By Morgan Griffith
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 10:30am
Our client case studies are articles and stories documenting some of the most successful Cascade Server web content management system implementations we've seen. Each time we begin a new client case study, we interview stakeholders involved with that organization's implementation. Our discussions touch on a number of elements in their desire to acquire and implement a web content management system and each organization's story is inevitably unique. However, from conducting these case study interviews, we've noticed there are key themes and takeaways comparable amongst those organizations that have seen the most successful system implementations.
What makes Cascade Server a good fit for most of our client success stories?
One of Cascade Server's biggest strengths is flexibility and customizability. The organizations that have seen the most success with Cascade Server are those who's web content management processes are decentralized and collaborative. Those with a need to publish to multiple web servers and robustly manage multiple websites find Cascade to be a strong fitting web content management solution.
What is unique to client success stories?
Early Representative Buy-In
By and large, the most common theme amongst those who have seen successful implementations and adoption rates is early (and representative) stakeholder buy-in. Particularly in the higher education industry, we've seen immense success from our clients who choose to involve a representative group or sample of users from the very beginning. Synchronization across departments and units on WCM needs and nice-to-haves, timelines, project managers, and goals is an important step in ensuring a successful implementation and post-implementation adoption.
Client-led Training/Demo Sessions
For many of our clients, making a decision on a WCM system is made easier by allowing users to be trained on and demo the system. Some of our clients whittle their short list of solutions down to a few and then demonstrate each system for a representative group of stakeholders. These stakeholders are then asked to evaluate and rank each system and the results of these evaluations are one factor in the overall decision to pick a solution. Those who have taken this approach have found it gives everyone a voice and ensures that when a solution is chosen, those involved feel vested in the decision.
Capable and Vested IT Department
Because of the immense flexibility and customizability afforded by Cascade Server, it is important that organizations acquiring the system have at least a small technical staff to support the system and its implementation. The process of managing web content is largely collaborative across various types of users and departments. However, this does not alleviate the need for a go-to team to assist in system administration, WCM version updates, and system customization to meed organizational needs.
A few of the client case studies we have coming up, such as our latest one with the College of William & Mary, will serve to spotlight these important implementation themes. If your organization has accomplished great things with Cascade Server and is interested in participating in a client case study, sign-up now!
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