A company can pursue its digital strategy more efficiently thanks to a CMS. Through its website, it must not only communicate effectively, but it must also involve users and potential customers and offer ever-better digital experiences. Among the many software available, Drupal CMS is chosen by enterprise companies also because it can provide users with a coherent and personalised multi-channel digital experience.
The term CMS, the acronym for Content Management System, indicates a software tool that allows a company to take advantage of editorial functions for creating websites, and the publication and management of static and dynamic content.
The way of communicating and using the Internet has changed over the years. Channels have multiplied and user expectations have never been higher. For organizations, delivering a consistent and personalised digital experience across all digital touchpoints has become increasingly complex.
Today more than a CMS as a simple content management system is needed. Companies need platforms that allow them to publish, manage and update content simultaneously on different devices, screens and channels.
The customer (therefore the user) is more and more at the centre, and guaranteeing them an optimal digital experience is essential for having a strong brand and long-lasting customer loyalty. To improve the User Experience and cultivate a relationship of trust with the customer, innovative IT solutions are needed: the choice of the most adequate CMS proves to be increasingly strategic for structured companies.
Along with the development of technologies, the needs of the market have grown. The needs of organizations have become exponentially complex and therefore the list of CMS requirements has also lengthened. To name a few: you need to maintain multiple websites, serve social media channels, feed mobile apps and chatbots with content, and respond to voice services like Alexa.
To accomplish this task, the CMS must be able to address different data sources and work with several other software solutions. It must integrate with eCommerce systems, data warehouse, CRM, asset management (DAM), Product Information Management Systems (PIM), or with special web solutions such as voice conversions, web analytics, retargeting software or others.
The best answer to complexity is represented by Digital Experience Platforms (DXP). Analyst firm Gartner describes them as "an integrated set of technologies built on a common platform that provides a broad audience with consistent, secure, and personalised access to information and applications across a large number of digital channels."
In other words, DXPs enable organizations to deliver an optimal and consistent digital experience to their users.
Drupal has had an incredible evolution in recent years. Especially after the Drupal 9 update and the most recent Drupal 10 release, which has brought further improvements in terms of new features and improvement of existing ones.
Thanks to the profiling and analysis functions, which can be integrated within the Drupal CMS, organizations can produce and manage content centrally, being able to customise it according to the user's interests and habits, and simultaneously update content on different channels, such as a web page, customer portals, apps, in-store displays or other types of devices.
Drupal represents the product that best embodies the evolution from CMS to DXP. Its peculiarities make it the ideal platform to use as a foundation for the development of a customised DXP.
Now, let's take a step back. What are the peculiarities of Drupal that drive companies like The Economist, NASA and the University of Oxford to choose it? (On the official website you will find many other interesting Success Stories).
We can say that Drupal is the CMS capable of guaranteeing a level of quality, robustness and extensibility capable of meeting the needs of companies of all sizes, including enterprises. The main features of Drupal can be summarized in four macro areas:
We have already covered in depth the different advantages of Drupal. In order not to repeat ourselves, we have tried to classify the different users of the CMS, specifying how each of them benefits, based on their duties and responsibilities, from using Drupal.
So far we have only talked about Drupal. However, the CMS offering is quite wide: on the one hand there are proprietary CMSs and on the other, open-source CMSs. As for the latter, Drupal and WordPress continue to compete for market share.
We are not interested in making a long and exhausting comparison, you will find the web full of them. We are only interested in highlighting a couple of aspects for each solution (true, we have biases, we admit it, but because over the years we have built up such an expertise that has allowed us to make a choice of field substantiated by concrete projects and use cases).
WordPress is famous for its installation “which lasts five minutes at most”. Most WordPress hosting providers also offer installation included. This deep integration with hosting providers makes it an instant choice for building a website.
Basic WordPress doesn't support more than one language, but some great plugins make it easy to create a multilingual site with WordPress. There is a rich catalogue of extensions and the constant support of an open source community and professionals able to support in case of problems or high customization needs. In terms of security, compared to Drupal, WordPress is much more exposed to possible attacks.
Since version 8, the Drupal installation - like all code management systems - has proved to be decidedly better than that of other CMSs, confirming Drupal's vocation for enterprise companies.
Drupal provides the system administrator with specific commands that can be automated for:
All these features are reflected in a reduction of manual intervention and, therefore, of the error, raising the general quality of the product and freeing up resources for growth.
WordPress and Drupal are market-leading products. The choice, therefore, falls on the product that requires the least number of trade-offs and in most scenarios Drupal has enough flexibility to excel in this last area of comparison.
In the broader context of Digital Experience Platforms, we can say that Drupal can be a key technology enabler for companies and brands. It provides the various business teams with the tools to navigate the digital complexity in which they operate today.
In addition to the excellent standard features that we have summarised in this article, what distinguishes Drupal is its flexibility: modularity is one of its fundamental principles. One or more modules can be added to expand the functionality, the graphic themes can be alternated to customize the presentation of the contents and the headless mode allows data to be provided in real-time to different types of devices, optimizing the multi-channel experience. All with reduced overhead costs, thanks to the open-source license.
Finally, through its content management capabilities and API First architecture, Drupal CMS provides flexibility and efficiency. And that is why every organization seeks to adapt its editorial workflows, related information architecture and content strategy. In other words, it to be as omnichannel as possible and close to its market segment.
For all these reasons, Drupal is the privileged CMS on which to build the best digital experience for its users. Are you interested in learning more? If you are looking for advice on Drupal or a partner to develop your site we can help you: take a look at our services.