Content Consolidation to Become Increasingly Common

In a 2008 Gartner survey of nearly 400 respondents, 69% of enterprises indicated they had more than six repository technologies in production use. These enterprises can benefit from a consolidation program (http://blog.crownpartners.com/?Tag=consolidation) using content Extract Transform and Load (ETL) (http://blog.crownpartners.com/bid/17240/Enabling-Consolidation-with-Universal-ETL), and will increasingly initiate strategic action to realize those benefits.

Two factors are especially important in driving the acceleration of consolidation initiatives. First, cost of consolidation is borne once, but the cost-saving, service-level, and “content de-siloing” benefits are perpetual. In times of revenue uncertainty, the guaranteed return of these perpetual benefits becomes increasingly attractive. Second, consider that increasingly sophisticated automation of content ETL reduces the cost of consolidation efforts. Prior to the development of content ETL, custom programming and manual effort made consolidation error-prone and costly.

Consolidation programs are typically made up of a “hub” and “spokes”. The hub portion of the program ensures the readiness of the strategic content management platform and coordinates one or more spokes. Each of the spokes addresses one of the non-strategic content management technologies, by folding it into the strategic content management platform. Whether the spokes are pursued serially or in parallel, the start-to-finish time required for the consolidation should be minimized to accelerate the returns.

Consolidation at user firms will continue to drive shake-out among content management technology providers. Vignette, Plumbtree, and Fatwire are among likely losers in the continuing shakeout. Weakening among providers such as these will accelerate consolidation efforts as user organizations move to the better-funded, more-rapidly-evolving, better-maintained products from the apparent-survivor providers.

Crown’s Buldoser technology and related professional services capabilities can enable and accelerate your consolidation. Ask us about a consolidation assessment to help you understand and realize the benefits of consolidation.