In an effort to help companies curb spending on content management over content creation, CrownPeak Technology, the Marina Del Ray, Calif.-based content management Application Service provider (ASP), today unveiled its ROI calculator, a new tool for determining return on investment of a firm’s content management initiatives.
“Return on investment is clearly the mantra of every organization that outsources services, and the recession has only increased the importance of quantifying ROI,” says Jim Howard, CEO of CrownPeak Technology. This is why he believes that companies need an objective framework with which to determine how much it costs to manage content.
“Organizations should be spending 75 percent of their content-related budgets on content creation and 25 percent on content management — instead of the reverse, which is too often the case today,” says Howard.
The tool also provides companies with a framework for evaluating and correcting the balance between content management and content development.
The calculator performs ‘Return on Investment Analysis for Content Management and Digital Asset Management,’ which is made up of 40 questions and formulas for determining both hard and soft returns for various scenarios in both management functions.
A large part of the analysis (two-thirds) focuses on hard numbers associated with questions including ‘How much did your organization spend on outsourced Web content updating last year?’; ‘How many hours per month does your organization spend coding HTML?’ and ‘How much time does your organization spend per month re-creating content in multiple forms?’.
But the calculator also includes a series of digital asset management queries such as; ‘How many hours/month are spent in your organization re-creating or searching for lost assets?’ and qualitative questions for determining ‘softer’ ROI including: ‘Has your organization been able to enforce style sheets and design consistency on its Web properties?’; ‘Has your organization lost customers or potential customers because the content or experience on your Web site(s) has been poor?’; ‘Are your valuable technical and marketing staff spending their time on improving your core business and customer experience or are they consumed with the mechanics of managing and updating content?’.
Howard explains that content and asset management systems can save a companies money, but they can be costly to implement which is why he advises their goal should be to, “cost-effectively implement systems or rent services that provide quick ROI and demonstrably improve the productivity and results from Web properties.”
Crownpeak’s ROI Calculator is accessible from the firm’s corporate Web site.
