Content Management Expenditures Out of Whack? CrownPeak Technology Develops First Calculator to Determine ROI from Content and Digital Asset Management.

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

MARINA DEL REY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 8, 2001

In the belief that organizations are spending too much to manage content at the expense of content creation, CrownPeak Technology, the premier content management ASP, today unveiled an exclusive "ROI calculator" on its Web site at www.crownpeak.com.

The new tool enables companies to determine the return on investment of content management initiatives, and provides a framework for evaluating -- and correcting -- the balance between content management and content development. Increasingly, Fortune 1000 companies find themselves spending far more to manage content than to create it. The CrownPeak ROI calculator is the first tool to address the return equation for content management.

CrownPeak's "Return on Investment Analysis for Content Management and Digital Asset Management" consists of 40 questions and formulas aimed at determining hard and soft returns for various content and digital asset management scenarios. Two-thirds of the analysis zeroes in on hard numbers associated with content management ("How much did your organization spend on outsourced Web content updating last year?"; "How many hours per month does your organization spend coding HTML?"; "How much time does your organization spend per month re-creating content in multiple forms?").

The CrownPeak ROI calculator also includes a series of digital asset management queries ("How many hours/month are spent in your organization re-creating or searching for lost assets?") and qualitative questions aimed at determining "softer" returns on investment ("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?").

"Return on investment is clearly the mantra of every organization that outsources services, and the recession has only increased the importance of quantifying ROI," said Jim Howard, CEO, CrownPeak Technology. "Companies need a proven, objective framework with which to determine how much it costs to manage content. Our analysis tool accurately calculates that cost and can serve as a valuable decision tool in saving time, money and energy.

"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," said Howard. "Unfortunately, people responsible for generating good content spend most of their time making sure everything works, writing HTML, changing out images, talking to the Web shop, etc. It would be vastly better if talented staff could spend their time working on developing content and marketing to their audience.

"Content and asset management systems can save a great deal of money for companies, but they can be costly to implement," continued Howard. "The goal is to cost-effectively implement systems or rent services that provide quick ROI and demonstrably improve the productivity and results from Web properties. The so-called `softer' benefits of content management systems -- having a standard look-and-feel and information architecture, being able to easily publish multilingual content, being able to work easily with your ad agency and other divisions -- likewise contribute to ROI by redeploying the Webmaster and ultimately creating a higher quality site."

About CrownPeak Technology

Based in Marina del Rey, CrownPeak Technology is the first company to provide world-class content management as a service, so that secure, feature-rich, enterprise level technology can be made available economically. As an Application Service Provider (ASP), CrownPeak builds and hosts easy-to-use CMS administrative interfaces and pushes the final assembled pages to client Web servers. CrownPeak thereby provides integration into existing Web sites without the cost and hassle of installing, integrating, and maintaining complex CMS software.