The Content Platform

A content platform is a set of tools and technologies, both hardware and software, that provide a fully functioning environment for developing, producing and delivering content products. Typically, it supports such activites and processes as authoring, template management, version management, metadata management, workflow, localization, publishing, search, syndication and archiving.

Obviously, the content platform must be in place before any content products can be produced and delivered. To be able to develop content products, it is critical to have all the required components of the content platform in place. The content platform must enable and support the development of content products that can be offered on the target market. It also needs to provide tools and solutions that enable efficient and secure production and delivery of personalized content products to the intended users in a convenient and timely way.

In other words, the content platform is an absolute necessity to be able to develop, produce and deliver content products to the intended users. Does this mean that you implement the content platform first and then think about what content products to offer, to whom and how to deliver them? Well, many seem to think so. They start with implementing a content platform, probably by buying an ECM suite, and then start thinking about what exactly to do with it. It should of course be the other way around. In order to know what components the content platform needs to contain and how it need to be designed, you need to know what content products you shall offer, to whom and how you want to deliver them.

Explanations:
Time To Platform (TTP) is the time it takes to have the required platform in place.
Time To Market (TTM) is the time it takes to develop an idea to a product that is ready to be offered to customers on a market.
Time To Customer (TTC) is the time it takes for a developed product to be delivered to the customer.