InformationWeek

June 12, 2000

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Weigh Costs And Benefits Before Buying A System

By Charles Trepper

TechEncyclopedia

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hile content-management systems offer potentially significant benefits, few companies actually do any return-on-investment analysis when purchasing these tools. In fact, most companies have no baseline from which to measure improvements in their content-management process.

There are specific costs and benefits that should be examined when purchasing a content-management system. The cost of the application is significant, beyond the price of the software. You may need to purchase servers, and training will be required for all personnel who will be using and administering the system. In addition, there will be some lost productivity because of the cultural changes involved in implementing the new structured content-management processes.

The measurable benefits include a savings in Webmaster labor. It's also possible that improved content-management capabilities will help companies to generate additional revenue for both business-to-business and business-to-consumer Web sites. For example, the faster an auction site can get items in front of potential buyers, the more money it can make.

Business-to-business sites can improve the speed and accuracy of their transaction processing and improve the efficiency of their supply chains by providing trading partners with electronic access to information that would normally be printed out on paper. In that way, businesses save the cost of using paper, as well as the time required to fax or mail paper to and from trading partners. In addition, because humans touch the information less, there is less of a chance for data-entry and processing errors-a distinct advantage.

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