The Who, What, When, Where and Why of CMS:

A CMS or "content management system" is, most simply, a system which manages a collaborative enterprise. In an internet based medium the CMS format is often used to create websites which host a community of web developers that assist internet users in creating and customizing websites. Joomla, Drupal and Wordpress are popular examples of these types of sites, each of which are open source and cost little to nothing for users to utilize. Many of these sites, Wordpress especially, have the tendency to clothe themselves as simple blogging tools but more and more as these websites continue to improve larger business are using these CMS sites to launch their own company websites.  Sarah Gooding sums it up best when she says "There’s no need to re-invent the wheel" in her article 6 Reasons Big Companies Need WordPress. She goes further to list six reasons (of which I chose the top three) why Wordpress (or more broadly any CMS site) benefit larger companies:

• Open source means big savings; no licensing fees and oodles of  free stylish templates mean that the company is putting less money into their website development, and saving money is always a good thing.
• Usability; using a CMS to create a website is very different from creating a website from scratch. These websites are made to be user friendly, and Wordpress specifically is so simplistic that it requires absolutely no coding knowledge to be able to use.
• Massive developer community; each CMS website is comprised of a large developer community who are constantly tweaking and improving the coding know-how available to the general user. Troubleshooting with a CMS is incredibly easy, visit a forum or check a blog and answers to any problem will be available.

Kat Liendgens parallels these reasons in her article Why Wordpress Can Be a Great CMS for Business while including that the availability of plug-ins and the reduced design time provided by CMS sites is particularly useful for businesses.

It's important to have an internet presence for businesses, some would argue necessary for survival. But getting up online doesn't have to be the twelve labors. CMS sites are out there to make it easier, to make it better. Businesses can sleep more soundly at night knowing that CMS sites are awake and getting better and better every minute.