Most non-technical users of a CMS don’t care much about “backend” technical details. While technology is not their responsibility, they are still affected by technology choices. They want to make sure the technology chosen supports their needs and doesn’t create headaches later on. That’s where CaaS is different.

By taking a technology-agnostic approach toward content, CaaS makes the work of writers, marketers, and content strategists easier and less disruptive.

Depend on a More Stable Content System

The entire content team depends on their CMS to manage and publish content. Yet many teams have to work with CMSs that aren’t nearly as stable as they should be. Their CMS may use a crazy quilt of different plug-ins from various vendors, which can trigger a raft of technical problems: bugs, security holes, and performance problems.

CaaS is more resilient than a conventional CMS. Instead of relying on a random bunch of plug-ins, CaaS uses APIs and microservices to connect together different capabilities. This benefits everyone. Functional capabilities can be modular and operate independently of one another. With CaaS, teams avoid the risks of system-wide problems triggered by faulty plug-ins. 

Remove Bottlenecks in Content Operations

CaaS is a service: it is designed to serve the needs of those who create and manage content. It’s a service that aims to be always available and always ready. Editorial teams don’t have to wait while IT does software upgrades. They can avoid two dreaded situations: the code freeze, and the content freeze. 

When there’s a code freeze, the website can’t be updated. Marketers often worry about their website crashing during a peak period because of some minor change that happened in the code on the backend. To avoid that possibility, the enterprise issues a code freeze for a period. But necessary maintenance gets deferred, creating its own risks. 

Updating the website can also result in a content freeze. Sometimes doing a redesign can prevent teams from adding or editing content for several weeks! And writers can also get disrupted by other kinds of developer activities, such as bug fixes or code changes that are unrelated to the content. Needless to say, these situations aren’t very agile.

Gain Peace of Mind During Changes

With CaaS, the software is always upgrading and improving, just like familiar online consumer services. Writers and marketers don’t have to wait months for the next release to get new features or enjoy improvements. Improvements happen continuously. Some improvements are introduced and evaluated by users in real-time, which gives people the chance to try a new feature or a change and provide feedback on whether it would be valuable to roll out to everyone. 

CaaS incorporates an approach known as continuous integration and continuous development (CI/CD), which provides many benefits for developers, and helps to ensure that updates and upgrades aren’t disruptive to writers and editors. Editorial teams don’t have to wait for developers to finish implementing code changes. They can keep working. 

CaaS’s technology-agnostic approach delivers important benefits to distributed content teams. Consider a situation where IT staff are located in a different office—or perhaps even a different country. It can be difficult for writers and editors to coordinate with them. With a traditional CMS, the content design and IT implementation are tightly coupled, and as a result, writers can be highly dependent on developers to make simple changes. With CaaS, writers and developers can work on tasks independently of each other. The difficulties of coordination between editorial and technical teams based in different locations are bypassed.

Select the Right Capabilities for Your Needs

Another benefit of CaaS is that it connects with an extensive range of technologies—without creating brittle dependences. Again, this may not seem important to authors or marketers, but it provides them with choices they previously lacked.

The editorial team will likely have opinions about different options. What’s the best tool for checking writing quality? What’s the best Digital Asset Management system to use? Which optimization tool is best? With CaaS, editorial teams can make choices without IT telling them it’s not technically possible. They can choose to use whichever supporting tools and supporting IT systems makes the most sense, based on their preferences, internal requirements, and budget.

Teams can upgrade or swap out supporting tools later on, without disrupting their content operations.

See Results Faster

Nothing is as demotivating as starting a new project and waiting seemingly forever to see it implemented. The excitement of a new initiative turns into exasperation that the initiative will never get delivered. Unfortunately, many web projects do seem to drag on and on before being launched.

With CaaS, new projects can be implemented quickly, often in a few weeks. Writers working on new projects can see content live soon after creating the content. 

Worry Less about Technology

In summary, CaaS means writers, editors, marketers, and strategists don’t need to worry about technology. CaaS opens up fresh possibilities for them.   

Not that long ago, when people wanted to watch a movie at home, they needed to obtain a copy of a videotape or a DVD. They even needed to worry about whether that videotape or DVD was compatible with their own equipment.  Fortunately, such hassles are a thing of the past. Now people can instantly watch streaming videos from a service such as Netflix.

Content management is making a similar transition toward being a service. Editorial teams don’t want to worry about technical compatibilities. They want a reliable service they can use anytime and anywhere they need it. That’s what CaaS offers.