Innovation is vital to success in the digital economy – it enables businesses to anticipate change, open up new channels and get ahead with opportunities.*

According to a Gartner’s 2018 Strategy in the Digital Era Survey, over 80% of organizations now have digital initiatives centered on developing new products and services. Success depends on how good an organization is at identifying new opportunities, working out which ones to follow up and adjusting business processes accordingly to optimize efficiency. This Gartner refers to as “innovation effectiveness.”

But how do organizations achieve this so-called “innovation effectiveness”? Building innovation at scale doesn’t happen overnight; it takes maximum effort. Connecting people, technologies and data, and understanding that innovation comes with a risk factor.

The truth is that innovative companies are not willing to accept half measures. Rather than viewing digital transformation as a threat, they see it as a positive advantage. Digitization brings with it enhanced performance and efficiencies, greater transparency and greater value to customers.

It is little surprise, therefore, that digital initiatives are a top priority for CIOs this year, with only 4% of organizations having no digital initiative in place, according to Gartner’s 2019 CIO Agenda Report.

We are continually being told data is the new oil. The key to unlocking business growth and innovation lies in data. Thus, content management plays a vital role in digital transformation. Deploying the right content services platform is essential groundwork for innovation to standardize processes and document management across the enterprise.

With an increasing number of SaaS solutions on the market, it is tempting to go for the quick-fix option and simply roll out new applications for specific demands. But in reality, all this does is shift siloed and disorganized file directories and systems elsewhere — to the cloud, for example. Information is even more difficult to access and the business benefits are zero. CEOs then demand to know why the cloud migration hasn’t worked and the enterprise isn’t getting the efficiencies and cost savings promised.

If you are looking for cloud services, make sure you have a capable content services platform that offers cloud deployments.

It makes common sense to set up a direct channel for innovation. Using a standardized content services platform – with uniform metadata management and directly integrated enterprise content management (ECM), business process management (BPM) and cognitive services forward-thinking enterprises are already putting down the foundations for future-ready information and process management.

The business benefits are numerous. A platform provides the necessary scalability and agility digital business demands. Content services can be combined in infinite permutations for any number of existing and new uses. Solution templates for accounts payable, banking and so forth provide an even more convenient way to access information and service processes.

As a modular system, it is easy to extend and modify without having to spend time and effort on the integration required by third-party systems. The transformation into a digital company becomes a carefully planned strategic journey and not one of trepidation and exasperation.

It is paramount that you look closely at the architecture and related services when choosing the right platform, you may end up with a chaotic, confused mass of unwanted and unnecessary microservices.

Some vendors are using microservices, often developed by third-party providers, to gain an advantage over the competition. But just how well these microservices can be integrated into respective platforms remains to be seen.

Content services offering total compatibility must work with new solutions on a single technological platform. The result is a companywide information structure that enables new applications to be integrated and deployed at any time. This kind of solution includes all information sources and makes information accessible across all systems, through every area of the company and its operations from development to sales and accounting.

A content services platform can only establish itself as an innovation pipeline if existing services are continuously developed and rolled out via updates. In addition, innovative technologies such as machine learning can be integrated into these services and made available to platform customers. This approach drives creative thinking and innovation.

A content services platform is pivotal to the success of your digital transformation – supporting both the digital workplace and the digital business by defining new processes and ways of working. By choosing the right platform from the onset can help enterprises change, but also innovate by bringing order to content and ensuring it is easily usable to glean valuable business insight.

*Article originally published by Workflow on August 26, 2019