Imagine a company (Company X) that secures funding and outsources the development of its platform to an agency that develops from scratch a CMS (Content Management System) in order to cope with the list of requirements.

After some time the project is struggling with some challenges, namely:

1. No one seems to know when the project is ready for launch – the deadline slips and client testing always seems to identify further issues than need addressing before launch.
2. No one knows if the system is able to deal with the expected Web traffic – a peak is expected as a result of media coverage & planned marketing campaigns for the launch but no one knows if the system will be able to handle it.
3. Basic functionality seems to always be missing – basic features like ‘have a password forget option‘ or ‘ability to support article revisions’ are classified as ‘difficult and costly to implement‘ and come at an extra-cost and more time added to the launch schedule.

Now imagine company Y, that decides to go with WordPress and thus starts with a full featured open-source CMS that already implements a lot of the needed requirements. There is some functionality that will need to be custom built but they know they can assemble a local supplier that works with WordPress to deliver the remaining requirements. Which company would you like to be?

If you choose Y it is the right decision, let me explain why:

  – You will be focusing the development effort on what is specific to the project – not in functionality that is common to all websites.

  – By adopting WordPress’s best practices you stand on the shoulders of giants – with the solid development of WordPress core (and some WordPress plugins).

 – Through the correct choice of plugins and frequent updates you guarantee a high level of security.

  – You have access to services and professionals experienced in securing fast, scalable and secure WordPress hosting.

  – You are better able to recruit (temporarily or permanently) professionals – these will have an extremely short learning curve.

  – You correctly position your technological “Ethos” with the Open Source community – which is the one that best innovates on the Web.

  – You do not isolate yourself.

By leveraging all the work that has gone into WordPress from thousands of contributions from all around the world of volunteers and companies you will be able to finally launch and get business going. If you decide to go with a coded from scratch CMS I can only imagine the hazardous path that lays ahead and the thousand of Euros lost in missed opportunities and delayed timeline.

Still today we see clients going through the same mistake. I tell them:

– “developing a CMS from scratch nowadays days is suicidal.”

They are either more optimistic than me or haven’t gone through the experience!

WordPress is both free and priceless. No private company on earth can compete with thousands of volunteers and companies putting development hours into the project. Why wouldn’t you want to leverage that power? Especially when it is available for free? I rather think of it as priceless.

Every business must rethink their online presence, making it more dynamic, more social and mobile in order to capture the attention as well as the spending in this current crowded market.

We don’t have all the answers, but we have a lot of experience working with businesses and a lot of advice to give on how to level up your website.

If you are interested in seeing how you can improve, drop us a line and we’ll follow up.