DOCUMENT Strategy Fall-Winter 2019

Special Feature on CCM Solutions

PAGE 22

DOCUMENTmedia.com | Fall-Winter.19

Is Cloud Content Management a

SILVER BULLET?

By Bud Porter-Roth | James Watson, Jr.

PAGE 14

THE FUTURE OF

COMMUNICATIONS

By Marci Maddox

PAGE 18

THE RISE OF OMNI-CHANNEL CONTENT PLATFORMS

ASSESSING YOUR CYBER RISK

Y INDUSTR& TRENDSONS I PREDICT E ISSU

TABLE OF CONTENTS volume 26 issue 3/4 | Fall-Winter.19 | DOCUMENTmedia.com

FEATURES 12

It’s a Buyer’s Market: The Acquisition Conundrum When CCM technology changes hands, ask tough questions

By Scott Draeger

14

12

Is Cloud Content Management a Silver Bullet?

How evolving cloud systems are paving the way toward the mega content repository

By Bud Porter-Roth & James Watson, Jr.

18

The Future of Communications in the Agile, Liquid Enterprise

Reimagining customer communications for the fourth industrial revolution

14

By Marci Maddox

22 26

Special Sponsored Content: Take a Good Look at Your Customer Communications Management Cyber Risk Quantification Versus Heat Maps Why it’s time to select a cooler option

By Vince Dasta

28

18

The Rise of Omni-Channel Content Platforms

By Tony Byrne

DEPARTMENTS 06 06

Letter from the Editor Masthead

08 10

26

Contributors The Best of 2019

SPONSORED CONTENT

4

09

Welcome to the New World of Content Services

11

SMARTer Conversations for an Exceptional Customer Experience

Fall-Winter.2019 DOCUMENTmedia.com

28

DIGITAL ISSUE TABLE OF CONTENTS Special ECM Focus | DOCUMENTmedia.com

FEATURES

How to Transform the Customer Experience in the Era of Privacy

The Disruption of Content Services: The Vision for 2020 and Beyond

Robotic Process Automation: Building the Bridge to AI in the Enterprise

Information Governance Across the Electronic Document Life Cycle

Gartner’s Top 10 Technology Trends for 2020

Looking to Buy a Records and Information Management Solution?

Here Are 5 to Consider

By Kelechi Anyanwu https://documentmedia.com/article-2955-How-to-Transform-theCustomer-Experience-in-the-Era-of-Privacy.html

By Kashyap Kompella https://documentmedia.com/article-2956-Robotic-Process-AutomationBuilding-the-Bridge-to-AI-in-the-Enterprise.html

By Allison Lloyd https://documentmedia.com/article-2957-Gartners-Top-10-TechnologyTrends-for-2020.html

By Dave Giordano https://documentmedia.com/article-2958-The-Disruption-of-ContentServices-The-Vision-for-2020-and-Beyond.html

By Bob Larrivee https://documentmedia.com/article-2959-Information-GovernanceAcross-the-Electronic-Document-Life-Cycle.html

By Cindy Zuvich https://documentmedia.com/article-2960-Looking-to-Buy-a-Recordsand-Information-Management-Solution-Here-Are-5-to-Consider.html

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

The Agile Enterprise in 2020

It’s that time of year again when we turn our attention to the new year and look toward the horizon for the changing dynamics and trends that await us in 2020. To help navigate around these disruptive forces, we’ve assembled a special double issue focused on these emerging trends as well as some predictions on how this industry of ours will continue to evolve in the future.

Although it’s common to take a prospective look at our strategies each and every year, this one, in particular, seems especially well-timed.

In 2019, we’ve continued to witness the decline of siloed barriers in the enterprise, as organizations pursued agile capabilities to speed up and

6

Fall-Winter.2019 DOCUMENTmedia.com

enable their digital transformation projects. In fact, IDC Research Director Marci Maddox points to this particular shift as a result of the changing behaviors of our customers and modes of communication available to them, “It is an evolution of the customer experience—where the user has more control than ever before.” This will lead to more interactive conversations, knowledge networks fueled by artificial intelligence (AI), and a centralized, communications-as-a-service hub.

For customer communication professionals, this will mean a radical departure from the world of structured customer communications management (CCM) that so many have occupied for the past 30 years. As we build out continuous customer experiences across new channels, this “connectivity” will open the door to an expanded role for CCM. This future will require us to orchestrate our content across ever-growing channels of customer engagement. It is this nexus where CCM, content services, collaboration, and customer experience will meet. I hope this latest issue (including our special look at CCM solutions on page 22) paves the path for how we can coordinate a vast array of technologies to meet these changing demands from our customers and employees alike.

Until next time,

ALLISON LLOYD EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

president Chad Griepentrog publisher Ken Waddell editor Allison Lloyd [ allison.l@rbpub.com ] contributing editor Amanda Armendariz contributors Kelechi Anyanwu Tony Byrne Vince Dasta Scott Draeger Dave Giordano Kashyap Kompella Bob Larrivee Marci Maddox Bud Porter-Roth James Watson, Jr. Cindy Zuvich advertising Ken Waddell [ ken.w@rbpub.com ] 608.235.2212 audience development manager Rachel Chapman [ rachel@rbpub.com ] creative director Kelli Cooke

PO BOX 259098 Madison WI 53725-9098 p: 608-241-8777 f: 608-241-8666 email: customerservice@rbpub.com

DOCUMENT Strategy Media (ISSN 1081-4078) is published on a daily basis via its online portal and produces special print editions by RB Publishing, PO BOX 259098, Madison, WI 53725-9098. All material in this magazine is copyrighted ©2019 by RB Publishing All rights reserved. Nothing may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. Any correspondence sent to DOCUMENT Strategy Media, RB Publishing, or its staff becomes the property of RB Publishing.

The articles in this magazine represent the views of the authors and not those of RB Publishing or DOCUMENT Strategy Media. RB Publishing and/or DOCUMENT Strategy Media expressly disclaim any liability for the products or services sold or otherwise endorsed by advertisers or authors included in this magazine.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: DOCUMENT Strategy Media is the essential publication for executives, directors, and managers involved in the core areas of Communications, Enterprise Content Management, and Information Management strategies. Free to qualified recipients; subscribe at documentmedia.com/subscribe.

REPRINTS: For high-quality reprints, please contact our exclusive reprint provider, ReprintPros, 949-702-5390, www.ReprintPros.com.

CONTRIBUTORS Bud Porter-Roth Founder and Principal Consultant, Porter-Roth Associates Bud has over 20 years of experience as an ECM consultant, with a focus on cloud collaboration, electronic document management, records management, and paper document projects. He is the author of several books and has also written for many of the leading publications about RFP development, ECM, return-on-investment analysis, and records management.

James Watson, Jr. Marci Maddox Research Director, Enterprise Content Strategies, IDC Marci is responsible for content workflow and content technologies research at IDC, including the evolution of managing enterprise content, customer communications, content sharing and collaboration, e-signature, forms, and capture solutions. She has 15 years of experience working with content and process applications at companies like OpenText and IBM and has helped clients realize the future of AI, IoT, and cloud benefits. She has a BS in Computer Science from the University of Texas and an MBA in e-Business.

8

Fall-Winter.2019 DOCUMENTmedia.com

CEO and Founder, Doculabs James founded Doculabs in 1993, and under his leadership, Doculabs has established itself as one of the foremost consultancies in the content and information management market space, with clients that include most of the Fortune 100. James holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and a PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

APPLICATION ARTICLE

Welcome to the New World of Content Services As most of you know, every year Gartner produces a massive amount of Magic Quadrant reports describing the market and key players in industries, from marketing automation to robotic process automation to our very own Content Service Platforms market.

Since Gartner shook the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) world in 2017 with news that ECM was dead and they had replaced it with Content Services Platforms (CSPs), the Magic Quadrant has settled down a little. But the 2019 report feels different.

A Changing of the Guard The 2019 MQ for Content Services Platforms saw just three new entrants but also major changes in the space. Without citing specific vendors, it feels as if many of the legacy players are struggling, and the newer entrants, specifically those with a cloud-first approach, are gaining a lot of traction. This is a dramatic shift from even 3-4 years ago.

Back then conversations raged about whether the cloud was secure and why would anyone consider putting their critical business content there. That conversation is done. The cloud now is the de-facto place to both store and process your content, but the cloud provides more than that.

The cloud provides scalability beyond anything we could possibly imagine on-premises, with a pricing model that offers an operational expense rather than a capital one, attractive to both IT and finance alike. But beyond that initiatives such as API-first and open standards are driving a level of interconnectivity between new systems that were unthought of just a few years ago.

The ability to connect to a cloud service, e.g., to do OCR on a financial statement, and to get a near-instant response via software that is constantly on the latest version, for often a per-action price, is amazingly liberating. This is why true cloud vendors are starting to rule the CSP Magic Quadrant — and I see no reason at all why this will change.

The Platform to Rule Them All One exciting aspect is the growing acceptance of Google as a platform for delivering cloud-based content services. Many vendors are building integrations to Google Drive and G-Suite to facilitate cloud-based storage and retrieval, and to utilize the collaborative nature of G-Suite.

AODocs however, is not simply integrated into the Google Platform but is also built on it. This unique positioning has seen great adoption within organizations who have already moved wholesale to Google Drive or G-Suite. They recognize the continued need for information governance, workflow creation, reporting, and all the things that come with a regular document management system but are not included out of the box with Google.

Even more exciting is the sheer scale and level of innovation going on beneath AODocs at a platform level. The analogy I like to use is based around cars. Google provides our engine, then we tune it and put it into whatever chassis we need to solve a particular problem. It’s a symbiotic relationship that delivers significant flexibility, capability, and benefits to end-users of both Google and AODocs.

2019 Was Just the Start When we look back at 2019 we will see a year where the CSP tide truly changed course. Not only has the constitution of the Gartner MQ changed but also Forrester recognized the shifting landscape by releasing a dedicated Cloud Content Platforms report. Even more importantly there is an uptick in interest and adoption of cloud-based CSPs - to re-invigorate the way in which organizations use and even think about content.

As we close in on a new decade, could content services finally be close to realizing it’s true potential? I sincerely believe so.

www.AODocs.com info@aodocs.com +1 415 891 1178

The Best of 2019 Catch up on all the news, opinions, and featured articles that caught our eye on documentmedia.com.

1 Forrester Says Customer Communications Management Will Improve Digital Adoption in 2019

https://documentmedia.com/article2890-Forrester-Says-Customer-CommunicationsManagement-Will-Improve-Digital-Adoptionin-2019.html

4

8

2019 Automation Survey: The Path to Digital Transformation

https://documentmedia.com/article-2886-2019-AutomationSurvey-The-Path-to-Digital-Transformation.html

OpenText Exstream Previews New Web-Based Communications Designer and Orchestration

https://documentmedia.com/article-29295-Ways-to-Use-the-SharePoint-Framework.html

9

5 2

5 Ways to Use the SharePoint Framework

Kofax Bets Big on New Intelligent Automation Platform https://documentmedia.com/article-2913-KofaxBets-Big-on-New-Intelligent-Automation-Platform.html

Neopost Looks to Evolve, Changes Name to Quadient to Focus on Customer Experiences

https://documentmedia.com/article-2941Neopost-Looks-to-Evolve-Changes-Name-toQuadient-to-Focus-on-Customer-Experiences.html

https://documentmedia.com/article-2910OpenText-Exstream-Previews-New-Web-BasedCommunications-Designer-and-Orchestration.html

6

3 Customer Communications Management in 2019

https://documentmedia.com/article2883-Customer-CommunicationsManagement-in-2019.html

10

Fall-Winter.2019 DOCUMENTmedia.com

Pitney Bowes Sells Off Their Software Solutions Business to Syncsort for $700 Million

https://documentmedia.com/ article-2931-Pitney-BowesSells-Off-Their-SoftwareSolutions-Business-to-Syncsortfor-$700-Million.html

7 Why Digital Communication Is Key to a Good Customer Experience

https://documentmedia.com/ article-2895-Why-DigitalCommunication-Is-Key-to-aGood-Customer-Experience.html

10 What the Rebirth of OpenText Means for Enterprise Information Management https://documentmedia.com/article2933-What-the-Rebirth-of-OpenText-Meansfor-Enterprise-Information-Management.html

APPLICATION ARTICLE

SMARTer Conversations for an Exceptional Customer Experience Sixty-two percent of consumers will leave a company that isn’t delivering on their communications expectations1.But, 59% indicate they would share more personal data if the company used that data to make communications more meaningful1.

Whether you focus more on the positive or the negative, one thing is certain. Customers today have a tremendous amount of power and companies must not only acknowledge that, but also put them at the center of their communications efforts. Perhaps most critically, those communications must evolve into conversations.

Simply developing and delivering messages that are static and transactional is no longer enough to satisfy the desires of today’s digital-focused, empowered consumer. To truly engage, enterprises need to shift their strategies to focus on highly personalized, incredibly relevant interactions that involve both give and take. Conversations. And they must embrace the fact that in today’s world, these conversations need to happen, at least partially, via a digital channel.

A survey of consumers recently revealed the following when it comes to current trends in channel mix:  Email is the preferred communications channel for consumers in both the US and the UK. However, 66% of business leaders say less than 40% of their communications are being distributed via email.  Forty-three percent of business leaders say more than 40% of their communications are currently being distributed via print/post.  Thirty-five percent of business leaders say they are not distributing any communications via SMS/Test/Messaging, however, when it comes to fraud alerts, 2 in 5 consumers want to receive these via text.  Fifty-three percent of business leaders say they are not yet using voice assistants/chatbots for customer communications.

Clearly there is still a gap between how consumers want to communicate with companies and the companies’ abilities to deliver. And to further complicate matters, it’s not enough to simply develop a multi-channel strategy. To deliver exceptional customer experiences enterprises must develop a thorough understanding of every customer and have conversations with each one of them in a way that addresses personal preferences.

From static to dynamic, from one-way to two-way, from printfocused to digital-first, from communications to conversations— clearly this is a time for evolution. And as companies evolve and transform they must keep the customer and the customer experience at the center.

They should begin this process by assessing their customer communications platforms and strategies. Legacy systems

that require extensive effort to update and can’t deliver personalized, multichannel communications at scale can put customer relationships at risk. And outdated strategies that still rely too heavily on print or assume how someone wants to receive messages based solely on demographics can lead to customer attrition and lost revenue as well.

To evolve from customer communications to customer conversations, enterprises should first explore modern, cloudbased customer communications platforms that allow for a more consistent experiences throughout the entire lifecycle.

They should then focus their efforts on offering and honoring consumer preferences for channels and content, and on making their communications more helpful to consumers. This will go a long way in making customers feel valued and when they do, they will be more loyal, and that is when everyone wins.

For more information about how consumers want to be communicated with and where improvements are necessary to close existing gaps, download this study. https://www.smartcommunications.com/benchmark-study-2019

www.smartCommunications.com 800.986.6810 www.linkedin.com/company/smart-communications

It’s a

BUYER’S MARKET:

By Scott Draeger

THE ACQUISITION CONUNDRUM

When CCM technology changes hands, ask tough questions

O

ver the past decade, the customer communications management (CCM) industry has been witness to some major acquisitions of key market leaders, with several of them

12

Fall-Winter.2019 DOCUMENTmedia.com

touting a new business market share in excess of 20% at the time of their acquisition. By extension, this means that at least half (up to three-quarters) of all enterprises have been impacted by a major CCM acquisition.

As the ownership of your software vendor changes hands, organizations will need to adapt to new contracts, support processes, release schedules, business models, and different approaches toward innovation. Considering that

many CCM applications have been in production for five years, while many more exceed 10 years or longer, it’s worth evaluating your CCM solution post-acquisition.

Even if your software provider was acquired many years ago, it’s still a good idea to assess their current business profile to make sure that it aligns with your company’s strategic goals and to ensure a solid relationship going forward. If you’re no longer a strategic

11

fit, it might be time to check the market for other options.

As a customer, you have the right to challenge your vendors. To protect your investment, you are allowed to express your opinions, ask tough questions, and make sure your needs are met (before, during, and after the sale).

After all, it’s the “age of the customer,” not just for your recipients, but for you as well. In the end, you’re in control when it comes to partnering with a

SCOTT DRAEGER, CCXP, M-EDP, is Vice President of Customer Transformation at Quadient.

His broad experience includes helping clients improve customer communications in over 20 countries. He earned his MBA in 2007 from the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. Follow him on Twitter @scottdraeger or visit www.quadient.com.

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR CCM VENDOR POST-ACQUISITION

When a major solution company is acquired, it’s important to understand how the new vendor relationship will compare in context with your present and future needs. Here are 11 questions to ask your CCM solution provider.

1

Is my CCM technology core to the purchase?

Most of the acquisitions in the CCM space are in support of a deliberate strategy to add CCM capabilities to an existing portfolio—but some are not. If your CCM vendor is a non-core asset in the acquisition, it’s important to then take into consideration how your technology will evolve.

2

Does the new company have a reputation for inorganic growth?

If the acquiring company has a pattern of purchasing technology in order to add capabilities from new markets, it’s important to learn how the technology will evolve and integrate with their other assets.

3

Does the new company have a reputation for inorganic growth in specified markets?

If the acquiring company has many products with similar capabilities, it’s critical to evaluate their dedication to the product you originally purchased.

4

CCM vendor that shares, and can support, your strategy. O

Does the new company have a reputation for turnarounds?

If the new company specializes in turnarounds, you will need to take the time to discuss any changes in their business model and how old contracts will be handled.

5 6

Does the new company frequently flip businesses?

If a venture capitalist acquired your vendor, or a stake in their company, you will need to seek out information about their strategy for growth.

Does the new company have a reputation for increasing or decreasing investment in innovation?

In particular, large acquirers have a clear and stated strategy for how acquisitions are treated. Make sure to look into the rate of internal investment for both pre- and post-acquisition.

7

Does the new company support users in the same way as the previous organization?

Many acquisitions have impact on customer support—often positively— because they have scalable experience.

Ask how your support will change.

8

Does the new company communicate a clear strategy to you and the market?

If the acquiring company has a reputation for delivering on promises, you may be able to better plan your innovation schedule around a solid reputation for execution.

9

Does the new company have the same strategy for the product as the previous organization?

Often times, companies are purchased because they have strategic alignment. Other times, they are purchased because they simply check a box for a missing component.

10

Has the new company forced migrations?

When multiple technologies are acquired, sometimes several development streams are consolidated, pushing customers to migrate to one of the other technology lines in order to remain profitable.

11

What is the growth profile of the new parent company?

Determine if the new parent company grows by adding new clients, increasing maintenance, reducing development costs, delaying innovation, or moving clients to newer platforms in their portfolio.

DOCUMENTmedia.com Fall-Winter.2019

13

14

Fall-Winter.2019 DOCUMENTmedia.com

IS CLOUD CONTENT MANAGEMENT A SILVER BULLET? How evolving cloud systems are paving the way toward the mega content repository

By Bud Porter-Roth

A

s more and more organizations look to move toward cloud content management, this particular technology segment is quickly evolving into a fragmented set of applications and tools. Today, cloud content management can be used in two main ways: to supplement your existing enterprise content management (ECM) system—basically acting as a collaborative front-end to the current system—or

as a standalone solution that manages your documents and files.

Perhaps the most common cloud content management application is simple file sharing and collaboration, which has been around for many years.

However, these cloud systems are evolving to serve as the front-end of a large third-party database, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, or Oracle, spanning across many terabytes or even DOCUMENTmedia.com Fall-Winter.2019

15

a petabyte of content. For example, take a global engineering company that has offices in 20 countries, operating 200 live projects, and managing a thousand more that are closed. It’s possible for an organization of this size to input more than 1,000 pieces of content into the system on a daily basis. At the same time, additional content is also added to the closed sites as well. Some of this activity supports updating databases

for project status information, financial data, data analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives.

Not only is there a high volume of content that is uploaded to the system, but there is also a constant stream of searches being performed and documents downloaded from all types of devices, including laptops, tablets, smartphones, and computer-to-computer updates and requests. In order to allow for this kind of

volume, the cloud content management system requires a custom-built data capture front-end, tailored search capabilities for retrieval, and a customized data server to store the content.

Companies continue to grapple with a vast amount of unstructured content flowing into the organization on a daily basis. Such customization is necessary to allow users to add content quickly— without the need to manually tag

3 FACTORS TO CONSIDER BEFORE YOU MOVE TO THE CLOUD

By James Watson, Jr.

1. TYPE OF CLOUD SERVICE 2. INTEGRATION WITH CONTENT-GENERATING AND CONTENT-CONSUMING APPLICATIONS

Organizations should also thoroughly understand the need for integration with content-generating applications and contentconsuming applications. A simple search user interface is an example of a consuming application. Most of our clients will have 15 to 30 different consuming applications, so the cost of re-wiring these to access content in the cloud can be considerable. The same can be true with contentgenerating applications (like a correspondence system).

3. METADATA AND INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE A major change, like the adoption of a new content system (cloud or otherwise), creates the opportunity to re-think how content is indexed. Creating an effective information architecture is a worthwhile endeavor, given the impact on user experience and the potential productivity gains.

16

Fall-Winter.2019 DOCUMENTmedia.com

One of the critical factors to consider before moving your content system to the cloud is the type of service that will be required. Ask yourself the following questions: Do you want to be on a multi-tenant environment (like Box) or a fully managed service (like Viewpointe)? Have you considered a hybrid approach, where new content goes into Amazon Web Services (AWS) while your historical content remains on-premises?

JAMES WATSON is the CEO and Founder of Doculabs, a consultancy firm specializing in content-based applications and enterprise content management (ECM) technologies to help improve the management of business content. Visit www.doculabs.com for more information or email him at jwatson@doculabs.com.

metadata for each document—in a standardized process. This “standard” frontend automatically stores content into predetermined repositories (based on the geographical locations of the input, for example), which, in turn, assigns metadata to it and indexes the content as well.

Since content is automatically tagged with project name and number, document type, content type, country location, author, security and permission levels, etc., this metadata can easily be extracted from the document, leading to better search experiences for users across multiple projects and countries. In addition, using metadata with content type also assigns a retention period to each document and manages the retention cycle per the geographical location’s (i.e., country) regulations.

Global companies may also work with many outside consultants, contractors, legal companies, and others that participate in the input and search for content within the cloud content

management system. As a result, security protocols must be well thought-out, be applied on a global basis, and must be continuously updated.

The type of system we’ve outlined here goes far beyond the typical cloud content management implementation, but it’s entirely possible to achieve. For example, the front-end may be a customized application, such as SharePoint or OpenText, while the back-end repository may be from Microsoft Azure, AWS, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), or IBM. In most cases, you will need to engage a system integrator to build and integrate the diverse components of the system and for any additional custom work as the system is put to use.

While organizations should consider detailed system requirements for this type of solution, the providers with the ability to build and maintain it may not be household names. In addition, finding the right system integrator can also help you to define the requirements you

need. Some may look to IBM, HPE, or Oracle, but there are many system integrators that operate within a vertical industry, like energy, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, insurance, retail, etc.

These large cloud-enabled content repositories are only possible with multiple cloud technologies that scale both in terms of content and users. At the same time, they must also provide the speed and uptime required for a globally dispersed solution. This type of system has the potential to store hundreds of millions of documents across the world for very long periods of time, some of which might be permanent. O

BUD PORTER-ROTH has over 20 years of experience as an enterprise content management (ECM) consultant, with a focus on cloud collaboration, electronic document management, records management, and paper document projects. Follow him on Twitter @BudPR or contact him at info@erms.com.

DOCUMENTmedia.com Fall-Winter.2019

17

THE FUTURE OF

COMMUNICATIONS

IN THE AGILE, LIQUID ENTERPRISE

Reimagining customer communications for the fourth industrial revolution

By Marci Maddox

I

n January of 2016, Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, described the fourth industrial revolution as one “that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another.� In it, we will see technology advancements fuse the physical, digital, and biological worlds, disrupting the way information is shared and communicated. Almost four years into this vision, we expect that customer communications as we know it today will

18

Fall-Winter.2019 DOCUMENTmedia.com

evolve into more vibrant conversations.

The cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), data intelligence, and robotic process automation (RPA) will have a dramatic effect on the customer experience and the operational efficiency of organizations. Together it will usher in powerful shifts within whole markets as we embark on this new future of work.

Looking back at the trends that modernized the technology stack this year, both the enterprise content management (ECM) and customer communications management (CCM) markets

were influenced by investments in the cloud, AI, process automation, and analytics. As we enter 2020, IDC sees three key areas of interest taking shape: data intelligence, unified communications, and knowledge networks.

Data trust will rise in prominence in the enterprise as data intelligence drives personalization, governance, and communications. This will require tracking information as it moves through the AI engine to understand the algorithms used as well as any bias that is introduced into the decisions that are

being made on our behalf. Mobile will continue to be a key channel of interaction in the new year, but new channels in team collaboration, messaging, and social tools (like Slack, WhatsApp, and Microsoft Teams) are challenging the status quo. These tools will push a unification of communications, which includes new intelligent, conversational interfaces. Digital workspaces, whether delivered as a next-generation portal or an intelligent task manager, are entering the market. When tied into a knowledge network, digital workspaces present relevant information to employees in-task, rather than requiring them to navigate elsewhere to find it. IDC’s survey for cloud content management found that 29% of respondents want a more intelligent search, which can be addressed with implementing data intelligence, AI, and knowledge network systems.

CCM software took off during the third industrial revolution when

digitizing paper processes became possible. However, the investment in CCM has slowed over the last few years, as organizations settled on a system of record for batch generation of structured documents. IDC estimates CCM’s modest software revenue growth of 6.3% in 2018 will grow to 9.2% CAGR by 2023. Deployments of public cloud CCM solutions will contribute 22% year-over-year growth through the replacement of legacy systems and expansion into new departments.

While print will continue to be a mainstay of the structured CCM market, the landscape of interactive communications—steeped in data intelligence— is opening the door to a new age in CCM. Traditional communications will evolve into continuous conversations across new channels and social tools.

As a result, enterprises will look toward cloud-based customer engagement and CCM platforms to answer their omni-channel challenges.

With the fourth industrial revolution upon us, CCM can leverage data intelligence to better interact with customers via the many channels that are available today. If automation led to digitization in the third industrial revolution, then data will power the fourth industrial revolution through AI and datadriven decision making. In this sense, data is like water—fluid and required to sustain life in the new agile enterprise. Advancements in microservices and open APIs allow enterprises to connect people, processes, and data to transcend the traditional boundaries of an interaction. Data, which is captured from the documents, processes, and activities that occur in an organization, is untapped potential in a static state. After all, it is the communication that sets data and information into motion. It is the ability to communicate this data and insight that will enable the next era of fluid context-driven conversations.

DOCUMENTmedia.com Fall-Winter.2019

19

The channels through which we are communicating with one another is changing to improve customer engagement and operational efficiency. 2020 will be about investing in that change.

Looking further into the future, expanded connectivity will lead to a more diverse use of CCM. As emerging technologies of the fourth revolution are embedded within the familiar apps of an organization, communications-as-a-service and intelligent knowledge networks will take shape.

Adjacent technologies, such as conversational interfaces, intelligent forms, and next-generation capture, will help future digital/robotic workers to generate empathetic content on their own. For example, embracing voice technology is not about enabling Alexa or Siri to have access to any business data. It’s about enabling the applications that already have access to this data to provide voice interaction that replaces traditional document workflows or manual steps.

These digital human interfaces need access to a knowledge base, which is powered by AI and natural language processing, to carry out a human-like conversation that is based on personal interaction preferences. CCM—as a centralized hub—has an opportunity to be a part of the knowledge network, contributing information and preferences to the knowledge base and ensuring consistency in branding and customer engagement.

20

Fall-Winter.2019 DOCUMENTmedia.com

IDC views the future of work as a sea change that empowers workers with new digital skills, adopting collaboration between humans and digital workers in a secure space independent of time or place. In our case for CCM, the channels through which we are communicating with one another is changing to improve customer engagement and operational efficiency. 2020 will be about investing in that change. We already see CCM technology moving to the cloud, executing on a micro services and AI-enabled strategy with plans to incorporate more data intelligence and trust into the system. Furthermore, organizational roles and technology budgets are also shifting. IDC found that organizations with a mature communication strategy are already investing in a centralized CCM system to target an improved customer experience. IDC’s CMO Advisory Council reports that more than 20% of the marketing budget in tech companies is tied to post-purchase engagement when spending is tracked along a customer journey model. Some companies are also experimenting with senior roles that divide digital communications or content ownership across a Chief Communication Officer, Chief Revenue Officer, or Chief Customer Experience Officer—either alongside or instead of

the Chief Marketing Officer. CCM should no longer be relegated to the operational side of the business, with limited exposure to the rest of the organization.

Executive leaders looking for an opportunity to bring their communications strategy under a single umbrella—integrated into departmental tools for easy creation and delivery of brand consistent customer conversations—should look to hop on the digital transformation train. Whether the project is positioned as a new future of work, modernization, smarter governance, or predictive engagement, the opportunity to change the conversation is now. O

MARCI MADDOX is the Research Director for IDC’s Enterprise Content Strategies program and is responsible for content workflow and content technologies research. Follow her on Twitter at @idcmarci or visit www.idc.com.

SPONSORED CONTENT

TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT YOUR CUSTOMER COMMUNICATIONS MANAGEMENT One thing is certain: As organizations look toward transforming their customer experience, the role of customer communications management is expanding to new touchpoints and channels along the customer journey. Whether organizations are managing traditional delivery points or integrating modern technologies and communication channels, there is a demand for intelligently orchestrating content to deliver seamless and relevant experiences. To achieve this, executives will need to modernize their toolsets and partner with solution providers who excel in strategic communications management. We invite you to take a good look at the featured solution partners in this space to get started.

Customer communication management (CCM) has always been about how information is shared with customers, but has largely focused on individual messaging. However there are situations where combining a wider broadcast capability with content personalization to create customized and flexible digital signage solutions is becoming increasingly popular. These may exist within a workplace, in a retail store, or perhaps at a hospital. In each case, the information shared needs to be accurate, updates need to happen real-time and the process of adding and editing communications needs to be collaborative and intuitive.

Playengo from AODocs provides a digital signage offering that is tightly coupled with the AODocs Document Management Platform to drive consistent, multichannel communications with the minimum of effort. Whether the audience is an individual display, or a range of devices, a simple create,

22

Fall-Winter.2019 DOCUMENTmedia.com

configure and share process allows communications to go from design to delivery as fast as possible.

Tools such as Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Google Docs, Google Drive or Office 365 encourage a collaborative content creation, editing and distribution approach that enables you to update your screens in real time, in just a few clicks.

Playengo is the ideal solution to save time and money on modern CCM. It is simple to setup, intuitive to use and allows real-time monitoring of results — all delivering a rapid return on investment that, just like it’s communications, can easily be seen.

www.AODocs.com info@aodocs.com +1 415 891 1178

Assentis is the Swiss-based specialist for Customer Communication Management within the Banking and Financial Services Industry. We enable financial institutions to communicate reliably along all channels, including all document-based processes and inbound functions such as smart forms or chats. Assentis solutions are used by more than 100 of the most prestigious organizations across the US, Europe and Asia, including many of the top 20 banks.

From our experience, we know the key factors are to strengthen businesses, increase efficiency through security, create ease of use and automation, and reduce costs — all directed by the highly specific requirements mandated by the BFSI. Thus, our solutions focus on institutions with complex information exchanges with their clients and/or demanding large-scale transactions.

We deliver industry know-how to serve our clients with expert professional quality and with the intention of delivering the best service, ensuring profitable long-term relationships.

Assentis provides a function-based boutique strategy that delivers higher-than-average added values (functionality, quality, duration of life cycle…) to financial service providers, ensuring precision in critical use cases such as credit processing, onboarding, corporate actions, proposal development or client reporting.

Our services and support teams implement and optionally manage all the functional solutions (FaaS) for our clients from our headquarters in Switzerland, and from our branches in the US, Singapore, Germany, and Austria.

www.assentis.com florian.meile@assentis.com +41 41 798 13 30

Documents, Forms and Labels, Oh My! You can’t live with them, you can’t live without them. Paper or electronic, production print or HTML, PDF delivery to a smart device, you need them now. No matter if you are delivering communications to your customers, partners or employees, you need a single software solution that will deliver at top speeds. DocOrigin and Business Communications Center™ are used by Fortune 10 and SMBs with unparalleled performance and 99.9975% up-time!

Automated delivery to smartphones, tablets, PCs, distributed office printers or production printers — Efficiency matters! Our BCC™ solution is managed

by Marketing, HR or Customer Service without coding, while compliance related control can be managed by Legal

and IT. No scripting or modifying your line of business software needed. Priced to replace just one form or document or do a company-wide replacement. Omnichannel global communications reach your customers when and where they want to be reached. 3M, AT&T, Mele Printing, McKesson Medical-Surgical, Konica Minolta and thousands of others trust Eclipse Corporation.

At Elixir, we develop technology and provide services to create customer communication products that automate content and approval workflows. The Elixir Tango platform manages communications for HTML, PDF, and other print and digital outputs.

Founded in 1985, when business technology was in its infancy, Elixir was a pioneer of Customer Communication Management (CCM). Four years ago, Elixir launched Tango+, a cloud-based platform offering digital communication solutions. With the launch of Elixir Tango, we have transitioned to a fully cloud-native company, using agile methodology, CICD and DevOps-supported products, including Kubernetes, microservices, and containers, to offer comprehensive products that scale to all segments of our markets.

Elixir helps organizations rethink and reshape customer communication, while prioritizing end user experience with business-tailored interfaces and applications, dynamic process-flows and data-driven solutions that inform decisions and inspire change. We work with

leading technology partners and systems integrators to service Healthcare Payers, Insurers, FinServ and clients in other industries around the globe. Our international footprint includes offices in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, with headquarters in the United States.

EclipseCorp.US Info@EclipseCorp.US 678.408.1245

About Elixir Tango—Digital Business Platform In 2009, Elixir began developing a modern digital application platform to power Customer Communications and Content Processes in highly-regulated markets. Today, as the company celebrates its 10-year cloud native journey, Elixir leverages its modern application platform, Elixir Tango, to automate repetitive work and configure user experiences so our clients can work smarter and faster.

Messagepoint is a leading provider of modern Customer Communications Management (CCM)software.

Our award-winning SaaS-based CCM platform empowers content owners by giving them intelligent control over their content and communications in a user-friendly environment.

By providing game-changing, patented innovations in the CCM space, Messagepoint enables those non-technical users to drive unparalleled personalization, relevancy, brand consistency, and compliance.

Only Messagepoint harnesses AI-powered Content Intelligence to automate and simplify the process of migrating, optimizing, authoring and managing business-critical on-demand, interactive, and batch communications across all platforms and channels. Messagepoint is recognized by Aspire as an overall leader in the CCM space and leads its rankings in the Business Authoring and Content Intelligence categories.

Messagepoint is used by industry-leading financial services, insurance, and healthcare organizations to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing, customer servicing, and product communications.

We give our customers a better way to manage the complex content that is the foundation of their customer communications, accelerating time to market, reducing operational complexity, improving content quality and ultimately, the customer experience.

www.messagepoint.com Info@messagepoint.com 800.492-4103

www.elixir.com info_us@elixir.com 805.641.5900

DOCUMENTmedia.com Fall-Winter.2019

23

24

OpenText™ Exstream™ is OpenText’s strategic and continually evolving customer communications management (CCM) software. Celebrating 20 years of innovation, Exstream has been consistently ranked by analysts as a leader in the space, most recently in the Aspire CCM Leaderboard, June 2019 and is the No. 1 CCM solution in market share and enterprise deployments.

Proven, complete, robust solution Exstream extends organizational CCM capabilities to include business user-driven content creation and modification and a premier batch engine that is faster than other CCM solutions.

It also provides the ability to ingest data in any format, greatly reducing document processing time.

The market-leading software is available as a standalone solution or as part of the OpenText™ Experience Suite Platform for customer experience management (CEM), which includes solutions for digital asset management and web content management to provide a complete, 360-degree customer

experience across all interaction points of the customer journey.

Design once, deliver anywhere at any time With on-premises and cloud deployment options, Exstream is scalable to fit the needs of any department or complex enterprise environment. Accelerators allow for easy integration with core systems, such as Guidewire® and Duck Creek Insurance software, and deep integration with SAP and Salesforce® help speed key business processes.

Exstream is an omnichannel CCM solution that enables business users to create connected customer journeys and meaningful customer conversations by helping organizations understand, serve and react to customers using the delivery formats and channels they prefer, including email, web and mobile.

Quadient helps companies create a nimble, effective and unified customer communications infrastructure to improve the customer experience.

The world’s leading customer communications management (CCM) platform, Quadient Inspire, enables you to create and deliver personalized, compliant customer communications across all channels, from one centralized platform.

It facilitates collaboration, integration, and connections that aren’t possible with disconnected project or channel-based approaches. Our powerful migration technology applies artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing to the time-consuming problem of retiring legacy CCM systems, saving thousands of person-hours.

Additionally, in September we announced that Neopost will rebrand as Quadient. We are proud to be coming together as one organization — with a unified purpose, focused on the future and our customers. Today, every business

interaction — from mail to e-commerce — is an opportunity to build a meaningful connection. To make an impact in someone’s life. And now, we announce a new brand that unifies our global organization around a common purpose, focusing on the future and our customers.

Quadient is the driving force behind the world’s most meaningful customer experiences. By focusing on four key solution areas including Customer Experience Management, Business Process Automation, Mail-related Solutions, and Parcel Locker Solutions, Quadient helps simplify the connection between people and what matters. Quadient supports hundreds of thousands of customers worldwide in their quest to create relevant, personalized connections and achieve customer experience excellence.

Fall-Winter.2019 DOCUMENTmedia.com

www.opentext.com/exstream16 www.opentext.com/contact 800.499.6544

WWW.QUADIENT.COM d.schutzman@quadient.com 866.883.4260 ext 1530

Racami helps you deliver exceptional customer experiences with software, services, and staffing solutions that drive success. Consumer expectations are high and so are your obligations to serve each individual person according to their preferences. You want insights into consumer behavior and an operation that efficiently produces and delivers communications to your most valuable asset, your customers.

For over ten years, Racami has created solutions for CCM providers, service bureaus, PSPs, in-plants, healthcare, direct marketers, transactional processors, and government services across North America, Europe, and Asia. Solutions that give visibility to the information that your omni-channel customers demand, maximizing operational efficiency and revenue potential.

Our goal is to help you streamline operations, fill in resources gaps and most importantly make your customers happy. Racami’s Alchem-e™ system plays an important role in collecting data about consumers, production activity, and in automating digital and physical workflows, so your multichannel communications efforts run smooth and error-free.

Unlike other CCM solutions on the market, the Alchem-e™ platform allows you to keep your existing equipment, technology and production software to avoid long and costly migrations. Using Alchem-e’s technology in your current processes will optimize your operation and manage it in the most efficient way possible.

Racami’s executive team includes experienced talent from within the CCM industry’s largest technology, software, and services companies, including Oracle, Microsoft, Harland Clarke, and Taylor Corp. Our team of experts helps you drive customer acquisition, penetration, and retention, with solutions that enable easier compliance with industry and government regulations.

www.racami.com sales@racami.com +1.678.730.7700

Smart Communications™ is the only provider of a cloud-based, next-generation customer communications platform.

More than 500 global brands rely on Smart Communications to deliver meaningful customer communications across the entire lifecycle—empowering them to succeed in today’s digital-focused, customer-driven world while also simplifying processes and operating more efficiently.

Built from the cloud up, Smart Communications helps enterprises deliver smarter conversations across the entire customer lifecycle and at scale. By putting more control into the hands of consumers, and engaging them in interactive, two-way conversations, customers can provide exceptional experiences that lead to deeper loyalty and increased ROI. Smart Communications delivers these capabilities via a robust platform that includes the enterprise-scale customer communications management power of SmartCOMM (designed for highly regulated industries such as financial services, healthcare and insur-

ance and for any company managing customer relationships via Salesforce), the trade documentation expertise of SmartDX (for Capital Markets) and forms transformation capabilities made possible only by Intelledox, which was acquired in July 2019.

The Smart Communications platform is strengthened by its unique Conversation Cloud framework, which helps enterprises easily integrate key pieces of their technology ecosystem with Smart Communications to break down internal silos and provide a more complete view of the customer.

Smart Communications is headquartered in the UK and serves its customers from offices located across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.

Timitoo Systems has rapidly gained momentum in the CCM market since the company’s inception in 2016 with a complete Correspondence Platform offering. Company founders Markus Kleiber and Thomas Krenn are industry experts, called on to solve the most complex of issues regardless of vendor platform. Our products reflect that knowledge which was a compilation of various platforms and experiences over the last 25 years.

Timitoo Systems offers the first solution of its kind, in which the document design originates from the digital “beginning” versus a paper document. This strategic methodology eliminates the constraints of the antiquated page-oriented design process. The Timitoo Correspondence and Output Management platforms, offers an open-standards approach to an otherwise proprietary software driven niche. In addition to

our complete Correspondence platform, we offer a conversion suite, as well as, our Resource Content Manager and AFP Re-Writer. The Resource Content Manager empowers your business users and outside clients to access, edit and maintain document templates and its contents. While the AFP re-Writer is a powerful tool used for handling, converting, enhancing, and manipulating all incoming AFP documents.

These solutions are offered at the best price point in the industry with little to no implementation cost. Organizations leverage our tools to do what other platforms simply cannot. Consider using a module or our entire suite. Contact us at www.timitoosystems.com.

www.smartCommunications.com www.linkedin.com/company/ smart-communications.

800.986.6810

www.timitoosystems.com heidi.kleiber@timitoosystems.com 972.998.5134

Companies of all sizes and across industries are moving customer communications management (CCM) to the cloud in order to accelerate digital transformation efforts, increase agility, and reduce total cost of ownership. These companies know that cloud-based CCM provides increased flexibility, infrastructure savings and powerful content personalization capabilities to any authorized user at any time and place.

According to Gartner, Forrester, and other industry analysts, content services—sometimes referred to as Communications-as-a-Service (CaaS)—represent the future of customer communications. Topdown engineered the INTOUCH® cloud-based CCM platform using content services and makes those microservices available to INTOUCH customers. As a result, analysts acknowledge INTOUCH as a premium content services application that multiplies the agility and flexibility of the cloud, increases the ease of integration, and extends the return on investment (ROI) of INTOUCH. That’s because companies can immediately use the INTOUCH software to address existing CCM use cases, and then later leverage the underlying content services to solve for emerging content-driven use cases.

Topdown provides CCM software and services to organizations looking to provide the best possible customer experience during high-value customer journeys. For nearly 40 years—from the mainframe, to the desktop, and now to the cloud— Topdown has helped our customers communicate more effectively and efficiently with their customers.

Contact Topdown today to discuss moving your CCM to the cloud and to see a no-obligation demonstration of INTOUCH.

www.topdownsystems.com info@topdownsystems.com 800.361.1211

DOCUMENTmedia.com Fall-Winter.2019

25

CYBER RISK

Why it’s time to select a cooler option

QUANTIFICATION VERSUS HEAT MAPS

By Vince Dasta

T

hese days, there’s no shortage of news stories about the latest data breach, which may leave a lot of cybersecurity professionals in a cold sweat more frequently. Furthermore, some of these professionals and chief information officers (CIOs) are under pressure from their boards and regulators to materially assess their cyber risk— something traditionally accomplished with cyber risk heat maps.

Unfortunately, those heat maps rely on what can be called “pseudo-quantitative” methods, in which risks, benefits, and other factors are numerically rated.

While the output can look scientific, the

26

Fall-Winter.2019 DOCUMENTmedia.com

rankings are arbitrary and subjective. In fact, there is zero empirical evidence that such rankings are accurate and many fundamental reasons why they aren’t.

According to research conducted by Douglas Hubbard, author of How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business and inventor of the Applied Information Economics method, random guessing actually produces better results. Therefore, using heat maps is less than useless; it’s harmful.

The reason why heat maps don’t work isn’t complex. Assigning ordinal numbers to qualitative ratings is about as accurate as using hotel star reviews, but with much more

serious implications. Just because you have assigned a number to something doesn’t mean you can calculate a numerical solution from it. Does an event that causes a large financial loss rated as a “4” have exactly twice the impact of a medium financial loss assigned a “2” rating?

Heat maps also imply a level of certainty that rarely exists. The reality is that the possible outcomes of a risk event are uncertain and exist on a spectrum. There is no way to express all of this with a single dot on a heat map. To express risk in business terms, a cybersecurity professional needs a probabilistic method. What’s

the bottom line? Too often, heat maps merely document gut feelings and are designed to justify the decisions cybersecurity leaders have already made.

However, there is a better cyber risk quantification method that can provide an organization with greater confidence in their risk assessments. A quantitative assessment model, such as the Factor Analysis of Information Risk (FAIR), can be used to express the financial loss exposure of a cyber threat scenario through probabilistic analysis, providing a standard risk language to ensure consistency. Likewise, an analyst using FAIR can demonstrate how established controls reduce risk, thereby, evaluating potential investments in cybersecurity technology at the same time.

To use these kinds of models, like FAIR, the first step is to clearly delineate a variety of threat events, from weather to malicious actors, and the assets of business value that could be

threatened. The cybersecurity function will need to gather the data required to populate the FAIR model by holding workshops with subject matter experts, examining existing and proposed policies and standards and reviewing system-generated reports, management reports, and manually collected metrics.

Using the Monte Carlo simulation, an analyst can then run thousands of simulations for the threat event, creating a distribution of probable losses. For organizations new to quantitative modeling, this process can be challenging because the scope or scenario often lack clear and proper definitions. These speed bumps are easily overcome with guidance and experience.

Unlike heat maps, Monte Carlo simulations do math with uncertain inputs and, in turn, show the uncertainty in the results. This quantification of risk gives decision makers a much clearer view of threats they are facing,

the financial stakes at risk, and the degree of confidence that should be assigned to the outcomes. It also reveals the relative benefits of mitigating those threats.

While adopting FAIR or another quantitative model may appear daunting to organizations that have utilized heat maps for years, it’s hard to justify not transitioning to these approaches when the benefits are considered. In addition to understanding the cost of different events and clarifying the return on investment to mitigate them, quantitative models provide complete cybersecurity assessments at a lower cost with better results than heat maps. They also help organizations prioritize security concerns in monetary terms, determine the appropriate amount of insurance, make better decisions, and comply with regulations. O

VINCE DASTA is the Associate Director of the Security and Privacy practice at Protiviti, where he helps companies quantify and manage their cybersecurity risk. For more information, visit www.protiviti.com.

T

F O

H

IS E R E

OMNI-CHANNEL CONTENT PLATFORMS 28

Fall-Winter.2019 DOCUMENTmedia.com

By Tony Byrne

They are designed to supply core content to the ever-growing channels of customer engagement.

9 USE CASES FOR OMNI-CHANNEL CONTENT PLATFORMS

W

hile many industry pundits have focused on traditional enterprise content management (ECM) vendors transitioning from document management to content services platforms, a parallel, and potentially a more interesting, trend has been taking place in the customer experience (CX) world.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen the rise of a new category of platforms that are designed to supply core content to the ever-growing channels of customer engagement. After extensive research here at Real Story Group, we’ve labeled this modern class of tools as omni-channel content platforms.

Emerging primarily from the digital asset management (DAM) arena, some key technologies have also spun off from the headless web content management and marketing asset management markets.

The purpose of an omni-channel content platform is to act as a single source of truth for a highly curated set of reusable enterprise-wide information assets, such as text, data, and media. An omni-channel content platform manages and distributes the core assets of an enterprise—not all assets, but a select subset needed to provide consistent customer experiences across channels.

Omni-channel content platforms try to solve the problem of divergent

Source: Real Story Group Vendor Evaluations

customer experiences and messaging when content gets tightly bound to a specific engagement channel, like your website, email platform, sales force automation platform, or customer support portal. Omni-channel content platforms can provide the infrastructure for process efficiencies and messaging consistency, but they also fuel more personalized customer experiences.

As you’d find with most marketplaces, the typical omni-channel content platform vendor will only excel at three or four use cases, so it’s really important to prioritize your most important business objectives when considering these tools. Also, in some cases, the omni-channel content platform will deliver those services. While in other cases, it will just provide the

core content building blocks to be assembled somewhere else by a third party or other channels.

At their core, omni-channel content platforms are component content management systems. However, unlike the technical documentation platforms of the past, they’re built for the media era. In fact, a key design principle is that text, media, and data are all firstclass objects. Contrast this with more traditional approaches where, for example, images remain bound to text in documentation systems or structured text and data in most ECM and DAM platforms are subsidiary extensions to files, rather than independent objects themselves.

The key word here is “object.”

In order to support complex data models with compound assets and

DOCUMENTmedia.com Fall-Winter.2019

29

sophisticated where-used analysis, an omni-channel content platform needs to be object-oriented, both in code and repository. This is why most of them are built on graph-type datastores.

What gets managed in those datastores? In order to support specific business scenarios around aggregating assets into specific experiences, an omni-channel content platform needs to support content at an atomic, component level. The types of component assets could include micro-content (e.g., offer copy, email blocks, or text messages), HTML micro-experiences (like widgets), document assets, digital assets (such as infographics), short video snippets, podcasts or other audio assets, coupon codes, pricing, offers, and so on.

As discussed previously, the omni-channel content platform may, or may not, assemble these assets into compound deliverables, but at a minimum, it should make them available and track their reuse (where the asset

30

Fall-Winter.2019 DOCUMENTmedia.com

gets deployed as-is) as well as derivation (where the asset gets modified for a specific context).

Derivation is an important feature in an omni-channel world where context often gets set at the edge of the customer experience. For example, you may modify a core re-usable video snippet differently for Facebook than for Twitter, let alone a partner website. The omni-channel content platform needs to track these derivations so that, for example, when the core “parent” asset gets modified, downstream “children” owners get notified.

Omni-channel content platforms will likely not replace your existing content management systems—but co-exist with them. Like many omni-channel services, an omni-channel content platform becomes an enterprise-wide layer underneath your other content and engagement platforms. As such, you should remain suspicious about any existing content/asset management

solution in your stack playing this role.

You’ll find them either too bound to a specific engagement channel or too restricted in terms of information types and model extensibility.

This space is also expanding rapidly, as enterprises pay more attention to customer experience across channels. Along with analog solutions for core customer data (customer data platforms) and decision/rule engines (journey orchestration engines) at an enterprise-wide tier, omni-channel content platforms that unify the management, delivery, and tracking of reusable information assets will become increasingly important. O

TONY BYRNE is Founder of Real Story Group, an exclusively buyer-focused analyst firm that helps marketing technology and customer experience stack leaders make the right decisions.

Contact Tony at tbyrne@realstorygroup.com or visit www.realstorygroup.com.