The CMS market as we know it will disappear!

A few months ago, I wrote an article about what I saw as the lack of further development in the CMS market. There was a lot of reaction and obviously opinions on the subject are in demand. I don’t want to hold back, as my opinion and view of the CMS market has changed in recent months. With this in mind, the following is a reprise of the last article.

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In 2013, I wrote a master’s thesis with the euphonious name “From Web Content Management to Web Experience Management: What challenges will CMS vendors and site operators face in the coming years” (which I’m not exactly proud of, but it still served the purpose). In the summary recommendation for action for WCM providers, I stated the following in 2013:

Providers of WCM systems are well advised to move away from the traditional concept of web content management systems. Instead, the requirement for the most comprehensive systems possible to create a consistent customer experience across all devices and channels on the web should be considered. Those who simultaneously solve core functionality intelligently, provide an outstanding authoring experience and still remain open as a system for the connection of third-party systems and the integration of third-party applications will gain market share and help their customers to do better business every day. Weak points in the system should at least be covered with third-party application integration.

I don’t think it was that wrong and it is still a kind of cookbook for getting involved in today’s CMS market. Looking ahead to the coming years, however, I have come to the conclusion that the challenge is different. Because:

The CMS market as we know it will disappear.

“Why is that?” you might think. Quite simply because there will be no more pure CMS projects.

The enterprise sector is always a little ahead of general developments in the market. The issues are more complex, the pressure to succeed is greater and the allocated budgets are generally (relatively) larger. My professional work revolves around the projects of such enterprise-class clients (globally active clients with projects >1,000 person-days). In the last 12 months, I have not managed a single request that could be classified as a conventional CMS project. In all customer projects, the focus is always on processes, functionalities, integration with ERP and other systems and eCommerce. Of course, there is always some content management involved. But this part is not decisive.

CMS becomes a commodity.

When I see how the digital transformation continues to progress and how entrepreneurs are now realizing that they need to provide a comprehensive customer experience (online and offline), I can’t imagine that we won’t soon see the development observed with enterprise customers also finding its way into medium-sized and small customers. A “corporate presence” or a “marketing website” won’t get you very far these days. In future “web projects”, the proportion of conventional content management will therefore continue to fall. The relevance of content management systems will decrease accordingly.

What does this mean for “Internet agencies”?

I think specialization is inevitable, as already described for other reasons. The specialization can either be for different industries or for different use cases (support of business use cases). In addition, over the next 24 months, we will see a number of use cases for the Internet for companies that are still new to us. Take the Internet of Things and wearables, for example. What role CMS will play in this is completely unclear at the moment. What is more obvious, however, is that internet agencies as we know them can grow into such new areas. Moreover, and much more trivially, internet agencies are currently changing their field of activity anyway. Until 1.5 years ago, the lion’s share of many agencies was in the area of CMS, but in the last 12 months some agencies have increasingly created eCommerce solutions and built up expertise in this area.

Is the CMS market disappearing?

In my Master’s thesis, I wrote the following text as a conclusion:

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“The market for web content management software seems to be undergoing fundamental change. What used to be a clearly defined area is increasingly taking on larger and larger circles of requirements and thus functional areas. As a result, the boundaries between web content management and other business software are becoming increasingly blurred.

While we are currently on the cusp of a paradigm shift in web experience management, the next development is already foreseeable. There will no longer be a classic categorization of web experience management software; instead, it will increasingly be enterprise experience management software for companies.

Such software will provide a general front end for all processes that require interaction with the stake holders. It could become as important for companies as ERP systems are today. The decisive difference to ERP systems, however, is the visibility of the status of the solution offered, the flexibility always required for adjustments and the need for simple integration of surrounding systems. In contrast to ERP, a poor solution is directly visible to the customer and thus influences the acceptance of the content provider. Furthermore, it will not be possible to establish a similar (high) cost structure as in the ERP area. Customers are simply not prepared to do this and are not used to it from the past.

The environment of this enterprise experience software remains innovative in short cycles. It is foreseeable that we are only at the beginning of a much more far-reaching change in these areas.”

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At Adobe and Acquia/Drupal, for example, we are seeing a trend towards more universal solutions. Dries Buytaert writes about this in his 2014 retrospective:

At Acquia, we help our customers by providing a complete technology platform and the support necessary to support their digital initiatives. The Acquia Platform consists of tools and support for building and managing dynamic digital experiences.

Content management is not mentioned at all. Content is, in a way, where you start from the real challenges. Content is a commodity.

From many conversations with larger agencies, I know that many share a similar view. However, the choice of platform and technology is becoming increasingly important for clients. It sets the basis for the use of other tools. In this sense, the challenge for agencies will be to build on the fundamentally “right” platforms. The choice of CMS is then simply a question of the extent to which the product fits into the project landscape.

I don’t think anything has been decided yet. There is still room for a total newcomer who will completely turn the market on its head with a massive investment and present truly new approaches. However, the window of opportunity is closing from day to day. If there is no such new player, however, we will continue to see this sideways movement towards the experience platform and a few CMS vendors will continue to develop accordingly. The only question is which ones.