Content is at the center of our digital lives and is increasingly having a transformative impact on organizations. But this isn’t simply content being pushed out to channels or content updated on a website; it’s delivering content in context, optimizing the customer experience and transforming business processes to create differentiation and make agile transformation truly possible.

Paving the road to transformation: digitization and digitalization

Our CEO, Doug Girvin, recently wrote a blog discussing the phases of digital transformation that is worth giving a read, but to recap:

Digitization - refers to the conversion of content to digital formats; the migration of data from the physical world of print, filing cabinets and the heavy machinery to produce and retain it - to the digital world of bits, stored in software databases and content management systems

Digitalization - refers to leveraging process technologies to take advantage of this digitized content and is most reflected in new applications that emerge from the new digital infrastructure. Google Maps is a great example of this phase where digital maps combined with databases containing addresses, traffic information, etc, are leveraged to create a richer, integrated navigation experience.

The transformative impact of content (management)

Content management is more than updating content on your website. It has the opportunity to be both the catalyst and heart of a business’ complete digital transformation. A robust content management platform anchors an organization's entire ability to create, manage and optimize the customer experience, drive deeper engagement and collaboration, as well as create agility and foster innovation.

Content fuels the customer, partner and employee experience

Delivering an exceptional, seamless and optimized customer experience is at the forefront of all our minds. Like you, we try to put ourselves in the shoes of our customers, partners and employees. Are we there when they need us? Can they easily find the content they’re looking for when they need it no matter what device, channel, timezone, etc?

Digital capabilities (social, mobile, AI, IoT, etc) have certainly offered more efficient ways of doing business and easier mechanisms to reach our most important audiences - but those capabilities for the most part are available to everyone. Differentiated experiences don’t happen simply by adopting digital trends. I would argue content is one of the ONLY differentiators that remain in this hyper-competitive landscape. If content is king, contextual content is the entire royal family.

And when I say “content” I’m not referring to words or text blocks on a web page; content is the pinnacle of engagement and collaboration. And a robust content management platform helps create an underpinning where engagement is empowered at all levels of an organization, to all audiences, across all channels and devices - seamlessly. It’s where content management is not viewed as one “tool” in an organization’s technology stack, but instead a platform whereby business processes, content and social/collaboration are united to make navigating the challenges of true transformation possible. It’s where we at Stantive live and breathe, where we work with organizations like yours!

Omni-channel content delivers the speed and agility needed to innovate

Arguably one of the most important technology developments, especially as it pertains to the delivery and consumption of content, are APIs. If you’re still getting up to speed with APIs, our Product Manager wrote an API introductory blog (we also have a great eBook on APIs too!). No matter how we label it (CaaS, EaaS, Headless, etc), delivering a truly omni-channel experience via APIs is the only way to garner the type of speed and agility needed to create rapid innovation and differentiation in the marketplace.

Want to seamlessly deliver content to any device or channel? APIs. What about delivering that same content to channels or devices not yet developed? APIs. The impact is truly transformational because APIs empower you can do things you couldn’t do before including:

• Create enhanced experiences - by building out new customer experiences in real time, as customer demands and technology innovation happen
• Increase efficiency - by marrying both content and internal business processes so that your internal team and/or partners can be more proactive and innovate more quickly
• Rapidly innovate - where you can leverage analytics to develop deeper insight to improve the products and services you offer
• Scale - whereby your organization can deliver contextualized content to any device or channel - even ones not yet created!

Omni-channel understands that customers are empowered to dictate their own personalized experience and navigate between multiple digital touchpoints. An omni-channel strategy puts the power in the hands of the customer where the channels they navigate between are interconnected, focussed and seamlessly experienced.

Robust content governance capabilities ensures content is scalable and compliant

As new collaboration apps, channels, devices and networks become connected to an organization, governance becomes more complicated and necessary. Imminent regulations around compliance, especially for industries like Health and Life Sciences and Financial Services, make safeguarding content a top priority.

In order for these industries to navigate digital and business transformation successfully, content needs a robust governance engine to ensure content is compliant, while delivering the same dynamic, seamless experience their customers have come to expect. This is not achievable without a robust platform with robust governance capabilities, workflows and approvals, versioning, etc.

Conclusion

Content and the underpinning infrastructure or platform to create, manage and optimize it, is having a transformative impact on organizations. Content breeds engagement, which is at the heart of business transformation. Employees, Customers and Partners may be trained on new technologies but the transformation will only succeed if communication is clear, targeted and delivered to the right person or group at the right place, at the right time, on the right device.

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Sources
https://www.ibm.com/blogs/ecm/2016/12/12/conquering-content-chaos-era-digital-transformation/
http://www.cmswire.com/web-cms/web-content-management-fuels-your-digital-transformation/
https://www.i-scoop.eu/disruption-enterprise-content-management-ecm/