by Sachin Rane, on Sep 16, 2019 7:55:00 PM
Estimated reading time: 3 mins
As the quality and form of data changes from structured to highly unstructured, businesses feel the need to manage the data more holistically, in order to derive meaningful information. Traditionally, data was always available in the form of structured forms and reports. Then, a standalone Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system usually sufficed the need for data management. Today, businesses deal with all sorts of structured and unstructured documents, records, PDFs, email, audio, and video. To accommodate this change, Gartner raised the bar for contemporary ECM solutions and coined a new concept of Content Service Platform (CSP).
Why CSP & Why the need to shift away from ECM?
CSP is a set of services and microservices, which either as an integrated product suite or separate applications, while sharing common APIs and repositories, manage diverse contents and serve different communities of users having different content requirements within an enterprise. Such monolithic architectures need a sound foundation, which can be delivered over a cloud. CSPs are marked by a shift away from management of data and repositories towards collaborating and leveraging content to gain insights.
With this change in definition, the erstwhile ECM platforms are now transmuting into CSPs, where there is a convergence of content capture, workflows, business rules, and robotics to offer an integrated user experience and improved business agility.
As businesses expand across geographical boundaries, they are experiencing the need to improve accessibility and control. The evolving business scenario is increasingly mandating the use of cloud-based solutions.
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What happens to existing ECM infrastructure investment?
The idea of a transition from a standalone monolith to a distributed cloud-based CSP infrastructure set-up is easier said than done, especially so when the existing ECM investments have not reached their breakeven point. However, in an interconnected, cloud-based digital world, a dynamic approach soliciting real-time file synchronization, content integration, Extract-Transform-Load (ETL), data capture, document classification, workflow, and document management, of all sorts of data is required.
Rest assured. In the new scheme of things, the ECM solution still holds an important position but with a change in perspective. It now functions as a repository which stores the database, file system, search indexes, directory, libraries, and metadata. The cloud-based CSP is loosely integrated through an API platform atop the ECM and other enterprise legacy databases, if any, to form an agile, distributed architecture, which is scalable as per business requirements.
The modular approach also enables enterprises to integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) layers to derive intelligence and provide personalized services as well as an improved user experience. The CSP enables enterprises to evolve with the ever evolving technologies to achieve higher efficiency, productivity, and agility.
With CSP, there is a clear deviation from a central document storage approach towards providing content services with an increasing focus on content usability. The approach overcomes point integrations to evolve into a highly agile, flexible, and scalable hybrid system of best-of-the-breed applications to future-proof the CSP architecture.
Where can CSP be used?
CSPs can be used in all sectors where operations are data-driven, and which further generate a high amount of data, which needs to be widely sourced and consumed.
Existing users of ECM platforms in Healthcare, IT & Telecom, Banking, Financial Services & Insurance, Public sector, and Legal can improve business operations by harnessing the CSP synergies.
Benefits of Content Service Platform
- Distributed architecture over the cloud
- Access to multiple systems through one user interface
- Modularity, scalability, and agility desired in a digital environment
- Easy integration with other multiple enterprise systems
- Seamless alignment with the enterprise’s growing data and content
- Agile and responsive user interface
- Improved efficiency
- Improved control on information
- Reduced cost of information management
- Streamlined access to records
- Elastic searches – keyword and full-text searches
- Improved compliance
In summary
As data constantly evolves in its form and format the storage facilities need to evolve in order to provide an integrated user experience. The existing ECM investments, which are essentially standalone, can be extended into CSPs through an API platform for having an agile and scalable architecture to improve business efficiency, productivity, and agility.
