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Content management systems (CMS) provide an optimal solution by organizing information and mostly, creating and managing an enterprise’s knowledge. Nevertheless there is a big confusion about the functionalities that characterise CMS and about the differences with less performing products such as web content management systems, document and records management systems and enterprise content management systems.
A content management system answers to the need of integrating information with knowledge, so as to reach a better decision process. At the same time, a CMS permits the creation costs of information and knowledge to be minimized, thereby maximising their value. However there is no standard and commonly accepted definition for Content Management. The trouble is that not only do vendors of so-called CMS actually offer very different systems, but even enterprises interested in content management systems do not name them correctly, and do not have a precise idea of the functionalities to request. This paper aims to show the mismatches between companies’ needs and those information management products which are often called CMS even if they are not.
For this reason the authors first make a theoretical comparison between the functionalities of CMS and those of the systems they are often confused with. Then they show the results of an empirical research on 22 products offered by international vendors. By using an original scheme, enterprises’ needs in terms of information collection, management and publication and of knowledge management are compared with the functionalities of the aforementioned systems. The result consists of performing definitions for CMS and the other systems for managing information.
The conclusions show how, on the demand side, companies’ needs are growing in a confused framework; at the same time the supply side keeps on feeding this confusion, reducing company satisfaction with regard to knowledge and information management.
Keywords:
information system architecture metrics, information system architecture evaluation, enterprise information system, CEO framework, e-government project evaluation.
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