The future-state of content is content services in the cloud

Every industry has experienced the sharp increase in data and the pain points that come with it. The exponential growth of content has resulted in enterprises struggling with securely storing data, ensuring it is accessible to those who need it, and whether their organization can scale and extend its solutions for handling the content. To address this issue, enterprise leaders are shifting away from on-premises solutions and toward cloud-rooted applications built on content services platforms.

Content services platforms vs. enterprise content management (ECM)

Thanks to leaps in cloud technology, solutions that were once impossible now come standard in many offerings. Traditional enterprise content management (ECM) is now evolving into more efficient systems with more capabilities than just storage, and is enabled by the cloud. Content services platforms (CSPs) are becoming increasingly intelligent and can aggregate useful data across multiple content repositories, delivering it when and where employees need it.

“ECM” becomes “content services”

In 2016, IT research and advisory firm Gartner announced it was retiring the term “enterprise content management” in favor of “content services.”

Five steps to embracing the future-state of content with content services

To achieve the many benefits of content services platforms, it is critical to select the right partner. The best partners will guide you through the process and help chart what your organization’s optimal, most resilient content future looks like. Here are five steps to embracing the future-state of content with content services.

Step 1: Assess

Identify the content you have on hand and audit your content. Gather information and assess your capabilities to triage the problems that need to be solved and shape the questions you will ask potential partners.

Step 2: Vet

Vetting the right content services solution or provider can make or break the results. Ask the right questions during the vetting process to make critical decisions on cloud migration.

Step 3: Implement

A content services partner can guide you toward the right cloud architecture option to power your solution, whether it’s a small proof-of-concept or a full overhaul of your content systems. Stakeholders will need to prepare for implementation, establish KPIs and gather historic metrics, conduct user-acceptance testing, create an “exit strategy” for offboarding old systems, and determine thresholds for iteration and changes to implementation.

Step 4: Measure

Follow best practices for measuring success by measuring established KPIs, evaluating the impact on the business as a whole, looking for soft benefits, and engaging with external stakeholders and peers who were not originally involved.

Step 5: Iterate in the Future

After a successful implementation, organizations may choose to expand the strategy or scale it to other locations or teams, while keeping the future state of their content in mind.

Future-state: Content services’ constant evolution

Today’s most advanced content services platforms dynamically connect content and streamline workflows, allowing smart people to focus on building the differentiators that set them apart. Organizations can find the right partner with the right track record of content and process management success to fulfill their organizational needs. The Hyland content services platform, delivered via the Hyland Cloud, is a market leader and empowers organizations with proof-of-concepts that can be deployed within a department or on a modular basis.