presence has become chiefly the domain of the marketing department and as such, companies see web content management and their web presence as a key strategic investment.

Unfortunately, the report also found that there were issues related to IT and business units not always being on the same page. As the marketing unit increasingly takes ownership of the website and the web content management system, it's important that IT find a system that meets its needs in terms of how the CMS integrates with the enterprise software infrastructure, and the department gets the kind of features it needs from a system to publish without a lot of IT hand-holding.

Web content management vendors should have a significant presence at AIIM this year, and if your company is looking for a Web CMS, be sure to find the vendors on the Expo floor and be prepared to ask them questions about these issues. Also check out the WCM workshop track which includes one called: "The Next Wave of WCM: Social Web Content Management" with Kathleen Reidy, an analyst at the 451 Group (a session I intend to attend).

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