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What exactly is an agile CMS?

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Global research firm Forrester says, "Agile CMS seeks to enable collaborative, iterative approaches to content and experiences that satisfy both sides of the house." We think Brightspot has embodied all these things for over a decade long before the firm coined the term as part of its 2021 Forrester Wave evaluation of agile CMSs.

Agility is far from a new term or buzzword, yet it’s still only a concept for some instead of an operationalized reality. This is especially true for organizations struggling to find the right content management system (CMS) that provides them speed, quality and control all at once.

Forrester introduced its new Forrester Wave evaluation on the agile CMS market this year. Senior analyst Nick Barber said, "Agile content management systems build on the momentum of nearly 30 years of delivering modern, digital, internet-powered experiences. With a nod to both developers and practitioners, agile CMS seeks to enable collaborative, iterative approaches to content and experiences that satisfy both sides of the house."

In parallel, the race to enterprise agility is speeding up, as businesses no longer see agility as "desirable" but "essential." A 2020 McKinsey report found successful agile transformation can lead to significant improvements in customer satisfaction, employee engagement and operational performance—not to mention a 20% to 30% improvement in financial performance.

Defining agile CMS

What is agile CMS?

An agile CMS empowers content creators and website developers to bring digital experiences to market rapidly through a combination of publishing, workflow and collaboration tools built on a content-management platform that's designed to be flexible and extensible for fast-changing business needs and priorities.

What things does a CMS need in order to be truly considered an agile CMS?

Forrester says an agile CMS is more than "headless CMS in a new box," and argues an agile CMS needs to do three things:
  1. Have a content hub at its core
  2. Incorporate easy-to-use creation, with collaboration and planning tools that offer intuitive workflows
  3. Offer flexible deployment options
It’s important to take a step back and evaluate whether your platform meets this criteria. If it doesn’t, there are solutions readily available that do.

What makes Brightspot an agile CMS?

Brightspot’s CMS is agile to the core. Let’s talk about what this looks like.
  • Content hub: Content hubs bring together all existing and new solutions in one place. Technology that supports and operates as a content hub—like Brightspot—considers the business as a whole, not in individual parts. This allows transformation to start with what you already have, rather than requiring completely new systems and processes, which means faster and more agile transformation.
  • Workflows: In order to operate with flexibility and speed, businesses need control over how they work. Custom workflows mean organizations can streamline how they create, manage, edit and publish content. Brightspot’s Workflow Engine allows teams greater control of when and how work gets done, and takes the burden off ever having to involve your IT teams in establishing, modifying and extending your workflows. It really is a simple as drag-and-draw for workflows that can be as detailed and as specific as you need.
  • Flexibility and speed: At the most basic level, agility means the ability to move quickly. Brightspot GO—Brightspot’s new offering that packages the power of the Brightspot Business Content Platform into a ready-to-build version—supports organizations in launching their own dynamic digital experiences at astonishing speed.
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Agility in 2021 and beyond

Businesses today are seeking agile CMS solutions since flexibility and speed have never been more desired. The days of stagnant systems and replicating outdated processes are over, and in a world that moves as fast as ours, businesses need to keep pace.

Having agility and speed doesn’t mean forfeiting something else. It means the flexibility to be able to do what you want when you want to, and get your business to its next phase of transformation when it matters. The agility extends to having the digital platform in place to adapt as your business needs and priorities evolve.

Whatever the term the industry uses to characterize the systems built to deliver "modern, digital, internet-powered experiences," Brightspot has been an agile CMS since its inception. With our central tenets of extensible architecture, integration readiness and purposeful partnership with each of our customers, agility is at the heart of everything we do. Contact us today to book a demo and find out more.

Start building in a free trial environment, see a demo or talk to an expert—select one of these paths and start however you would like to!

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