Content Management is King
Managing content effectively is a big deal for firms these days, particularly in the light of the upcoming Freedom of Information Act.
The world-wide market for content management technology is growing fast. This is not surprising as content is a big issue for many companies and corporations today. The reason? They are deluged with data – ranging from technical documents and parts catalogues, to brochures, proposals, and website copy.
It’s not so much the sheer bulk that’s the problem; it’s managing it. Ideally, you need to be able to easily find documents when you need them, re-use them, and publish and distribute them in multiple formats.
Every firm has its own way of doing this. But often the methods used are not as effective as they could be. Hence the increasing popularity of content management systems, which help automate the processes of document creation, distribution, and storage.
Content Overload
Low-budget Sci-Fi movies from the 1950s showed ants and other creepy-crawlies taking over the world. But if recent statistics are anything to go by, it could be content that swamps the planet. According to “How Much Information?”, a study published in 2000 by the University of California, the world is producing up to two exabytes (an exabyte is a billion billion bytes) of content in all its guises every year.
That’s about 250MB per person. And only a fraction of it is paper-based. The rest is produced in some kind of electronic format and lurks untapped on computers and web servers, waiting for someone to capture it and realise its value.
Improving efficiency
According to a study by WinterGreen Research, take up of content management systems (CMS) has been rapid. “Companies are [more and more] turning to content management solutions to maximise communications, improve efficiencies, and meet regulatory compliance,” says Susan Eustis, author of the study.
Analysts predict that European spending on content management will reach £4.7bn by 2006, which shows just how seriously the business world takes the need to manage documentation.
Rory Staunton, an analyst at market watcher Strategy Partners, believes the reason for this is clear.
“Unlike CRM which has some credibility problems, content management delivers operationally,” he says. “Content management is not about a nine month IT strategy. It is recession-proof, not over-hyped, and helps businesses with their day-to-day business, and improves customer services, collaborative systems, and information supply.”
Reducing costs
Scandinavian Airlines is one organisation that has made content productivity a priority. It has developed a document management system to reduce costs in printing and distribution.
The system, which helps manage some 48 million printed pages every year, provides an automated platform for manual processes such as editing and publishing, and gets relevant information to all its 25,000 employees working across 2,300 departments.
Freedom of Information Act
E-government initiatives are pushing content management to the top of the IT priority list. Public sector IT managers in the UK, for example, are under pressure to make sure their computer systems can deal with requests for information under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, which comes into force next year.
Under the legislation, from January 2005 public sector bodies will have twenty working days to respond to requests for information from the public.
This will mean organisations must be able to locate any relevant information they hold, and report their findings quickly. Failure to do so could result in charges of contempt of court.
The Act requires public authorities to introduce a robust system of record management: “IT systems will have to make sure they have an integrated approach to managing data,” explains Rosemary Jay, partner in the IT department of law firm Masons.
Part of the problem when dealing with requests is locating where information is held.
“Content management systems can help IT managers develop procedures for dealing with requests through searching e-mails and databases for relevant records,” says Mike Stone, chief executive of BT OpenAccess. “This will help introduce processes that can be extended to paper-based searches. ”
Single source
Chris Harris-Jones, a principal analyst at IT consultants Ovum, breaks down content management into five key areas: document management; web content management; e-commerce content management (for transaction-based sites); digital asset management (for multimedia content); and digital rights management (for ensuring that your content remains your own property).
He does stress, however, that content management tools must support the core principle of single source.
“Only one copy of a piece of content should ever exist,” he advised. “This absolutely guarantees that the current version is the correct one and removes the possibility of anyone ever using out-of-date content. ”
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