It’s absolutely true that the source code is available at no cost.  But source code is a complex tool, not an outcome (website).  What you then need to factor is the costs associated with using that tool which may be significant. 

Before you can lay down your first line of code, you have to install and maintain a hardware environment that’s compliant.  Next, you’ll need professional, technical resources that can develop that source code into a functional framework for your sites.  There are literally thousands of redevelopers making a healthy living out of making open source work and that money is coming from somewhere.  Or you may have this skill in house, but chances are that’s not free either—you’re probably paying your employees.  At the very least, there are opportunity costs of using your IT staff for website deployment and maintenance.

Once your code diverges from the core, you’re less able to leverage updates, features or bug fixes that are happening in the open source core.  You can certainly mirror those items in your own version, but that won’t be free either.  If you don’t keep up, there’s a risk that your sites end up on a burning platform.  With web practices and standards ever changing, this risk is real.

At this point, you’ve also created a couple dependencies.  Your development partner (if you’re not doing it yourself), owns the keys to your web kingdom, and you’ll be fully dependent on them for functional changes.  While you may be able to manage your own content easily, your ability to develop new navigation and incorporate other customized elements could be severely constrained.  We have quite a bit of experience picking up projects from companies that have taken a DIY approach or have been sold promises on the cheap only to find later they needed to start all over.   Most franchisors and associations aren’t prepared for this commitment as it draws resources away from their core business.

So what are the advantages of Open Source?  Well, to begin with it is free and if you’re a technically robust organization, it’s a viable alternative especially when you have ample resource bandwidth in IT.  And you can do whatever you want with it, but it’s a long-term commitment of resources.  This should lead to some high-level questions:

Question #1 is: 

Do we have plenty of technical resources to apply to this project?” 

If not, then Question #2 is:  “

Do we have ample funding to acquire the outside technical resources for this project?”

If you’re still going, then Question #3 is:

“Are we ready to commit financial and/or personnel resources for the long-term, as this will essentially be a build (vs. buy) commitment to technology?”

And finally, Question #4 is:

“Do we have plenty of time for prototyping, testing and code revision?”

In summary, open source is not a solution that pops out of the box ready to go.  If you’re searching for a web-based CMS to enable your non-technical users to communicate online, then there’s something self-defeating about needing a lot of technical support.  It’s like inheriting a set of mechanics tools. . .just having them doesn’t confer the ability to repair automobiles.  This is where commercial CMS packages may have a much clearer advantage, providing they don’t replicate the same liabilities of cost, time and technical care and feeding of site and content management.  They aren’t monolithic in their abilities and require diligence when evaluating as well. 

I’ll be addressing the commercial CMS option in next week’s posting and we’ll explore total cost of ownership factors for both open and commercial CMS. 

As it turns out, webtreepro’s design allows them to accomplish the same goal but with only having to publish once. As part of their implementation we developed a template that will be used for all their sites. But then we vary the color elements to reflect the look of each corporation creating what we call a “skin”. This skin becomes the default “look and feel” for each account’s site.

Now, when the travel company want to add a new page it will appear using the default skin for each account’s site–in essence, the page wears the right colors and it’s all automatic.

Using webtreepro’s publishing capability, when the travel company is adding pages or content, they can select which of their corporate account sites should get it. Evidently, there is some variation of the content across the accounts and because webtreepro supports publishing to “one, some, or all” sites, the process is just as fast and efficient.

Finally, we’re giving them some other capability they’ve never had. They can now create pages and content that their account contacts can access and maintain directly. Their customers can now participate by adding their own content, policy notifications, and downloadable documents without having to wait. And the travel company doesn’t have to worry that their global content is compromised because it’s locked down.

Ultimately, the program adds to the value proposition that this travel company is able to offer current and prospective customers at a remarkably low cost of acquisition. Travel margins are narrow so productivity tools need to be priced within and easy to maintain.

That’s why they picked webtreepro.

Website presence offers some particular challenges to franchisors, dealerships and associations. These types of organization need to preserve their brand and speak with one voice. But this often conflicts with the benefit of having multiple, locally relevant sites for a greater footprint on the web and better visitor experience.

Virtual Presence = Physical Presence
If you’re operating a franchise or dealership model, you go to great pains to make sure there’s a store everywhere you can put one, and that they all reflect your standards. So why wouldn’t you want the same for your online presence?

You should have a site for every location (to make sure it’s locally relevant) and they should all maintain your standards. Seems simple enough, right?

The Catch-22
On the one hand. . .
You can control your brand identity by having one, monolithic site, but you may miss out on having a bigger footprint with multiple sites. Plus, your local franchisees, dealers or association chapters have limited, or no local voice. This doesn’t make them happy, and doesn’t serve the site visitor with local relevance.

On the other hand. . .
If you deploy individual sites for each local unit, you run the risk of your brand being compromised on each local edition. In fact, the bigger your franchise, the more risk you assume. You size should be an asset, but on the web becomes a liability since there are so many more “versions” of your brand.

Using both hands. . .
If you wanted it both ways, you could retain publishing control over all your sites. This means that all local updating must be submited to, and published by, headquarter staff. If you have just a handful of sites, this is d0-able, but inefficient. If you have many sites, it becomes highly impractical and costly. In fact, two hands may not be enough.

So what’s a brand or organization manager to do?

You’d think in this era where technology and marketing/communication is merging, there’d be a better way. We did! As software architects with deep ties to the franchise industry, we couldn’t understand why there wasn’t a better solution. Beyond what we already knew about franchising, we asked franchisors what would make a real difference in their online presence.

Here’s what they told us:

• We should be able to deploy an unlimited number of sites and then maintain electronic control of all the look, feel, branding and messages that appeared on them.
• We don’t want to manage all the local content, so we need to enable each site’s “owner” to add some local color too. Many businesses promote differently by region/season, and our franchisees want to be able to promote the goods and services that do well in their communities.
• We must retain control over how much a franchisee or local owner can do, and we need to be able to access their sites so we can take care of anything that’s out of bounds
• Our users have a wide range of skills, so it’s gotta be pretty simple to use–but we also need to have sites that look and act modern, so it must be powerful
• We need the ability to change a message, promotion or other content so that it instantly appears on each site in the network, without having to do this manually on each site or depend on the local owner.
• We absolutely must have sites that are search-engine friendly and let us take advantage of tools and analytics that improve our chances

Really, is that asking too much?

What we came up with is a product that’s purpose-built for franchises, dealerships and associations. You build, edit and host your sites on a single platform that’s in the hands of the communicators. It’s add-water-and-stir.

The implementation model is simple. . . we set up an organization “Parent” site using their design. Once that process is done (usually a week–two at most), we conduct initial online user training, and the business people take over. . . adding pages, content and even instantly creating child sites for each local unit. We find the learning curve is about a week, because all editing is done truly inline–you’re creating and editing content just as it appears on the page. In other words, you don’t need to learn a lot of new process because it’s a lot like what you already know.

Pricing is scaled to the size of the organization and the number of sites they’ll have. But most of our customers are pretty surprised with how low it is.

To keep it simple, we decided to make it available in the SaaS model (Software-as-a-Service), so it’s completely web-based. No hardware, no software, no maintenance releases and no “reaching back into your pocket” by forcing you to buy upgrades.

On a recent (and rare) day off, I got an email from a brand new customer asking if I could help them with a need for their site. They had just signed up for some third-party content and forgot how to make it appear on their pages. Fortunately, I was at the library with my kids, and they were engrossed in their books. So, I logged into their site, made the necessary settings and had their content showing within two minutes. This was something they could have done just as quickly, but we’re always there to help out too!

Does everything have to be so complicated?
Anyway, the point is that marketing and other communication needs to happen in real-time if it’s to achieve any sort of results. For too long, this process has relied on too many people and too many moving parts. To quote a former colleague from my time in franchise, “Why does it have to be so complicated?”

We say, “It doesn’t.”