The value of Content Services in the company

The arrival of the “new normality” has had a strong impact on organizations and companies. They are now fully aware of the need to move at the pace of technology and there is a greater concern for improving and updating internal processes to obtain high value and be more efficient.

In this sense, information has positioned itself as an important asset in all companies, regardless of the sector to which they belong, and it is essential that everyone can access it easily and quickly. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that conventional business content management is no longer sufficient, so technology must go one step further with Content Services, which will be the core of information management in the future.

Companies and their transformation towards Content Services

The classic concept of Enterprise Information Management (ECM), that is, an independent repository that functions as a digital filing cabinet for records managers and the legal department, no longer exists. The avalanche of new sources and forms of information, with its use and its risks, must be analyzed, contextualized and managed, and this is beyond the scope of the classical ECM.

This is where Content Services are already the present and the future in the development of ECM technologies. It is a set of platforms and applications that are installed as an additional layer on top of the existing ECM infrastructure to extend content management capabilities. This set of platforms provides the foundation for remote access to information and functionality, while improving deployment and upgrade processes. Container architecture offers the flexibility and deployment options needed for integration into different cloud and on-premises environments.

Efficient access to information, anytime, anywhere

Employees have been gradually leaving the office and some of them will not return to it as they did before. Now they work dispersed in different work environments and each one in unique circumstances, which makes centralizing information much more difficult. Therefore, companies themselves need to ensure that they have efficient access to data and other content to innovate, make decisions and improve the customer experience.

Content Services are already the present and the future in the development of ECM technologies

Easy access to information is one of the central ideas of Content Services. By connecting core content management platforms with application data assets (ERP, SCM, CRM, CEM, HRM, etc.), lifecycle management protocols can be extended to previously isolated content and data. In this way, information can be automatically identified, analyzed and classified as it arises.

Another advantage of cloud-based Content Services applications is that users can access relevant information wherever and whenever they need it. This greatly helps the IT staff, who no longer have to manage remote access to each individual system themselves, among other things, and thus bottlenecks do not occur.

Due to the pandemic, the continuity of the processes of many companies was paralyzed as the highly structured flow of information was broken: communication between departments failed due to the lack of personnel of the teams, information could no longer be created, distributed or consumed in an efficient way.

Today’s distributed teams need access to a real-time, automated data stream that transports all relevant data and content across the enterprise to maintain business continuity. This is possible thanks to the integration and automation capabilities of the Content Services, which once again prove to be extremely useful.

The governance of information, always present

To comply with regulations, IT departments must be able to maintain control over the growing and diverse volume of information. The capabilities of the Content Services allow greater integration with the systems and processes of the entire information ecosystem. Thus, the governance policies defined in the content management center can be extended to previously isolated content and data, where they originate and are stored. From the moment that companies distribute and use their information through different network platforms, they must also take into account legal requirements, privacy and data protection in general and adapt them to the current state of information.

By Jorge Martinez, Regional Director for Spain and Portugal at OpenText