Managing Content for Business Success

To resolve this issue, IT departments need to look for content management solutions that provide a content integration system, i.e., a content services "bus" that gives IT departments a single place for enterprisewide content integration and provides business users with fast, easy, and secure access to assorted and isolated content sources, including repositories, databases and collaboration applications. An optimal solution should present all content via role-based user interfaces or portals. Using our AP automation example, the accounts payable department needs to have its own accounting software to process payments, have a business-specific content management solution to automate the invoice processing process beyond the licenses provided to the accounts payable department, and still permit appropriate employees to view the content independently, even though they don't have access to the specific software application.

The optimal content services bus is designed for reliability, scalability and robustness, and includes the following components:

• Out-of-the-box connectivity to content repositories, applications and databases, as well as the ability to easily create custom adapters;
• Core services such as search, authentication, index mapping, index updates and content delivery; and
• A published, Web services interface used to develop applications to retrieve content from all repositories.

All components constructed with packaged Web services should provide an open, standards-based architecture that ensures interoperability and is J2EE-compliant and .NET-enabled. Further, the solution should not require system modification, so it does not affect performance and so that administrators can easily maintain the security of the content.

Business-Specific Content Management

A content management solution need not be a "one-size fits all." You don't need to rip and replace your current systems to solve business challenges elsewhere in your organization. Instead, carefully evaluate your business and IT requirements, identify your most pressing issues, and then select the best business-specific content management solution to address them. AP automation and electronic records management are good examples of a complex business-specific requirement, but there are many more you may be reviewing (i.e., document output and print management, storage and archiving, electronic records management, disaster recovery management, etc.). Whatever your requirement, choose a content management solution that provides a flexible architecture to meet your changing business requirements over the long term. It is also important that you select a business-specific content management solution that provides the ability to integrate all relevant content regardless of platform, database, storage device, format or volume—and a content services bus is a good way to achieve this level of content integration. All together, you have a winning strategy to manage business-specific content and achieve business success.