When looking at content management systems (CMS), scalability refers to the ability to expand and grow your site with more content, capabilities, features, and functionality.

Your CMS is a long-term investment, and its scalability will have a strong influence on whether or not that investment is successful.

“When sustainable business growth is a top strategic objective, you need full confidence that your web presence can seamlessly scale and evolve to support that growth.”

This requires a platform that allows you to quickly and easily create new features and functionality. Ideally, you should be able to do this without having to invest significant time and resources into additional costly development work.

WordPress is One of the Most Scalable Platforms Around

Evidence of WordPress’s great scalability can be found in the fact that almost 45% of the world’s websites are built on the platform. That includes global enterprises such as investment firm Blackstone, research and advisory leader Forrester, the NHS England, and leading pharmaceutical company Hutch Med.

This is because WordPress websites can seamlessly scale as your needs change and your business grows. You can easily add a high volume of new content to your site at speed without compromising on quality. 

WordPress is also renowned for how easily you, or your development partner, can build bespoke features and functionality, so your site can keep evolving with new capabilities to support more advanced requirements. 

“No matter the size or complexity of your site, WordPress can provide fast, intuitive development capabilities with ongoing growth acting as a natural outcome.”

Using WordPress at Scale 

Developing, managing, and maintaining a high-performance website at scale is a complex challenge. For that reason, it’s important to work with an experienced web design and development agency who can enable continual growth and support you through it.

Part of your agency’s services will include configuring your platform, and building your site in the back-end, in a way that encourages long-term scalability. We’ll explain our own approach to this in more detail in the next section. But first, let’s look at some of the fundamental ways to use WordPress at scale: 

Bespoke Features and Functionality

If you want to build out your website with new capabilities, WordPress stands above all its competitors thanks to its ability to develop bespoke features that are unique to your site. 

WordPress is built on PHP, which is the most popular development language around, as it’s currently used by over three quarters (77.5%) of all websites with a known server-side programming language. With PHP, WordPress has a significant advantage over other CMSs, because it allows you to create virtually anything and integrate it with the platform.

Selecting an agency partner with WordPress-specific skills provides you with the opportunity to leverage the platform for almost limitless scalability, among other benefits. 

WordPress Plugins 

WordPress also comes with a vast range of plugins, which can help with adding to, and enhancing, the existing functionality of your site. Plugins are an essential aspect of WordPress development, but it’s crucial that you only choose the most reputable, tested, and proven plugins. 

Your agency partner should be experienced in this plugin selection and use their past experience to recommend the best ones to use for your specific requirements. Your agency partner should also be able to advise you on how plugins will scale with increases in website size or traffic volume to help preserve your site’s performance.

Using plugins that are not regularly updated, or that come from unknown development owners, could harm your site by making it heavier, slowing down your page loading times, and possibly even creating security vulnerabilities. 

Using a particularly large number of plugins is another situation that could result in slower loading speeds or other performance issues. Be mindful that use of plugins can reduce the bespoke development time needed to build your site, and the use of too many plugins could cause performance issues. If you find yourself in this situation, it could be an indication that your development partner might actually be taking shortcuts.

The Importance of a Trusted Partner 

Whether you’re using plugins or building new bespoke features, your agency will be able to take care of all of these crucial aspects of your development for you. Their support and guidance will ensure you can expand your site freely without running into any technical issues. 

Once you have everything you need in place, your agency will then be able to accelerate the speed at which you can scale moving forward. A great agency partner will also provide you with ongoing education and support, allowing you and your team to build your site out easily and efficiently by yourself too, whenever you want or need to.

Taking a More Scalable Approach – Building with Blocks 

While many agencies still use a more traditional method of developing sites with WordPress, taking a block-based approach provides even greater opportunities for dynamic scalability. 

As an alternative to the time-consuming practice of inputting text and images into a rich text editor in your CMS, the block-based approach allows you to create each page on your site more easily with a set of pre-built components. 

Components are blocks of code with pre-defined style and input types. You can use and re-use these components across multiple pages of your site to scale it at a much faster pace. Any time you want to create a high volume of new content, you simply pick your already-built components and place them in the correct positions. 

This is an approach that enables virtually limitless growth of your website at speed with a high level of quality and accuracy. Building components that can be reused across your site will also deliver added benefits like increased efficiency and reduced costs. This in turn provides you with more time to focus on developing better services and experiences for your site visitors. 

The block-based approach to building websites is another way to make your WordPress platform leaner for better performance as well, because it removes the need for a bloated library of unnecessary plugins and features. 

You can read a more in-depth explanation of how to use this block-based approach for your own benefit in our related article here. 

An Enterprise-Grade CMS 

Scalability should be a key aspect of your criteria when selecting a CMS to build a website. Rapid growth and flexibility are crucial for your platform of choice.

Despite some still mistakenly thinking it might not be up to the task, you can use WordPress to build large, robust, high-performance sites at speed, and easily adapt them as your requirements change. 

This arguably makes WordPress one of – if not the – best CMS options available today. When you look at some of the world’s leading businesses currently using the platform to great success, that argument becomes much easier to appreciate.

Like with any CMS, though, the key to successful scalability is having the support of an experienced, trusted agency partner behind you, ensuring you’re leveraging the platform to its full potential. 

If you’d like more support in selecting the right CMS for your business, read our in-depth guide to understanding and evaluating the enterprise options for bespoke development.

Evaluating and selecting the best option for a bespoke web development project is an important decision, with a lot riding on it. But with so many technology providers, platforms, and agency partners out there today, that decision can be overwhelming. 

In this article, we’ll guide you through this evaluation process, explore the options available, and help you choose the right technology platform for your own web development project.

We all know that a large business or enterprise relies on technology to function. With dozens of sites across different countries, hundreds of employees, and thousands of customers, technology is the heartbeat of your organisation.

You need sophisticated technology to facilitate mission-critical digital assets like your website, mobile applications, staff portals, communications channels, and various other systems. Many businesses also leverage technology to facilitate processes or capabilities that are entirely unique to the organisation, like internal training platforms or bespoke tools for certain departments. 

With that in mind, it’s important to find a platform that can meet your specific requirements and enable you to accomplish your strategic objectives. 

Modern enterprise systems need to be dynamic, scalable, and intuitive, and achieving that involves some complexity behind the scenes. For that reason, it’s often necessary to take the route of a bespoke development project to ensure your business gains exactly what it needs in terms of both functionality and capability.

A content management system (CMS) is the most common technology platform for businesses to deliver these projects, with almost two thirds (63%) of all sites on the Internet powered by a CMS today. This is a type of software used to build websites and similar systems, allowing you to easily create, edit, and publish digital content across a range of online channels and devices. But determining the best CMS, let alone choosing the right one for your own bespoke development project, can be a daunting challenge.

So, let’s explore the situations in which it’s wise to adopt a CMS to deliver a development project. We’ll then walk you through the next steps, giving you the confidence to make the best decisions for your business along the way. 

Enterprise Challenges with Technology 

There are plenty of situations in which a marketing team might be struggling to identify the right technology platform for a project like this. 

Perhaps you need to find a way to deliver something very niche, like building a new website or internal system from scratch. Maybe your project requires you to build a website on a new platform, and that platform needs to integrate with your internal systems like Salesforce, HubSpot, PowerBi, and other back-end applications.

Or, you may be trying to solve a challenge, like finding a suitable way to replace your current legacy systems. If, for example, your current website is built on a CMS like Drupal, and it’s no longer capable of meeting your requirements, you’ll need to find a new platform and migrate everything over.

A CMS is an ideal solution in each of these scenarios, and many others. Of course, with such a vast technology landscape to navigate, finding the right CMS is no easy task. It’s even difficult to know where to begin for most enterprise marketers.

So, let’s take a look at how you can approach this evaluation process in a cost-effective, efficient way.

How to Approach an Enterprise Web Development Project

Firstly, as an aside, it’s important to regularly review and reassess whether your CMS is fit for purpose, even if you don’t have an immediate requirement for something new. 

Modern technology is advancing so rapidly. With that, your users’ expectations – both employees and customers – are evolving as well. You need to keep up with the pace of change and ensure your technology can still meet the current demands it faces from those users.

Back to the task at hand, though. Before you begin looking into different CMS, you should try to define exactly what it is you need from them. 

Whether you’re building a bespoke website or migrating an existing site to a new platform, make sure you know exactly what you want to achieve by doing so. 

Start by asking questions like: 

• What’s the purpose of your project?
• What objectives do you want to achieve?
• What exactly are you looking to build?
• How much budget do you have to spend?
• What existing technology do you need to integrate with? 
• What features and functionality do you need?
• What skills and expertise do you have in-house?

Make sure you have a very specific brief and clear set of requirements to take to whichever solution providers and agencies you’ll be speaking to. If you don’t, you’ll struggle to fully understand whether the platforms you’re evaluating can actually deliver what you need.

Once you’ve got that, you can decide which approach is the best for your project. This could be: 

• Stick with your existing platform and update or build on to it
• Buy a custom, purpose-built, ‘out the box’ platform or piece of software 
• Work with an agency to adopt a new platform and/or build something bespoke.

It’s worth noting that most web development projects for large businesses will have complex requirements that are almost impossible to achieve without strategic guidance and ongoing support from an experienced partner. An agency partner will work closely with you to understand your strategic objectives and requirements, then provide you with platform-specific skills, tools, and expertise to achieve those. We’ll look at this in more detail later in the article. 

Defining Your Requirements 

As mentioned above, it’s important to have a specific set of objectives for your project and know what requirements are necessary to achieve those. These will also ensure the partner or agency you work with understands your brief and is able to deliver the exact finished product you’re looking for.

When scoping this out, there are some common capabilities and qualities most enterprise-grade platforms should have in order to meet expectations. Here are some things you should ensure your new platform – and the agency you work with, if you decide to go that route – can provide for your business:

• Bespoke development 
• Customisable design, features, and functionality 
• Migration from legacy systems to a new platform 
• Seamless scalability 
• A secure infrastructure
• Performance in peak traffic volumes
• Integration with back-end systems like Salesforce, HubSpot, PowerBi, and more
• Ease-of-use in both the front and back-end
• Quick and easy editing capabilities 
• Multi-site development for multiple languages across different countries
• Responsive or ‘headless’ design for web and mobile, enabling omni-channel customer experience.

Your Options for Enterprise CMS 

Drupal 

Drupal is popular among enterprises because it’s a highly secure platform. It’s also great if your team contains technical resources with good coding ability, as it’s very intuitive for people that have more advanced content management skills. 

On the other hand, Drupal can be very difficult to get up and running, and is lacking in terms of simplicity. Because of this, your agency costs will also likely be higher than with other CMSs if you take that route. 

Even if you do have that technical skill in your team, however, the platform itself is somewhat limited with customisation. It’s also worth noting that the version of Drupal most businesses currently use (Drupal 7) is soon reaching end-of-life. This has caused many Drupal users to migrate their existing sites to new, more intuitive platforms, such as WordPress.

Sitecore 

Sitecore is a robust CMS that provides more capabilities than the average platform. It’s popular because it actually offers a fully-managed ‘digital experience platform’ that delivers most of the qualities mentioned in the previous section. 

Sitecore comes with a good level of personalisation and is well suited for bespoke development projects. However, it’s an expensive system, requiring the procurement of licenses to begin using it. It also restricts certain capabilities unless you progress to higher tiers (and costs) of your licenses. 

From a practical perspective, Sitecore operates on quite hierarchical, complex workflows, which may not suit more agile or smaller teams. 

Umbraco

The scalability of Umbraco is great for large organisations, as it allows you to manage a high volume of pages and build out your website to meet the changing needs of your business.

Similar to Drupal, Umbraco is mostly suitable for users with more advanced content management skills and some development experience. This makes it difficult to use for the average marketing team, which increases the likelihood of higher costs, either through more expensive agency projects or even the need to hire someone in-house.

WordPress 

WordPress is the platform that powers almost 45% of the world’s websites. It’s so popular because it’s affordable, flexible, dynamic, and very easy to use. 

There is a common misconception that WordPress isn’t robust or scalable enough for large businesses. However, this continues to be proven as a myth, as some of the biggest brands in the world are now using WordPress for their CMS, from Nike to Bloomberg.

We’ll provide a detailed breakdown of the benefits and advantages WordPress offers in the next section.

Which is the Best Option? 

It’s important to remember every web development project will be different, and each of these platforms are good options in their own way. That’s why you should make your decision based on the solution that best aligns with your objectives, requirements, budget, and other factors. 

One common point related to all these platforms that’s worth noting is that each of them are exponentially easier to use, and will deliver far greater return on investment (ROI), if you have the support of an experienced specialist partner to guide you. An agency with platform-specific skills and expertise will ensure your business gains the maximum value from the platform you select, and help you leverage it strategically to harness its full potential. 

Business Benefits and Opportunities with WordPress

Using WordPress is an excellent option for any business. For large organisations in particular, there are a number of qualities that make it particularly beneficial. 

Scalability and Agility 

The WordPress platform is highly scalable. This means that the size and complexity of your website, and the amount of traffic passing through it, won’t be a concern. WordPress can also grow with your business and easily adapt to continue meeting your changing needs. Scalability is one of WordPress’s most prominent advantages for enterprises.

Low TCO and Strong ROI  

Of all the options listed above, WordPress comes with the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO). Unlike most platforms, you won’t need to bolt on new features or capabilities with WordPress,  nor will you have to worry about costly extra work to manage platform upgrades or updates. Additionally, because WordPress is so flexible and rich with dynamic features and capabilities, it’s proven to deliver strong ROI. 

Flexibility and Customisation 

WordPress is ideal for a bespoke development project because it’s highly customisable. You can use its flexibility to build bespoke features and functionality into your website or create an entirely unique system.

Fast Time-to-Market 

Because of its great usability and simplicity, WordPress allows for a very fast time-to-market, meaning you can deliver your project quickly and efficiently. However, it should be noted that  most businesses will need the support of a skilled agency to be able to achieve that.

Integration 

WordPress is very easy to integrate with other systems, such as HubSpot, Salesforce, and others. This means your business will experience minimal disruption due to integration, whether migrating to WordPress or starting a new development project from scratch.

Usability 

In the back-end, WordPress is renowned for its usability. As a CMS, it’s extremely easy to use, meaning you can get up-to-speed quickly and share responsibilities across more members of your team. 

Performance 

The performance, speed, and ease-of-use with WordPress are all enterprise-grade when building websites on the platform. This means user adoption and retention will be high, ensuring the success of your project and driving greater ROI.

Long-Term Value

When working with WordPress, you’ll also gain advantages that will deliver added value to your business, especially if you have the support of a specialist partner who can help you unlock the full power of the technology. 

The project doesn’t stop with the initial implementation of WordPress, either. As your requirements change, or your project evolves, WordPress is the best platform to adapt with you and deliver value to your business in the long-term.  

Why WordPress is the Future of the Enterprise

WordPress is the most popular and widely used CMSs in the world today. And that popularity has been consistently spreading into the enterprise market over the past decade or so.

This is no coincidence, either. It’s unsurprising to see how quickly WordPress is growing in popularity, as more and more businesses realise the vast potential of the platform and the benefits it can deliver.

When taking into account its unprecedented scalability, flexibility, and usability, not to mention its low TCO, WordPress is one of the leading options for bespoke web development projects for large organisations.

When it comes to evaluating the options for your own project, remember to carefully consider how each platform aligns with your requirements and objectives. Once you’ve identified the CMS that is most suitable to deliver what you’re looking for, consider the value that could be added to your project by working with an agency partner who specialises in that technology. 

Digital markets have experienced significant growth and dominance by a few companies and their platforms, raising concerns about competition, consumer choice, and data access. To address these issues, both the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) have introduced regulatory reforms.

The EU has implemented the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA), while the UK has proposed the Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumer Bill (DMCCB) and the Online Safety Bill. 

We’ll look at the regulatory approaches taken by the EU and UK, highlighting similarities and differences in scope, applicability, the importance of consent and how to get started with compliance.

Data privacy regulations in the European Union 

The Digital Markets Act applies to companies designated as “gatekeepers” by the European Commission. Gatekeepers are the owners and providers of what the Commission identified as core platform services (CPS), such as search engines, social networking services, video-sharing platforms, and cloud computing services. 

Companies designated as gatekeepers must carry out self-assessments to determine that they have met and continue to meet both quantitative and qualitative criteria. The list of gatekeepers may grow or change over time based on these criteria. 

The quantitative criteria include a minimum annual turnover of €7.5 billion in the EU and at least 45 million active monthly users on the relevant platform or service in the last three financial years. Qualitative criteria consider the impact, importance, and market position of the CPS provider.

The DMA’s requirements are similar in many respects to those of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), but are broader in some ways, addressing additional access to and uses of end users’ personal data. 

Data privacy regulations in the United Kingdom 

The Data Protection Act 2018 (“DPA”) covers the general processing of personal data in the UK and came into force on 25 May 2018, just before the EU GDPR took effect.

Following the end of the Brexit Transition Period, the EU GDPR became part of UK law through the European Union Withdrawal Agreement, and the Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2019 (Exit Regulations). 

The EU GDPR gave rise to the UK GDPR, which came into force on January 1, 2021, as the EU GDPR no longer protected UK citizens’ data. It includes the provisions of the EU GDPR with only minimal changes to the core principles, rights and obligations for data protection.

The UK GDPR and the DPA 2018 (amended version) are now the principal data protection regulations in the UK. They require businesses to protect individuals’ data, obtain consent to collect and use it, and protect data subjects’ rights.

The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) implemented the EU’s ePrivacy Directive (Directive 2002/58/EC) and sets out privacy rights relating to electronic communications. The PECR came into force in 2003 and .

The “British DMA”: Enter the Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumer Bill (DMCCB)

In the U.K., Parliament has yet to pass the British equivalent of the DMA, the Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumer Bill, or the DSA equivalent, the Online Safety Bill.

The DMCCB applies to digital commercial operations in the UK or affecting the UK market, which are deemed to have Strategic Market Status (SMS). The definition of a digital activity is broad and includes any service provided via the internet. 

To qualify as an SMS, a firm must meet criteria such as conducting a digital activity linked to the UK, having substantial market power, and holding a position of strategic significance. Turnover thresholds of £25 billion global turnover and/or £1 billion UK turnover are also considered.

Obligations and requirements

European Union: Digital Markets Act

The DMA imposes various behavioral obligations on gatekeepers. These include allowing third-party interoperability, granting access to user-generated data, promoting fair competition, and prohibiting preferential treatment of the gatekeeper’s services. 

Gatekeepers must appoint compliance officers and submit annual compliance reports to the Commission. 

Additionally, gatekeepers are required to inform the Commission about mergers (any “intended concentration”  irrespective of whether they’re notifiable under the EU Merger Regulation or national merger rules. (DMA Art. 14.).

United Kingdom: Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill

Strategic Market Status (SMS) firms in the UK will be subject to strict behavioral obligations under the DMCCB. These obligations revolve around fair trading, open choices, trust, and transparency. 

The specific requirements will be tailored by the Digital Markets Unit (DMU) and the Office of Communications (Ofcom), the regulatory bodies overseeing the DMCCB and the Online Safety Bill, respectively. 

SMS firms must also report proposed acquisitions meeting certain thresholds to the DMU.

EU vs. UK processes

European Union: (Digital Markets Act)

The EU’s legislative-driven model designates gatekeepers based on size and imposes behavioral expectations through regulation. The European Commission develops and enforces these requirements for compliance from gatekeepers.

United Kingdom: Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill (DMCCB)

The UK’s approach involves more regulatory discretion. The DMU and Ofcom determine if a company has Strategic Market Status and tailor specific remedies accordingly. This approach allows for a more flexible and tailored oversight of digital platforms.

Participatory regulation

In the UK, both the DMU and Ofcom adopt a participatory regulation approach. This means regulators work closely with target companies to develop behavioral expectations and codes that can be enforced. The companies conduct their own Duty of Care analysis, which is reviewed by regulators that provide guidance and work collaboratively to define behavioral codes.

This means that beyond what’s defined by the two regulations, gatekeepers and SMS are required to determine their own privacy requirements to apply to third-party businesses using their services.

The importance of consent management for EU, EEA and UK companies

While both the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the United Kingdom’s Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill (DMCCB) emphasize the significance of obtaining user consent for data processing activities, there may be variations in specific requirements and implementation.

To address these differences and get ready for data privacy compliance, follow these steps:

1. Understand the regulations

Familiarize yourself with the specific consent requirements outlined in both the DMA and DMCCB. Identify any variations in terms of lawful bases for processing, explicit consent, and additional obligations.

2. Assess your website or online platform’s data processing

Assess your organization’s data processing practices and identify any areas of noncompliance. Scan your website and check its degree of GDPR compliance.

3. Implement a leading European consent solution

Choose a consent management platform that enables GDPR and ePrivacy-compliant user consent collection and signaling for DMA compliance. Ensure that the CMP provides features such as granular consent options, secure recordkeeping, and user-friendly interfaces.

The specifics of CMP implementation do depend on what platforms you’re using, like your CMS, as well as other tools, including Google Tag Manager and other services. Cookiebot CMP is flexible, has direct integrations with leading website platforms, and can be installed with just a few lines of JavaScript. There’s also a cookie WordPress plugin.

4. Customize consent banners

Tailor the consent banners displayed on your website or online platform to meet the specific requirements of each regulation. Provide clear information about data processing activities, purpose specification, and the ability to manage preferences.

5. Update your privacy policy

Review and update your privacy policy to align with the requirements of the DMA and/or DMCCB. Include details about the types of data collected, the purposes of processing, parties with access to the data, and how user consent is obtained and managed.

6. Train your team

Educate your staff about the nuances of both regulations and the proper implementation of consent management. Ensure they understand their roles and responsibilities in obtaining and managing user consent.

Final thoughts

The UK and EU regulatory initiatives are creating de facto global digital risk management standards, by taking significant steps to regulate digital markets and addressing concerns related to market dominance, competition, consumer choice, and data access. 

While the EU has implemented the DMA and DSA, the UK is in the process of enacting the DMCCB and the Online Safety Bill. The approaches differ in some aspects, but there’s a shared goal of promoting fair competition and protecting consumer interests.

SoBold has continued to be an accredited Living Wage Employer and has formally made a commitment to ensure all new and existing staff contracts are renewed at the Living Wage rate as a minimum.

SoBold has been a Living Wage Employer since 2019 and they are committed to ensuring that all staff are treated fairly and remunerated fairly in line with the Living Wage Foundation.

The new Living Wage rates were announced on Thursday 22nd September 2022 and SoBold ensured that all staff pay is in line with this. 

SoBold hope to see more agencies within the technology sector follow suit and become accredited.

SoBold Managing Director, Will Newland said:

We are proud of the people that work at SoBold and we truly care about them. Our staff have always been the life blood of our organisation and it is an absolute no brainer for SoBold to be a Living Wage employer. 

Technical Director, Sam Phillips and Managing Director, Will Newland were interviewed by Brent Weaver at Cloudways.

SoBold has been working with Cloudways since 2019 to help host development environments for all of their clients.

You can learn more about Cloudways, Managed Cloud Hosting services by visiting their website here.

See what they had to say in the video below.