When it comes to content management systems (CMS) we at Being  have the unique experience of a number of different solutions for a number of very different clients. Our belief at Being is that CMS should be used to improve the quality of site content, reduce the costs of creating and updating content and create content based on customer preferences. All too often we've heard of the wrong solution hindering the process.

Typically, CMS come in all shapes and sizes based generally on the scale and requirements of the organisation and overall should be are browser-based web applications running on a server enabling users to readily add new content and pages within an existing page template.

We have first-hand knowledge and experience of building CMS applications and delivering them.

Ask Stena Line who we have recently implemented SiteCore – one of the top .net enterprise solutions for their massive .co.uk and .ie sites or FTSE 100 high flyer Smiths Group plc and BBC Northern Ireland who again have recently put Etelligent CMS at the core of their online strategy.

Alternatively client specific solutions as per our current Invest NI CMS solution will be the core of their delivery platform for future projects. It makes fiscal sense to do so.

And in the world of Open Source we have implemented Joomla for Diary UK with mixed results it must be said. Don't get current blog solutions such as WordPress and Movable Type misconstrued as a CMS solution. Many solutions limit your capability to provide adequate customer experiences and marketing messages and lack any E-CRM potential.

Many agencies and in-house teams have created their own CMS. While this has the benefit that new features can be introduced more readily to deliver the experience you want for users, you should treat this approach with extreme caution since you may be locked into the limitations of the system. For example, it may be more costly to update systems for changes in web standards and browser support.

Whatever the market level entry, there are a few basic rquirements to improve content quality:

• Enforced consistency through the design and maintenance of content structure (sub-components, templates, etc.), web page structure and website structure;
• Security enabling different users to update different content types according to their access permissions
• Improved content quality through workflow systems which include triggers to create content and manage the review and update cycle.
• Ease of creating content – many CMS provide a WYSIWYG environment where no HTML skills are required.
• Up-to-date content – content owners can update their own content without passing it through an agency to make the update, so making it more timely and also cheaper.
• Time scheduled content saving you time and money.
• Integrated e-marketing functionality to allow content and messages to be personalised
• Search engine optimisation compatibility.
• Most CMS dynamically return pages to the visitor, so they are typically slower than returning pages than static files on a web server, so you should benchmark performance on a given hardware configuration before selecting.