This presentation offers you examples and tips in choosing whether to build your custom application on top of Web CMS or to do it as a stand-alone custom application (built using some framework).

1. Perttu Tolvanen
Web & CMS Expert, Partner
North Patrol Oy, 20131
Web CMS vs. Custom applications
J. Boye Philadelphia 2013, Web Content Management Track

2. Agenda
• Background overview
• The challenge: ”unified customer experience”
• Solution 1: Create ”service brands” (...and forget the unified experience)
• Solution 2: Differentiate conceptually (content areas from custom functionality)
• Solution 3: Build on top of CMS
• Solution 4: Build on top of framework
• Comparison of different solution scenarios
• Summary
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3. We used to build everything on top of CMSs...
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CMS
Website
eCommerce
Website
Extranet
Intranet
Web-
site
Web-
site

4. ”Intranet CMS”
Then we understood that internal systems are a
different playing field...
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”Web CMS”
Website
eCommerce
Website
Extranet
Intranet
Web-
site
Web-
site

5. The landscape of concepts and products in 2013
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HR systems
(Oracle, SAP, etc)
Intranet
News, guidelines, phoneb
ook, important
documents, search
Phonebook
/ people
profiles
ERP
(+ other line of business
systems)
CRM
Partner
extranets
Document
management
& project sites
Websites
Customer
extranets
eCommerce
Custom
apps

6. ERP
(+ other line of business
systems)
CRM
Partner
t
s
Websites
Customer
extranets
eCommerce
Custom
apps
Challenge: “Unified customer experience”
Trends related to this:
1) The role of the Web CMS is
getting smaller in many
cases – even though sites
are getting more massive!
2) Building custom
applications has become
more cost-effective by the
use of frameworks.
3) The role of APIs has grown
due to different systems
and mobile applications.

7. Solution 1: Create “service brands”
Websites
Customer
extranets
eCommerce
Need: Best possible experience
for the users of each service
Custom
apps

8. Solution 1: Create “service brands”
Customer
extranets
Websites
Example case

9. Solution 1: Create “service brands”
Customer
extranet
Example case

10. Solution 1: Create “service brands”
Customer
extranet
Websites
Example case

11. Solution 1: Create “service brands”
• Different websites for each concept.
• For example many cities separate the public
website and the self-service website very
clearly.
• Strengths
– Easy to use best-of-breed products
– Minimum tailoring requirements
– Conceptually very mobile friendly (”apps ideology”)
• Challenges
– Possibly lot of integrations
– Customer needs to understand the roles of each service
– Unified login (identity, SSO) often a requirement
Customer
extranets
Websites
Example case

12. Solution 1: Create “service brands”
Example case
eCommerce

13. Solution 1: Create “service brands”
Example case
eCommerce

14. Solution 1: Create “service brands”
Customer
extranet
Example case

15. Solution 1: Create “service brands”
• Different websites for each concept.
• For example many cities separate the public
website and the self-service website very
clearly.
• Strengths
– Easy to use best-of-breed products
– Minimum tailoring requirements
– Conceptually very mobile friendly (”apps ideology”)
• Challenges
– Not a ”unified experience” – different sub brands!
– Possibly lot of integrations
– Unified login (identity, SSO) often a requirement
Website =
marketing &
product
information
Customer
extranet =
additional
orders,
support, FAQ,
community
eCommerce
= bulk
products and
services

16. Solution 2: Differentiate conceptually
Websites
Customer
extranets
eCommerce
Need: Best possible
experience + desire for
unified user experience

17. Solution 2: Differentiate conceptually
Example case
Delta is a car dealer
network that also works
as an importer (eg. Kia).
The main website is using
a CMS (DotNetNuke), but
the used cars portal is a
custom product that is
integrated to several
back-end systems and
databases.

18. Solution 2: Differentiate conceptually
Example case
The user experience
is similar in all areas
even though the
technology/source
of service is
different in main
navigation sections.

19. Solution 2: Differentiate conceptually
Example case
YLE is Finland’s national
public service broadcasting
company. YLE operates four
national television channels
and six radio channels.
YLE News is using Escenic
CMS, the Web TV ”Areena”
is built on Zend framework
and most other websites
are built on Drupal.

20. Solution 2: Differentiate conceptually
Example case

21. Solution 2: Differentiate conceptually
Example case

22. Solution 2: Differentiate conceptually
Example case

23. Solution 2: Differentiate conceptually
• Unified website experience for users, but
different segments of the website are built
using different technology/products
• Strengths
– Possible to use best-of-breed products
– ”Unified customer experience” with minimum cost
• Challenges
– Building and maintaining consistent user experience
– Larger conceptual changes harder to design
– Liftups from different segments can require integrations
– Content targeting or content suggestions are manual work
– Hard to re-use elements or content
Website Extranet eCommerce
Unified navigation / header

24. Websites
Solution 3: Build on top of CMS
Websites
Customer
extranets
eCommerce
Need: Unified user experience
+ lot of changing content +
data from back-end systems

25. Ministry for foreign affairs
of Finland is a massive
content website built on
CMS product (.Net based
NetCommunity).
During the years there has
been done lot of
customizations and
applications on top of CMS.
Solution 3: Build on top of CMS
Example case

26. Solution 3: Build on top of CMS
Example case
Sitra.fi is built on Drupal
platform. It was one of the
first large responsive
websites in Scandinavia.
The website has a lot of
content, but mostly it
aggregates content from
different social media sites
depending on project/issue.

27. Solution 3: Build on top of CMS
Example case

28. Websites
Solution 3: Build on top of CMS
• Unified website experience for users and
good tools for content producers.
• CMS implementation can become quite
heavy and complex.
• Strengths
– ”Unified customer experience”
– Possibilities to do rich liftups and content targeting
– Possibilities for multi-language management exist
• Challenges
– Complex to further develop and apply updates
– A CMS is an ”extra layer” for developers of custom solutions
and that can increase complexity and costs
Websites
Customer
extranets
eCommerce
Need: Unified user experience
+ lot of changing content +
data from back-end systems

29. Websites
Solution 4: Build on top of framework
Websites
Customer
extranets
eCommerce
Technologies typical in this scenario are eg. Django, Zend, Symphony, Microsoft ASP.net and Drupal.
Need: Unified user experience
+ lot of custom functionality +
data from back-end systems

30. Solution 4: Build on top of framework
Example case
Valio.fi is built using
Microsoft technologies
without any CMS product.
Most of the content comes
from background systems.
Editors have custom made
”CMS tool” for controlling
site liftups and templates.

31. Solution 4: Build on top of framework
Example case
Valio.fi is built using
Microsoft technologies
without any CMS product.
Most of the content comes
from background systems.
Editors have custom made
wysiwyg interface for
controlling site liftups and
templates.

32. Websites
Solution 4: Build on top of framework
• Unified website experience and good
possibilities to further develop the custom
areas and functionalities.
• Content producers have limited capabilities
to change the website design.
• Strengths
– ”Unified customer experience”
– Good possibilities for custom feature development
– The CMS speaks the language of users
• Challenges
– Highly tailored solution to maintain and support
– Content producers might become unhappy
Websites
Customer
extranets
eCommerce
Technologies typical in this scenario are eg. Django, Zend, Symphony, Microsoft ASP.net and Drupal.

33. Create “service brands”
Best of breed products
Plenty of limitations
Content producers value
Overview to different solutions
Differentiate conceptually
Maintaining consistent UI is hard
Integration risks are fairly limited
Build on top of CMS
Unified experience
Content can be redesigned
Build on top of framework
No restrictions
Content redesign limited
”App-friendly” strategy
Not really a strategy... Just of a tactic

34. Summary
1. Solution 1: Create ”service brands” if you want to use best-of-breed products and your
business can operate with several different service brands. Building separate services is
also usually the most cost effective choice - and fastest to redesign/rebuild.
2. Solution 2: Differentiate conceptually if you don’t have clear vision or resources to build a
unified experience. Conceptual differentation can be cost-effective choice and a good way
to try out if building a unified experience would make sense.
3. Solution 3: Build on top of CMS if you absolutely need unified and complex user
experience – and you have a lot of content - and content producers that need to manage
the user experience. Just be prepared to struggle with the CMS updates and
improvements.
4. Solution 4: Build on top of framework if you absolutely need unified and complex user
experience – and your biggest future plans relate to building more custom features and
integrations. Just be prepared to maintain and improve the system periodically.
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BUYER´S GUIDE TO WEB
PROJECTS
www.northpatrol.com/blog