In the past, enterprise content management software was only used by companies who post content online. Now, however, almost every business can benefit from ECM software. As businesses across the country move away from keeping files on paper, important information is prone to getting lost in complicated filing systems on computer hard drives. ECM software has grown from simple software designed to organize online content to an all-in-one solution for internal and external content organization. If you are considering getting ECM software for your business, here are a few of the major benefits you can expect to see after a few months of using it.
Information Security
Almost every business works with sensitive information of some kind. Customer payment information, industry secrets, and sensitive client details must be protected. In the past, this kind of information was kept secure in locked filing cabinets or secure rooms. Now, all of this information is typically stored digitally. Although documents can (and should) be encrypted, you don't want entry-level employees to stumble upon sensitive documents. ECM software prevents this by organizing internal documents based on viewership eligibility. You can keep all of your employees exactly as informed as you want them to be by assigning them a viewership level on document types, limiting your company's risks of information leaks.
Content Cycle Management
If your company does post external content online, using ECM software is almost a necessity. Today's fast-paced news and blog cycle has driven companies to create posts or reports multiple times per day. This has dramatically increased the speed of the content cycle. In the content cycle, a piece of content is created, updated, archived, and finally, deleted. If your employees have to do this manually for every piece of content you produce, you may see productivity losses even as you increase your content output. To prevent this, ECM programs automatically put content through the cycle. This can apply both to external content and internal content, like employee knowledge bases.
Communication Management
As companies grow and spread out into large firms with multiple departments, employee jargon can become a serious problem. Employees from different departments can struggle to communicate with each other as they use the same words for different processes. You can prevent this issue by using ECM software to manage communication. ECM software can be used to create a working and consistently updated knowledge base with definitions for internal terms. Terms can be hyperlinked to their definitions to ensure everyone is on the same page.
For more information, contact an ECM software service.
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