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Case Study

Web CMS Evaluation and Recommendation

The American Prospect

Background:The American Prospect is the authoritative magazine of liberal ideas, committed to a just society, an enriched democracy, and effective liberal politics. An important tool in the mission of the Prospect is its web presence. After many years with the same site functionality and an older, unsupported system producing it, the Prospect needed to revamp the site design and functionality, and implement a back-end system that could grow with them.

Strategy: Really Strategies took a holistic approach to the project, considering not only the specifics of the content and publishing systems, but also the current status and needs of other related systems, such as search, access control, and subscription management that would need to be integrated into the environment. Really Strategies worked with American Prospect to plan a realistic schedule for the project, including selection of a graphic designer, Web CMS, and integration partner. For the Web CMS selection, Really Strategies worked with the team to outline high-level requirements for the site, simple wire frames, and an RFP that was sent to a number of vendors. Really Strategies then helped narrow down and ultimately select a vendor to implement a Web CMS and develop the web site.

Result: With the help of Really Strategies, American Prospect had a realistic schedule to follow and made progress in moving forward with the launch of its next generation web presence. After an in-depth analysis and vendor review, the incumbent vendor was selected. During the process, it was revealed that American Prospect was using an older version of the software, which was one of the reasons (among others) why it was not meeting current needs. Really Strategies worked with both the vendor and American Prospect to reconcile those issues and re-establish an ongoing relationship with the vendor. This ended up saving American Prospect migration and transition costs that occur with any vendor change, but still gave them a solution that works for them in the long term.

"Really Strategies' support and direction as project leaders helped us make an informed decision regarding our Web CMS upgrade. They made certain we made the right decision for our publishing environment and our budget."

Erin Pressley, Managing Editor, American Prospect

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