Accelerating modernization with enterprise content services in the cloud

An enterprise approach to managing content in the cloud can help organizations overcome the information challenges of siloed, aging legacy systems to modernize operations and reduce infrastructure costs.

A modern cloud-based platform provides secure content storage and facilitates collaboration while ensuring ownership and control. Hosting data in the cloud means it’s accessible from anywhere in real time, improving efficiency and transparency.

According to a Forrester Consulting study, only 3% of respondents expect their content management solution deployment to be primarily on-premises and 73% have prioritized cloud-based technology. But moving to the cloud can seem to be a daunting task. Knowing the steps to take can be the key to success, starting with the right partner.

Why enterprise leaders are moving to cloud-based content services

Content and the surrounding processes have increasingly been recognized as a major driver of innovation. Enterprise content services platforms are an integral part of solving longstanding issues and centralizing online content, cases and related data. The result is a streamlined content ecosystem that allows organizations to focus on their mission.

Many offerings, like Hyland’s intelligent content solutions, are scalable — offering proof-of-concepts that can be deployed within a department or on a modular basis, or support a full realignment of content- and process-related practices. No matter the scale, these platforms can fulfill your organization’s needs.

To achieve the many benefits of enterprise content services platforms, it’s critical to select the right partner. They will guide you through the process and can help chart what your agency’s content future looks like for years to come. You will need to ask some critical questions of both your organization and potential vendors in the process, and follow some important best practices when considering more technical features like cloud capabilities and disaster recovery.

At Hyland, we see firsthand how important it is to find the right home and trusted hands for your content. Consider the following as a walkthrough of the discovery, vetting and deployment process of a content services engagement.

Moving content services to the cloud: Step 1 — Assessing

Content, and the processes surrounding its creation, management and execution, are broad concepts. A good place to start in assessing your needs is to identify the content you have. Every organization has “unknown unknowns” within their content and related practices. Perhaps there’s a trove of HR content that lives on an old server, or maybe cross-departmental teams struggle to collaborate and serve customers because no one can agree on which format to use.

Neither of these scenarios are ideal, but they are perfect examples of the type of unknown you are trying to uncover as you audit your content.

The information gathering and assessment stage of your capabilities will help you triage the problems that need to be solved and shape the questions you ask potential partners. Think of this exercise as bringing a fresh set of eyes to each piece of content and the practices surrounding it.

What it is

Where it’s found

Who owns it

Customer content

Applications, forms, supporting documentation, constituent correspondence and emails

CRM and ERP platforms, homegrown or outdated case management systems, shared drives

CIOs and IT leads, customer service teams

Procedure content

Manuals, workflow documentation, privacy, training and certifications, document retention

Physical locations, shared drives, intranets

COOs, department leads, records managers, project managers

Back-office content

Accounts payable and receivable forms, financials, contracts, grants, GIS

Secure servers, payroll systems, accounting dashboards, ESRI

CFOs, AR and AP team leads, accountants, planners

HR content

Personnel files, onboarding and offboarding information, disciplinary actions, benefits guides

Intranets, shared drives, employee handbooks

Intranets, shared drives, employee handbooks

Miscellaneous and internal content

Historical documents, reports, archived emails, spreadsheets, research

Individual drives, old servers, unorganized departmental files

Can be owned by anyone

As you audit this content, be mindful of opportunities to improve and problems to solve. Most likely, the challenges you uncover will align with one of several overarching goals:

• Improving security/disaster recovery

• Improving accessibility

• Finding cost savings

• Supporting a remote workforce

• Streamlining processes

• Increasing data availability/uptime

• Incident response

• Handling geographical disbursement of content

Gathering stakeholders

Once you have identified and ranked the projects you’ve chosen to pursue, engaging all the appropriate internal stakeholders is an important next step. During this process, you want to identify every employee that will touch the rest of the process, from vetting potential solutions to measuring the end result of the deployment. This will help you align on strategy and avoid situations where leadership is misaligned with the needs of different departments or functions.

Setting the scale and starting the search

Once you know the issues you’re working to solve and you have your team gathered and aligned, the next consideration is one of scale. The best content service platforms and applications can handle a range of problems from large to small — it will be up to you to determine how aggressive a strategy to choose. Some considerations when determining scale:

Timing
How quickly do you want to launch, and how fast do you expect to see results? This critical determination will inform the budget and the priority of the project.

Budget
The amount you have to spend will play a major role in determining how large the engagement can be. Thankfully, the modular nature of many platforms helps with this.

IT capabilities
Keep initial projects small, and scale them according to your IT team’s skill.

Strategic alignment
Certain projects may make more sense because they align with a similar goal or technology deployment occurring in another internal department. If one department is pursuing a solution that also helps you, is it possible to align?

Priority
No project needs to be a “lift and shift” of everything to the cloud. Instead, you may have one or two critical needs that can be addressed with a proof of concept or smaller departmental deployment. These projects can help you make big impacts in relatively short time spans — with less disruption.

Identifying an opportunity for improvement is an important first step, but vetting the right content services solution or provider can make or break the results. Because the vetting process often includes making critical decisions on cloud migration, it’s important to ask the right questions.

Questions to ask

Security

• What type of testing is done on the cloud network?

• How is security handled?

• Where are the regions data is stored and are there alternatives?

• Who has access to data?

• What protocols are in place around personal information?

Accountability

• How quickly are issues resolved?

• How much on-site maintenance is required?

• Will we have access to senior leadership if necessary?

• What are your procedures if a breach occurs in the cloud?

Technology

• How often are updates pushed into production?

• What kind of downtime can be expected?

• How do product teams keep pace with new technology?

• How familiar are you with our current technology environment?

Service

• Are there self-service options?

• Is there customer service in other countries/languages?

• How do we engage on future projects?

• How often will updates need to be made to the system?

After you’ve asked these questions and completed your fact finding, narrow your prospects. In addition to the considerations above, also heavily weight your finalists’ time-in-market and do some digging on the business stability of the prospects.

Your conversations at this point should be with companies that can provide case studies and metrics to prove their reputation within the industry. Vendors in the later stages of the decision-making process should also be able to help you with the following:

Defining success criteria

Ask the final prospects which KPIs they believe will measure success and how they would help establish them. These will depend on your goals. Is improved security a priority? Are you hoping to improve decision-making with better workflows, reduce operational costs and/or cut down on IT hours spent managing the system? The prospects should know this and have a potential plan in place to help you achieve your objectives.

Determining security needs and establishing accountability

This is the opportunity to ask tough, direct questions about accountability and the partner relationship. It’s also a time to discuss more sensitive or proprietary content and how it would be secured.

Establishing an opportunity cost and quantifying savings

Have the prospects provide a detailed breakdown of costs and services. Use this to establish your ROI goals and plan for future innovation.

Providing a timeline for success

Prospects should provide a clear, detailed roadmap of how long implementation will take post-purchase. This timeline should also include how soon results and ROI can be achieved.

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.

But your work isn’t complete once a strategic partner is chosen. An excellent partner can help make the process of transitioning to a new system as seamless as possible. Still, there are important parts of the process that require attention from a variety of stakeholders.

1. Preparing for implementation

Your strategic partner can help make the process as seamless as possible, but you should expect a fair amount of preparation for an engagement.

2. Establishing KPIs and gathering historic metrics

Once you’ve determined what KPIs will measure the success of an engagement, you will need to ask stakeholders to gather historic data to establish a baseline.

3. Conducting user-acceptance testing

When your new solution is close to its debut, it’s time for the real test of putting it in front of everyday users. User testing can uncover critical issues, errors and process lapses that can make or break a deployment. Don’t skip this step.

4. Creating an “exit strategy” and offboarding old systems

Old equipment and processes don’t just disappear. Engage with end users and department leads to talk about a transition to new systems and deadlines for when old systems are sunset.

5. Determining threshold for iteration and changes to implementation

Lean heavily on your partner for this step, which establishes specific criteria for what to do when a solution doesn’t work as expected.

No matter how large or small the implementation, the most important output is whether the new solution is doing its job. With KPIs determined, it’s important to follow best practices for measuring success.

Measuring established KPIs

Immediately following implementation, gather departmental stakeholders who have ownership over the relevant data being used to measure success. Determine a regular reporting cadence, how the data will be shared, and how irregularities and inconsistencies will be addressed.

Evaluate impact on the business as a whole

As you measure specific KPIs, it’s also important to consider how these changes are impacting the entire operation. Are other departments confused about where certain content has moved? Are they slower at a certain task now? Consider a formal, anonymous survey to gather more objective feedback and regularly talk to stakeholders on an informal basis to get an idea of the larger impact.

Look for soft benefits

It isn’t uncommon for organizations to discover additional opportunities and hidden benefits while measuring the originally intended impact. In some cases, end users discover new tools within the platform that help them do their jobs better, or a department might suggest a better way to configure a workflow that further refines the system. The most important takeaway here: Listen and adjust as you go.

Engage with external stakeholders and peers

Take your results to trusted industry peers or internal stakeholders who weren’t originally involved. Ask them to share their reactions or how they feel the new system is impacting them. This can provide valuable insights into how the new workflow and technology is being received.

After a successful implementation, you may choose to expand the strategy or scale it to other locations or teams. As you do, keep the future state of your content in mind and make sure your partner has a long-term vision for their solutions.

What the future holds for content services

Digital innovation is a journey, not a destination. A successful implementation addresses today’s needs and provides a foundation to continue to improve technology and your organization into the future. These are the tools you need to be familiar with as you iterate and consider or build new solutions with your content services platforms.

What it is

What it will deliver

Time to implementation

Low-code apps

Low-code applications allow both IT and non-IT teammates to experiment with AI, ML and other powerful tools without learning to code.

Faster implementation of content processes, time saved for IT staff

Short-term

AI and  ML

Cloud-based AI and ML capabilities can automate and augment manual tasks so employees can focus on higher-value tasks.

Cloud-based AI and ML capabilities can automate and augment manual tasks so employees can focus on higher-value tasks.

Medium-term

IoT

Everyday devices like clocks, refrigerators and thermostats are becoming intelligent — and part of our content ecosystems.

Insights into customer behavior, more nuanced views of customers, increased customer touchpoints

Medium-term

Blockchain

Blockchain creates a chain of ownership

Cross-institutional workflows, greater

Long-term

How low-code tools can keep momentum strong

Low-code is a term that describes applications that are easy to customize and implement by IT or even line-of-business employees, often with little to no code required. With visual development tools like drop-down menus, radio buttons and other familiar interfaces, solutions can be rapidly created to meet specific business needs, sometimes even by the people who will be using them every day. Powerful tools like these can help scale content services with less resources and time to develop and deploy.

Today’s most advanced content services platforms offer your organization the ability to dynamically connect content and streamline workflows, but these systems also help your smartest people focus on building the differentiators that set you apart.

Remember that there is much to consider as you imagine the future of your content. The work of assessing your current processes and technology, and determining your desired future state, starts with you. This important work will influence whom you engage with during vetting, the stakeholders you bring to the table when implementing and the processes you use to measure and plan for the future.

As you consider what your future looks like, remember you’re placing much of it in the hands of your cloud partners. Taking a casual approach to innovation has caused many organizations to fall behind.

The best decision you can make is partnering with a provider that has a long track record of content and process management success, as well as an eye to the future with the application of advanced technologies.

Hyland’s intelligent content solutions connect all types of content and data within the systems and processes organizations use every day.

By providing users with easy, secure access to complete information — anytime, anywhere, on any device — we enable organizations to facilitate more responsive, meaningful interactions. By harnessing innovative and intelligent automation technologies that anticipate the needs of users and customers, we help organizations and their employees focus on high-value tasks to develop more meaningful, relevant connections with the people they serve.

Explore Hyland’s content management platforms