The New York Times recently published a profile of IBM’s Samuel J. Palmisano, who stepped down as CEO at the beginning of this year after nearly a decade of running the company.  Palmisano notes in the interview that his overall guidance of IBM was in answer to four questions he formulated:

• “Why would someone spend their money with you — so what is unique about you?”
• “Why would somebody work for you?”
• “Why would society allow you to operate in their defined geography — their country?”
• “And why would somebody invest their money with you?”

While the last two questions are more directed to a global, public company like IBM, certainly the first two questions are things every CEO – every organization – should be asking itself regularly.  And all four questions fall under one larger question:

“Who are you?”

Who are you? What do you offer that separates you from the competition?  How do you attract and retain top talent?  How do you pursue excellence in answer to those questions?

A (very) Short History of WCM

The “who are you?” exercise is something we’ve been pondering at Ektron as we refine our message about why you would want to spend your money with us. 

I launched Ektron nearly 15 years ago with the goal to help people easily create and publish website content.  The process of publishing website content was a major pain in those days, requiring knowledge and tools that most people didn’t have and had no time or desire to learn.  The people who did have the skills had other things on their plates, such as keeping the IT infrastructure running, and hadn’t signed up to be content publishers in any case.  Nor did they usually have any expertise in sales, marketing, copywriting, art design or proofreading content.

Enter WYSIWYG web editors such as Ektron’s original eWebEdit Pro and eventually full-fledged web content management systems, or the CMS, to handle workflow, approvals and various types of content past text.  As CMS tools became more sophisticated, people began to ask for features that would help them do their specific work better. Marketers wanted to test and analyze how site content was affecting their business goals.  As Social emerged, those charged with building community needed the ability to blog and to link in and monitor both internal and external community reaction.

The Evolution of the Website from a WCM Perspective

Our Vision for You

As we wrote in our The Future of Web Content Management white paper, Ektron’s vision for the future is that successful organizations will more and more need to move beyond basic web content management and towards web experience management (WEM). 

WCM will always be the backbone of WEM, just as we expect Ektron’s WCM platform will always be the foundation stone for our WEM technology. Our vision is that just as businesses such as Apple deftly manage the in-store experience from “walk-in-the-door” through purchase and after sale, online enterprises will need the same ability to manage the visitor experience from arrival on the site to the desired business outcome.  “Business outcome” could range from anything from purchase, through asking for more information, through making a donation, through joining an online community, through regular return visits to your website ad infinitum.  Our customers will define the desired business outcome(s) they want from their website. Ektron wants to be the enabling force facilitating those successful business outcomes for you.

Who Are We?

Ektron provides web content management, digital marketing and community software to help our customers improve productivity, drive revenue growth, increase customer loyalty, and deliver a complete web experience to site visitors.

• Through our flagship web content management platform, organizations can create, deploy and manage enterprise-scale, global websites. 
• Through marketing optimization, businesses can deliver personalized web experiences that drive results.
• Through social, enterprises can create vibrant communities for customers and facilitate stronger collaboration among employees and partners.

What Makes Ektron Unique?

Commitment to Your Success. Our Professional Services Group works with customers and Ektron Implementation Partners to help you plan your web strategies, identify business objectives, and provide expertise for integrating Ektron into your IT infrastructure.

Commitment to the .NET Platform. You can immediately utilize your .NET knowledge with Ektron and focus on building, launching and customizing websites rather than having to learn a new development environment.

Commitment to Leveraging and Protecting Your IT Investment.  Unlike other vendors offering so-called proprietary “all-in-one suites,” Ektron’s WEM strategy –what we’ve named the “Digital Experience Hub,” is to integrate with existing applications established in what Forrester calls the “Customer Experience Management ecosystem.” Those applications come from industry-leading companies like Webtrends, Marketo, Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce.com, and Adobe Omniture.

For example, Ektron’s DigitalExperience Hub will allow you to personalize your website based on any CRM attribute contained in Salesforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics, or to target site messaging based on email marketing campaigns, or to access analytics data from Webtrends and Omniture through the Ektron platform.

Underlying those benefits is another major benefit.  Ektron protects your existing investment in CRM, marketing automation and web analytics technologies.  In these challenging times, can any business seriously consider disrupting their I.T. infrastructure rather than leveraging what you already own and know already works?

Who Are You? (Slight return)

That’s who Ektron is and why we think we should be on your short list if you’re looking to deploy or expand your web content management, digital marketing or community software capabilities.  

Sam Palmisano’s four questions…

• “Why would someone spend their money with you — so what is unique about you?”
• “Why would somebody work for you?”
• “Why would society allow you to operate in their defined geography — their country?”
• “And why would somebody invest their money with you?”

... are challenges that every enterprise needs to answer.  As you evolve your answers, remember that your website needs to be tightly integrated into your overall business strategy. A visitor’s experience with your site will help to shape their overall impression of your company.  Deliver a bad or even indifferent website experience and you may have lost a lead, a customer, a donor, an applicant, a partner… and you may never know it’s happened.

At Ektron, we think your website is the key channel for your business to communicate and interact with your audiences.  If you agree that it’s time to take the next step in not only how you manage content but also how you deliver a complete web experience, let’s work together in 2012 to make it happen.  ~ Bill