The State of Multi Site Management

The State of Multi-Site Management in 2015How Web Content Management Is Affecting Digital Agility

Developed by: in collaboration with

The State of Multi-Site Management | 2015

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Section 1: Executive Summary

Section 2: The Problem: The Unholy Mess of Multi-Site ManagementSingle Brand Websites No Longer the NormGlobalization Adding to Web ComplexitiesMore Websites in Response to Heightened Consumer ExpectationsMultiple Web Cooks Multiple Content Management Systems in UseMulti-Site Management Blind Spots

Section 3: The Big Opportunity CostThe Rising Costs of Maintaining Disparate WebsitesThe Negative Impact on OrganizationsOperational inefficienciesLack of scalabilityHigher total cost of ownershipBrand erosion

Section 4: Digital Agility in the Age of the Always-On Consumer

Special Section: The Social Media & Multi-Site Management Parallel

Section 5: The Road to Multi-Site Management Excellence

Appendix:Survey Participant DemographicsTools and ResourcesAbout Scratch Marketing + MediaAbout Sitefinity


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Section 1: Executive Summary

Recently the thought leaders at Think with Google™, the new industry think-tank addressing the latest digital trends, shared the idea that we no longer go online—we live online. The way we interact with the world around us has increasingly strong ties to a massive digital environment on the other side of our mobile phones, tablets, desktops and even our cars and washing machines. Who is building this new world? And are these digital architects equipped with a modern toolset for what’s coming next in digital and mobile?

Since the emergence of the World Wide Web over 20 years ago, organizations large and small have been building, tearing down and rebuilding a digital universe, which today is evolving rapidly in a race to catch up with the ever demanding digital consumer. This race is relentless—in a span of two weeks ending September 12, 2015, Google received 4,509,655,568 searches1, 10,372,207 of which were for Amazon. Reportedly, 65 percent of online consumers look up more information online now versus a few years ago2. Global, national and local brands, as well as diverse organi-zations now compete for the zero moment of truth by having a compelling digital presence, attracting the digital consumer to their websites, converting them into customers and users, and winning them for life.

Yet not every brand is a winner—some brands are mastering the art of engaging their consumers with a modern, flexible toolset; others, are coping with a disorganized mess.

1 http://www.experian.com/marketing-services/online-trends-search-engine.html 2 http://www.experian.com/marketing-services/online-trends-search-engine.html


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The findings from “The State of Multi-Site Management,” conducted by Scratch Marketing + Media in collaboration with Telerik® Sitefinity™ in August of 2015 are based on over 280 responses from marketing and IT leaders, and reveal the extent of the mess, its negative impact on organizations and the emerging best practices:

• Organizations today manage multiple digital and mobile properties: over 40 percent of respondents to our survey manage between two and five websites; 30 percent between six and 20; and 20 percent are straddled with managing more than 20 web sites.

• The opportunity cost of maintaining disparate website properties is big—and it starts as soon as organizations introduce their second website. The cost of website management increases as brands add more digital proper-ties, with 50 percent of those managing between 10 and 20 websites claiming they are worried that they are paying more than they should. This concern grows to 56 per-cent for organizations managing 50+ digital properties.

• More than a third of organizations are con-cerned about their ability to attract leads with their current Web Content Management (WCM); with well over 40 percent of brands starting out on their multi-site journey, i.e. managing between two and 10 websites,

worried about their ability to capture leads and prospects.

• Best practices for managing multiple web-sites are emerging—one-third are unifying their websites under modern WCM systems with multi-site management capabilities; yet over 50 percent of brands are still on the fence with no plan to unify.

• The brands that have embraced modern WCM with multi-site management capabilities cited among their reasons scalability, efficien-cy and consistency benefits, specifically lower cost and less IT involvement for web-site maintenance, lower cost and effort for design and content updates, and reduced development cost for each new website.

• Brands using or considering WCM with multi-site management capabilities report their top reasons for unifying under one WCM include ease of launching new websites, improved content management, brand consistency and unified content development processes.

Gone are the days when a single website was the focal point of a brand’s digital strategy. While for many organizations the main website is still the foundation of an online presence, digital proper-ties have proliferated and become as multi-layered and complicated as the organizations themselves.

When Steve Jobs said think different, he saw this digital evolution taking place. Brands today need to think different, build different and communicate different with today’s digital natives. Due to increasingly limited attention spans and ever increasing expectations, pleasing the fickle digital consumer is more challenging now than ever. Brands need to act immediately to ensure they deliver the right message at the right time for each audience.

This report reveals the current state of multi-site management across types of organizations, com-pany sizes, industries and regions; examines the primary challenges with which organizations are faced; and offers emerging best practices for brands to embrace in order to effectively and effi-ciently solve the multi-site management challenges.


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Section 2: The Unholy Mess of Multi-Site Management

The new digital landscape is awash with chatter, expectations and growing competition—con-tinuously fragmenting across multiple channels and devices. Let’s peel the layers of digital experience delivery that weigh heavily on the shoulders of modern digital marketers, leading to the unholy mess of multi-site management.

Single Brand Websites No Longer the NormAs the total number of websites in the world teeters on the edge of one billion (NetCraft), to remain truly competitive, brands need to become “customer obsessed” (Forrester – https://solutions.for-rester.com/age-of-the-customer). Today’s empowered, always-on consumers are presented with limitless information, options and opportunities, making the competition for their eyeballs fierce. Brands must be able to deliver multiple digital faces, manage multiple channels of distribution and analyze multiple sources of information to have a chance of driving real engagement with the mod-ern consumer.

The State of Multi-Site Management reveals that the size of the multi-site management problem is largely driven by the size of the organization, its complexity and the nature of its activities. A third of brands represent-ed in the survey manage more than 10 websites, with 16 percent managing over 50 digital properties.

“Many large enterprises we’ve spoken with have stated they have as many as 10,000 content creators and users accessing their digital asset management system.”

Enterprises manage an average

of 268 customer-facing

websites.

Everyone’s Talking About Your

Digital Experience (DX)

Delivery Ability

Forrester’s Dominique Whittaker

- Blog

15%

51%9%

9%

17%

How many websites does your organization manage?

(% of respondents, n=275)

1

2-10

11-20

21-50

>51


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Globalization Adding to Web ComplexitiesAs expected, global companies and organizations tend to have more websites: 45 percent of those organizations manage over 20 websites (versus 28 percent for organizations in a single country), while a third maintain over 50 (versus only 15 percent for those in a single country).

More Websites in Response to Heightened Consumer Expectations The top two reasons driving multiple web properties for our respondents are the need to create targeted web properties personalized for different consumer segments or stakeholders and height-ened consumer expectations. Closely following is the need to represent multiple products or divisions.

In addition to the need for multiple types of web properties across multiple channels is the need for brands to create content for an increasing number of devices. Digital experiences must now cover a multitude of screen sizes, browsers and operating systems in order to orchestrate the per-fect mix of content, context and coding.

40%22%

24%

22%

9%

13%

11%

15%33%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Based in one country Global

How many websites does your organization manage?(Based in one country, n=93, vs global, n=18)

2-5 6-10

11-20 21-50 >51

11%

74%72% 69%

63%

41%

Multiplestakeholdergroups orcustomersegments

Customer / userexpectations

Multiple brands / product groups

*Multiple business units

(BUs) or divisions

What has driven the need for multiple websites for your organization?(n=162)


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Multiple Web Cooks Add to Complexity as IT Shares the Reins The majority of brands and organizations represented in the survey have joint Marketing and IT or multiple department responsibility for their websites’ management. This operational model con-tributes to the complexity of managing and updating web properties across the board. IT, who used to completely oversee the selection, deployment and maintenance of websites, has central-ized responsibility for only 28 percent of the organizations. Marketing, gaining with WCM groups, is the driver of website management for 13 percent of the organizations. Overall, most organiza-tions have multiple departments and functions contributing to the process. Given the units involved, achieving consistency in publishing content and managing websites appears to be a major oper-ational challenge.

In addition to the decentralized management approach, where multiple departments are manag-ing websites, over 50 percent of them manage more than six properties.

41%

37%

16%

6%

Who is responsible for managing your organization’s websites ?

IT or marketing / branding / product department(centrlized management)

Both IT and Marketing/Branding/Product departmentÊ

Multiple business units / multiple functions (IT, marketing, product, content, etc.)

Mix of internal and external management (decentralized management)

6%

41%

18%

12%9%

12%

2%

1 2-5 6-10 11-20 21-50 >51 None

How many websites does your department currently manage?(% of respondents, n=229)


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These findings are consistent with a Gartner study on the use of multiple content manage-ment systems. Both reveal that organizations of all shapes and sizes are faced with the task of managing multiple websites, on multiple WCM platforms, and, not surprisingly, would prefer a more consolidated, streamlined process.

Multiple Content Management Systems in UseIn addition to multiple websites, most organizations employ multiple web content management systems (WCM). Companies of all sizes—single market, multi-product and those with a global pres-ence—typically use two to five content management systems.

The size of the organization also determines the number of WCM systems in use. One WCM only does the job for about 20–25 percent of organizations with revenues under $100 million and is not sufficient for larger entities. Roughly 80 percent of the organizations in our survey with revenues in excess of $100 million use between two and five WCMs.

The differences in the number of WCM systems used do not seem that significant, but naturally global companies are more prone to using more systems (22 percent have more than five systems as com-pared to 13 to 15 percent of organizations that operate in one or several countries).

“Companies used to buy WCM systems on a departmental basis, so many have up to five systems. Now, they’re considering consolidating their WCM systems; most would prefer to have a maximum of two to meet all of their needs.”

Magic Quadrant for Web Content

Management

Gartner - October 2014

How many CMSs does your organization currently use?

(% of all respondents, n=141)

1

2-5

6-10

Over 10

None or don’t know

18%

67%

7%2%

6%

One country Several countries Global

How many CMS systems does your organization currently use?

(by geographic presence, n=141)

1 2-5 6-10 Over 10 Other

17%

69%

4%2%7%

20%

67%

10%3%

17%

61%

17%

6%

< $10m $10m - $25m $25m - $100m $100m - $ 1B

How many CMs Systems does your organization currently use?(by organization size)

1 2-5 6-10 Over 10 Don’t know

> $1B

19%

76%

5%

23%

64%

9%5%

25%

55%

5%5%10%

83%

17%

75%

25%


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When it comes to WCM with multi-site management (MSM) capabilities, only a third of respondents report having one in place. Global organizations appear to be slightly ahead of the curve, with over 44 percent reporting the use of a WCM with multi-site management capabilities. Only 13 per-cent of respondents are considering migrating to a WCM with multi-site management, indicating that the toolset is yet to achieve mainstream adoption.

Multi-Site Management Blind Spots: You Cannot Manage What You Cannot See

Contributing to the chaos of managing multiple websites and multiple WCMs, only 37 percent of our respondents report hav-ing complete visibility into all of their web properties and anoth-er 28 percent have only one group managing their websites. Organizations operating in one or several countries still manage to maintain that visibility where-as more than 60 percent of our respondents from global organi-zations do not have it. The old management adage applies to multi-site management: brands cannot manage what they can-not see.

The trend toward losing visibility is much more pronounced and accelerating with size, with 58 percent of organizations with more than $1 billion in revenue not having a complete view of their web properties as com-pared to only 21 percent of organizations smaller than $10 million in revenue.

28% 33%17%

39% 40%

22%

29% 20%61%

4% 7%


How much visibility do you have for websites managed byother groups / depts?

(n=141)

No view Partial view Complete view We only have one group managing our website(s)

38%23%

40%22% 8%

41%45%

30%

28%33%

16% 32%

30%44%

58%

5% 6%

< $10m $10m - $25m $25m - $100m $100m - $1B > $1B

How much visibility do you have for websites managed by other groups / depts?

(n=137)

No view Partial view Complete view We only have one group managing our website(s)

30%

32%

10%

53%

5%

Do you have a CMS with MSM?(n=192)

Yes

No, but considering

No

Don’t know

27.96% 33.33% 44.44%13.98%

16.67%

53.76% 50%44.44%

4.3% 11.11%

Single country Several countries Global

Do you have a CMS with MSM?(based on geographical presence, n=141)

Yes No, but considering No Don’t know


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Section 3: The Unholy Mess of Multi-Site Management - The Big Opportunity CostsThe Rising Costs of Maintaining Disparate WebsitesThe cost of maintaining disparate website properties is big—and it starts as soon as brands and organizations introduce their second website. The costs of website management increase as brands add more digital properties, with 50 percent of those managing between 10 and 20 web-sites worried they are paying more than they should. This concerns drops for those managing between 20 and 50 websites, likely because they have streamlined their processes, people and tools. It jumps again to 56 percent for those organizations managing 50+ digital properties, where website management becomes complex again and requires revisiting the management approach.

The Negative Impact on the BusinessMore than a third of organizations are concerned about their ability to attract leads with their cur-rent WCM, growing to over 40 percent of brands starting out on their multi-site journey, i.e. managing between two and 10 websites.

34%48% 50%

12%

57%

48%35% 38%

65%

22%

18% 16% 13%24% 22%

2-56 -10 11-202 1-50 >51

(by number of sites, n=143)

Yes No Not Sure

46% 45%19% 29% 43%

32% 35%56%

53% 35%

21% 19% 25% 18% 22%

2-56 -10 11-202 1-50 >50

(by number of sites, n=143)

Yes No Not Sure


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While the challenges of managing multiple websites appear universal, the internal structure of the organizations managing them is not. Without an obvious solution to their unique problem, organi-zations are developing a myriad of technology stacks that continue to deliver sub-optimal results. From digital media companies to universities; from global brands to hospitals; from manufacturers to online retailers—the need for a consolidated form of management is becoming more and more apparent.

Breaking Down the Disparate Multi-Site Management Cost CulpritsThe proliferation of digital properties and web content management systems within organizations has resulted in four primary challenges across industries:

1. Operational inefficiencies2. Lack of scalability3. Higher total cost of ownership (TCO)4. Brand erosion

While the recognition of the problem goes all the way to the top of the corporate ladder, the pain of these challenges is felt throughout all levels of the organization by those who rely on web prop-erties and assets to create value and do their jobs.

The leading challenges in man-aging multiple websites cited by survey respondents were operational and management inefficiencies, along with the inability to rapidly update con-tent, adjust and test new approaches. Eighty-two percent of the respondents believe those issues are significant or somewhat significant. The high total cost of ownership (TCO) is a close third at 78 percent, and then lack of scalability and inconsistent branding, measur-ing at 73 percent and 66 percent respectively.

1. Operational Inefficiencies

Every time a unique digital property is added, organizations run the risk of duplicating efforts across multiple fronts. Throughout project planning, design, development, deployment and man-agement—independent variations of a website can easily take on a life of their own and consume valuable time and resources. Regardless of whether external or internal, designers, developers and IT resources tasked with creating a new website are often not aware of, or fail to make use of, previously developed tools and templates.

“41 percent of CEOs see high value in achieving operational efficiency through digital technologies.”

PwC 2015 CEO Survey

39% 38%25% 32%

19%

43% 45%

53% 41%47%

19% 19% 25% 29% 36%

Inability torapidly updatecontent, adjust

and test

Lack of

scalability

Inconsistentbranding

(n=150)

High TCO


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And then it seems to get more decen-tralized with less than half of respondents having up to five people managing their websites. More man-agement concentration becomes the norm again for organizations over $1 billion in revenue, with 58 percent of them having a team of up to five responsible for managing their web-sites. As indicated by some of the open-ended feedback from survey respondents, these resources don’t always get along—multiple reviewers and approvers add to the complexity, time and management of websites.

In half of organizations surveyed, two to five individuals are responsible for the manage-ment of their web properties. The resource number goes up as more websites are add-ed and as organizations get bigger. A team of two to five seems to be the norm up until $100 million in revenue.

“The biggest frustration is deciding if it is a Marketing function (content) or IT function. Sometimes the lines are clear, sometimes they are blurry.”

Comments from respondents

“Compliance must approve all content.”

“The editing and publishing workflow decreased overall production output significantly and added zero value.”

“All content changes must go through IT.”

Several resources are involved with content creation too. More than half of respondents indicate they use over five content creation resources and almost 30 percent have more than 10.

6%

50%

23%12%

3% 6%

12 -5 6-10

11-50 >51 Don’t know

How many people manage your websites?(n=137)

14%5% 6%

59%

45%65%

33%58%

16%

27%

20%

22%

17%

8%18%

10%

17%

25%

3%

11%

3% 5% 11%

<$10m $10m - $25m $25m - $100m $100m - $1B >$1B

How many people manage your websites?(by size of organization, n=137)

1 2-5 6-10 11-50 >51 Don’t know

5%

36%

23% 20%

7% 8%

1 2-5 6-10 11-50 >51 Don’t know

How many people contribute content to your website?(n=153)


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The most significant operational challenge in managing a growing portfolio of websites is the lack of technical resources, with 90 percent pointing to availability of development and technical resources as a significant challenge. This points to the heavy dependency on IT support for day-to-day website changes, suggesting it is not only an efficiency concern, but also a bottleneck and scalability problem as well. Over one-third of all respondents also consider branding consistency, third-party integration and timing and redundancy of efforts to be top challenges as well.

Even if organizations are confident that their various digital properties are in tune with one another, they usually do not account for the risk of human error when updates to multiple websites in vari-ous locations are needed. With multiple managers, dashboards and WCMs, the ability to flawlessly distribute fresh content at customer speed can be a major challenge for most organizations. Layer into the mix a wide range of permission hierarchies, inconsistent technical protocols, and varied levels of performance across web support systems—and the barometric pressure starts to shift towards “mess” again.

And the threshold for when more contributors are needed is much lower—only organizations smaller than $10 million in revenue manage with fewer than five contributors (62 percent) and more than five is the norm for any larger organization. Furthermore, at least 25 percent of organi-zations larger than $1 billion have more than 50 contributors involved.

“It’s just a lot of work to update two WCMs.”

Comments from respondents

“Updates are hard because not all content can be dynamically managed through a WCM–it is a mix of hard-coded markup/styling and very specific business managed content.”

“It is challenging to integrate various business systems into a coherent, customer-friendly experience for our users; the challenge of managing large amounts of content effectively with a small staff.”

“The underlying code is in different development languages causing us to work with multiple vendors.”

8% 5% 11%

54%

18%

35% 17% 33%

24%

41%

15%22% 8%

11%

32%25% 39%

25%

9%

10%25%

3% 10% 11% 8%

<$10m $10m - $25m $25m - $100m $100m - $1B >$1B

How many people contribute content to your websites?(by size of company, n=137)

1 2-5 6-10 11-50 >51 Don’t know

50% 40% 35% 33% 31%

39%41% 47% 44% 43%

11%20% 18% 23% 26%

Availability ofdevelopment or

technicalresources

Ensureingbranding / consistency

across allwebsites

Keepingintegration with

3rd partysystems up to

date

Time to launchcontent /

message acrossmultiplechannels

(n=143)


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In the same way the assembly line streamlined automobile production, a modern WCM with multi-site management capabilities can streamline critical aspects of operationalizing new digital properties and ensure consistent performance.

2. Lack of Scalability

In our always-on world, the ability to rapidly disseminate information on new products and initia-tives can significantly impact critical business processes and affect time to revenue. Without the ability to quickly innovate, iterate and disseminate in an agile fashion, various departments end up hamstrung and unable to—quite literally—do their jobs.

Think of how quickly a PR team might need to issue a press release in the wake of a crisis; or a brand may need to communicate on major product recalls; or how a university athletic department may want to feature content on becoming a division champion and draw interest from new recruits while the ranking is new and exciting. Organizations today need the ability to create and publish content in real time.

Additional challenges to website scalability arise as multiple, external vendors become involved. While these resources can be critical partners in digital asset creation, they can also create an unforeseen bottleneck when content needs to be replicated quickly across multiple web properties.

When it comes to scalability, the ability to deliver real-time results consistently across the required websites is a critical need for organizations managing multiple online presences.

3. Higher Total Cost of Ownership

There is no quick and easy way to calculate the hidden costs of managing disparate websites deployed on disparate content management systems. The total cost of ownership (TCO) needs to account for multiple factors: operational costs such as multiple resources for managing and updat-ing the content and underlying infrastructure; mounting hosting costs and the costs associated with engaging outside vendors; business impact and risk associated with slower time to market; human error and brand inconsistencies. As organizations grow in website complexity, the TCO grows with it, in some cases exponentially.

Consider the flipside of uni-fying websites under one WCM system with multi-site management capabilities:

Comment from respondents

“100+ people contribute content and only 2-3 people can review and publish.”

Customer Use Case

A major investment firm had a portfolio of between 11 and 20 websites—several of them were hard-coded, a number of web properties had been developed in an open-source development platform, and a few, individually designed websites were produced over time by different vendors. As the parent company introduced some time-sensitive major new initiatives, it faced quite a challenge to quickly and accurately update all these properties. Since relationships with previous developers had been lost or abandoned, the company had to invest significant additional funds to hire a new website development firm to assess the portfolio and find ways to standardize the new content across disparate properties.

The continuity risks become apparent not only when major organizational changes take place, but also as a result of staff changes. When organizations have inherited a mix of development environments and platforms it is hard to ensure ongoing operations if employees with certain programming skills move on.

Comment from respondents

“My biggest frustration with our website management process is that there is no single place for content. It is not centrally integrated into a larger system and synced up—work is duplicated numerous times, often unnecessarily.”

60% 58% 55%

28%

30% 33% 34%

38%

10% 9% 11%

34%

Less developerand IT

involvement formaintenance

Lower cost toupdate design

and content

Lower hostingcosts

(n=143)

Reduced developmentcost for eachnew website


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It is up to the local brand resources or individual departments to interpret the standards when launching new digital or mobile properties. Microsites, for example, are smaller in scope, purpose and lifespan than a company’s website. Often these microsites fail to utilize essential branding elements and lack clear connection to the parent brand. This can lead to audience confusion, poor brand perception and negative brand experience. Centralizing brand standards on a unified WCM ensures every brand experience is consistent, while allowing for local market adap-tion and creativity.

A significant majority of respondents see the primary benefits of using a WCM with multi-site man-agement capabilities as derived from a cost perspective associated with personnel resources: 83 percent point to lower costs for design and content updates, while 79 percent point to a reduced development cost for each new website. These are considered key advantages by single market, multi-country and global organizations.

4. Brand Erosion

Organizations managing multiple web properties are faced with issues beyond operational ineffi-ciencies, slower times to market, complicated new roll-outs and scalability. Brands also need to worry about managing the risks associated with brand image and consistency.

The Risk of Brand Inconsistency and Trust Erosion

With each new collaborator, department or agency involved in a website development project, the risk of brand inconsistencies increases—from simple shifts in style and coloring to major discon-nects in brand language and personality. Many multinationals have experienced the phenomenon of country website versions diverging significantly from the core brand direction—this is why over 60 percent of global organizations have uniform brands standards for each country to follow. Having uniform standards, however, does not always translate into uniform brand experiences—without a robust WCM that can help enforce the standards, brands have little actual control over what happens across markets.

Stanford Persuasive

Technology Lab

“46 percent of people say a website’s design is the number one criterion for discerning the credibility of a company.”

The level of quality and consistency that organizations exhibit on their web properties has a pro-found effect on how customers and stakeholders perceive them.

46% 43%

61%

34% 40%

39%

19% 17%

One country Several countries G lobal

How would you describe your overall brand management approach?(by geographic presence)

Lax approach (no centralized brand control for each website)

Somewhere in between strict and lax

Uniform brand - content standards enforced


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When examining the significance of brand inconsistencies across web properties, nearly 50 per-cent of respondents have had significant issues. In larger, multi-country and global organizations, the instances of brands facing brand inconsistencies jump to 70 percent. If nearly half of compa-nies care about design, branding and consistency of the digital experiences they build, and nearly 50 percent of all companies surveyed are claiming somewhat significant problems, it becomes clear that we are faced with a legitimate challenge when it comes to presenting a consolidated brand to customers meeting consumer expectations.

The brand inconsistency challenges are not for consumer brands alone. As more complex offer-ings require the support from multiple digital vehicles, major business-to-business leaders are realizing the need to uniformly present the value of their offerings through consistent content via multiple websites. In a recent Ad Age article, Jason Hill, GE's global director of media and content strategy, said, "Brand familiarity is an objective. We have tremendously high brand awareness but not necessarily a deep understanding of what the brand does. [The] reason we've gotten into the brand marketing space is ours is a story requires more than an ad. Content helps us explain the technology behind the logo—why and how GE works and its impact on the world."

15% 20%33%

48% 47% 28%

38% 33% 39%

Single country Several countries Global

(by geographic presence, n=141)

18% 18% 5%39% 42%

50% 50%

45%

44% 33%

32% 32%50%

17% 25%

<$10m $10m - $25m $25m - $100m $100m - $1B >$1B

(by size of organization)


17

Brand agility today is directly linked to its ability to deliver a rapid response to the digital consumer and quickly update website information and communications. Organizations of all sizes are nearly unanimous—99 percent view their ability to update their websites as a top priority.

For organizations with global pres-ence, rapid response to their always-on users is even more crucial: 100 percent of respondents from global companies ranked the ability to quickly respond to user demands and make content changes rapidly as significant.

Ultimately, catering to an audience that lives online requires brands to offer dynamic, living, breath-ing digital experiences that offer a real-time reflection of their organization. Without the ability to communicate with their audience online, brands immediately hamstring themselves against their more agile competitors.

Section Four: Digital Agility in the Age of the Always-on Consumer

Winning Customers for LifeIn today’s digital-first reality, it is content and trust that generate engagement and loyalty: "It's about creating a stickier, more valuable user experience," said Mark R. Gilbert, analyst for IT research group Gartner, Inc., “then making that value obvious to the site visitor who is always on the lookout for fresh and relevant content via a number of avenues, including personal desktop and laptop computers, tablets, smartphones and other mobile devices.” (TechTarget - For Effective Customer Experience Management Think WCM).

Brand loyalty is rooted in trust. The next-generation of consumers is already placing increased importance on trust: 70 percent of Millennials base brand and product choices on past usage and trust (IRI).

Companies that offer consistent, well-maintained brand experiences will continue to build and grow customer loyalty. A modern WCM with multi-site management capabilities helps to improve the consistency of design, branding and overall web experience; this, in turn, instills confidence and contributes to brand loyalty.

PwC 2015 CEO Survey

“42 percent of CEOs see high value in digital experiences that offer digital trust”

In a world of fast-changing customer demands, the ability to centralize the management of digital experiences enables organizations to quickly test various approaches and home in on the optimal solutions.

62%50% 48%

33%

37%

40% 45%

43%

1% 9% 7%23%

Quickly updatewebsite changes in

information,communications,

news, etc.

Deliver a rapid response to your

always-on users

(n=141)


18

Special Section: The Social Media &Multi-Site Management Parallel

Brand consistency risks may sound overly familiar to organizations that went through the early days of social media adoption. As such, the parallels between multi-site management and enterprise social media management platforms cannot be overlooked. Over the last 10 years, brands were tasked with building presence across multiple social media platforms. Yet pres-ence alone was not enough—companies needed unique personalities, social-appropriate lexicons, customized content and targeted customer service capabilities for each of the social platforms.

With the proliferation of social media channels and content contributors came the branding and organizational reputation risks. Many social media management platforms came to market to help enterprises meet these new challenges. The data clearly shows a preference for systems that unify complex, multi-layered social channel management: “75 percent of companies who use social media management software use more than one tool. Those who currently use more than one tool resoundingly would prefer a single tool—71 percent of them, to be exact. And those who currently use one tool definitely want to keep it that way—100 percent of them prefer a single tool.” (Trust Radius)

The proven success in centralized social media management is becoming a best-in-class model for effectively and efficiently managing omni-channel brand communications. Disney, for example, has beautiful responsive websites, which are seamlessly integrated with travel planning tools and a newly added Magic Band application for hotel management, food ordering and a “fast pass” to a visitor’s Disney experience. To achieve this level of integration, across digital properties, brands of all sizes need to consider the unification of their websites under one WCM with multi-site capabilities.

NextGate

“The average Fortune 100 firm has more than 320 branded social accounts, with thousands of employees and hundreds of followers involved in large-scale social media interactions.”

TechTarget

For Effective Customer Experience

Management Think WCM

“A comprehensive strategy reaches across all touch points, including social networks as well as call centers, seamlessly. Don’t think multichannel, but think in terms of de-channeling,” says Tim Walters, an analyst at Digital Clarity Group.


19

With a centralized reservoir of templates, design standards and other critical build-ing blocks of the digital experience, unified WCM systems deliver fully functional, opti-mized websites that support time-sensitive business processes and communication

priorities. The initial design and information architecture can easily be cloned to be rapidly updat-ed for new digital properties and roll-out initiatives in multiple geographies, languages or customer segments.

Additional benefits of unified WCM systems include the ability to achieve a single view of the cus-tomer across digital properties, consolidation of data sources and a more personalized experience.

Section Five: The Road to Multi-Site Management NirvanaAs brands continue on the path of adding multiple new websites and digital properties, they no longer have to face an unholy mess of multiple website management. Advances in content man-agement systems now offer new solutions for organizations of all sizes—Web Content Management (WCM) systems with agile, multi-site management capabilities. The advantages of standardizing on modern WCM are clear: by streamlining web resources and processes, improving scalability and offering consistent brand experiences, brands can simultaneously reduce operational costs and enhance customer experience and loyalty.

The efficiency, consistency and scal-ability promise of innovative WCM systems is pushing brands over the unified digital fence—consolidated programming and deployment of new websites, unified design and content processes, improved content manage-ment and ease of launching websites are the top reasons for brands to have already adopted a WCM or viewed as important factors for brands looking to consolidate with a single WCM.

Forrester Wave

WCM, Q1, 2015

“Web content management is the backbone of digital experience delivery.”

TechTarget guide sourcing

Forrester report

“Web Content is Alive and Well

Thanks to Online Customer

Experience”

“78 percent of content professionals plan to invest in web content management (WCM) initiatives. Of those, 26 percent said improving multi-channel customer experiences was the reason.”

Successful WCM systems address simplici-ty and ease of use — the most important factors for brands to make the switch from disparate website management systems to a unified WCM.

For global organizations, the ease of launching new websites is the top factor in considering consolidation on one multi-site management system with 100 percent considering it important.

Consolidatedprogramming

anddeployment

Improvedcontent

management

Improvedbrand

consistency

Ease oflaunching

new websites

Streamlinedplanning for

each website

What drove, or is driving you to consider consolidating your websites on a WCM with multi-site management capabilities

(n=69)

Important factor Somewhat important factor Not a factor

71%

25%

4%

70%

23%

7%

70%

26%

4%

68%

28%

4%

67%

23%

10%

58%

35%

7%


How important of a factor is the ease of launching newwebsites when considering MSM?

(by geographic presence)

Important factor Somewhat important factor Not a factor

62%

26%

13%7 %

40%

53%

100%


20

AppendixSURVEY PARTICIPANT DEMOGRAPHICSThe survey had a well-balanced representation of senior management, mid-level management and front-line execution respondents.

40%23% 24%

46%67%

54%

13% 10%22%

Senior management Mid-level management Execution

Respondents by seniority and functional responsibility

Marketing / content / branding / product IT / Webmaster Operational

66%

21%

13%

Respondents by geographic presence of their organizations Based in one country

Operating in several countries

Global

67%14%

3%

9%6%1%

HQ of Organizations

North America Western Europe

Eastern Europe

Australia and New Zealand Asia Africa


21

ABOUT SCRATCH MARKETING + MEDIAScratch Marketing + Media is an integrated marketing and PR agency servicing the B2B technolo-gy space - data center technologies and solutions, security and infrastructure monitoring, SaaS applications, workplace collaboration and healthcare IT. Scratch provides go-to-market and growth strategy and visibility and reputation services under our Digital Authority practice line, covering media, analysts and influencer relations, content marketing, and social media reputation programs. We are your marketing co-pilots - working side-by-side with clients to shape the strategy, message and execution brands and executives need to make lasting ripple in the market.

Website: www.scratchmm.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/scratchmm

ABOUT SITEFINITYTelerik Sitefinity™ is a content management and customer analytics platform developed by Telerik®, a leading vendor of enterprise software products. Telerik tools and services can be adopted indi-vidually or seamlessly integrated with each other or with other popular enterprise solutions. More than 130,000 customers from 60,000 organizations in 94 countries depend on Telerik products, including more than 450 of the Fortune 500®, academic institutions, governments and non-profits. Its industry-leading products are widely recognized, including by Gartner, who named Telerik to three 2015 Magic Quadrants: Web Content Management, Application Platform as a Service, and Mobile Application Development Platforms. Successful organizations such as NASA, Chevron, Expedia, PepsiCo, Panasonic, Roche and more, rely on Sitefinity WCM to optimize customer expe-riences across multiple digital channels. Top finisher for “Usability” in the Gleansight WCM Benchmarks Report, and Winner of the 2014 People's choice Stevie Award for Favorite Content Management Solution, Sitefinity WCM has broad industry recognition for its innovative digital mar-keting platform, superior usability, powerful developer capabilities and strong multisite and multilingual support.

27%

16%

15%

13%

9%

20%

Organization size by revenue

<$10m $10m - $25m $25m - $100m

$100m - $1B >$1B Don’t know 15%

13%

11%

10%9%

9%

8%

6%

19%

Respondents by industry

Advertising, marketing, communications

Consumer products, retail, tourism

Financial services

Healthcare

Professional services

Education

Associations / non-profit

Technology

Other s

The State of Multi-Site Management in 2015

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The State of Multi Site Management

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