Because the world of business operations is moving faster and faster thanks to digital innovations, every organization that hopes to keep up with the world around them needs a comprehensive document management solution.
Managing content in the modern age goes beyond organizing the storage of your files. The platform you use as the base of your enterprise content management (ECM) system forms the heart of your digital workflow management strategy.
This is why choosing the right ECM software is so important — it not only affects how your data is stored, but how efficiently your staff can use that data to push your organization forward. That’s where Oracle WebCenter Content really shines. It has a plethora of features and tools that make your content management systems easy to use, drastically reduces the chance of human error, and helps to automate those tasks that can drag your teams’ efforts to a snail’s pace.
Today, we will take a look at some of the key features of WebCenter Content to demonstrate how it can benefit your team members, improve your organization’s overall efficiency and collaboration, and offer you tangible ROI benefits without sacrificing compliance or security.
The best and most advanced Oracle ECM that has been produced to date is WebCenter Content (WCC). WCC combines Oracle’s history of consistency and reliability with the integration of next-gen technologies and features.
WebCenter Content’s primary function is to organize, store, and give authorized users access to the documents and content that drive an organization. WCC can categorize and store any necessary file type — from PDFs to images to videos and on and on.
With its integration of cloud-based technology, WebCenter Content gives your entire organization a way to access key data at instant speed from any device, anywhere in the world. It also allows you to interact with content that was created using software that your device may not normally accommodate.
The addition of tools such as Oracle AI has improved the ability of WCC to recognize and categorize different types of documents and files. That makes it even easier to automate and smooth out workflows that would have resulted in procedural bottlenecks in the past.
It is through these functionalities that WebCenter Content rises above a content management system and becomes an invaluable tool for digital workflow management.
So, how does WCC enhance an organization’s workflows? Basically, it takes the most time consuming and repetitive tasks that occupy far more of your employees’ weekly labor hours than they should and gives you the opportunity to automate those tasks.
That may seem like too general an answer, so let’s look at specific ways WebCenter Content can be leveraged to enhance your organization’s workflows.
Workflow automation software has been around for some time, but advances in design and the incorporation of artificial intelligence and machine learning have made it possible to automate tasks that would have required manual completion just a few short years ago.
WebCenter Content utilizes natural language processing and optical character recognition tools in conjunction with Oracle AI to identify, categorize, and sort incoming content automatically. That means that you can skip the part of your workflow that separates the invoices from the contracts from the business insights reports.
WCC can scan content and intelligently categorize it and route it to the appropriate storage areas. And because your documents have been sorted intelligently, they are easily searchable through metadata tags, subject lines, file types, etc.
This also helps with document lifecycle management. You can use WebCenter Content to automatically record edits on shared documents as they happen in order to solidify version control — no more wasting time trying to reconcile every different version of a document that multiple people have been working on at the same time.
That version control throughout a document’s lifecycle also demonstrates how WCC can aid your regulatory compliance and governance. You can use the software to confirm that only authorized users accessed content and you can track who made changes to a given document and when they did it. That means that you always know what is happening with your content and can easily produce materials to satisfy an audit should one be called for.
Because of its effective use of cloud-based technology, WCC is an excellent content collaboration platform. Collaborators can see and make changes to content in real time from any device anywhere in the world.
Having real time collaborative access can also speed up the process of getting approvals for key workflows. Staff members can submit for approval and then get that approval in moments from whatever device their manager has on hand.
An underrated strength of Oracle WebCenter Content is that it makes it easy for collaborators to make edits on documents even if the device being used does not have access to the program in which the document was created.
So, if a document comes to you from a program on a collaborator’s desktop and you need to make adjustments to it, you can make those changes from your tablet or phone even though you don’t have the original program on that mobile device.
That speaks to the strength of Oracle integration capabilities. WebCenter integrations with other Oracle applications are predictably simple, but integration with third party apps is also easy. Oracle offers a wide range of APIs for commonly utilized programs while making development of custom APIs for newer or niche software a simple process.
Understanding how WCC can benefit your document workflow management is only the beginning. In order to optimize your switch, you need to develop an implementation strategy.
A successful WebCenter implementation requires planning for success. This takes several forms. One is creating a detailed breakdown of your document management workflows to identify opportunities for automation or streamlining.
By plotting out your existing workflows, you can establish parameters for success. This includes setting objectives and determining the KPIs that you can track to objectively determine whether you have met your goals.
A good way to get an idea of how to break down your workflows, what reasonable goals look like, and what KPIs best demonstrate your progress is to follow industry best practices for implementation of a new enterprise document control system. If you aren’t certain what the best practices for this kind of implementation look like, it would benefit you to work with an experienced partner.
TEAM IM is an Oracle Gold Partner with a roster of experts that have collective decades of experience in the enterprise content management sphere. TEAM IM can help you avoid some of the most common pitfalls that come with attempting content migration to a new system without having a detailed, effective plan of action.
The experts at TEAM IM will not only assist your organization with planning out your implementation strategy, but they are also well versed in training your staff members for optimal WebCenter user adoption.
Working with TEAM IM will also ensure that you do not accidentally leave gaps in your security or grant access to sensitive information to unauthorized users. An experienced partner and a detailed plan are invaluable when you look to make a big change in something as important as your ECM solution.
The things you can do with Oracle WebCenter Content are great. And those functionalities combine to provide benefits in the short term and long term. Here are a few ways you will be able to see your investment in WCC pay off:
Your content management ROI will come in the form of increased efficiency. Your team will take less time to bring content through your workflows thanks to the intelligent automation and streamlined storage and searchability functions.
That leads to increased productivity. If your employees take less time to complete a task, they can fit more of that task into their day. That means product can ship to customers sooner, contracts and invoices can be processed faster, and your production costs lower over time.
Oracle document security is also an avenue by which you can mitigate potential costs. Consider the cost of an audit for which you are unprepared. You could wind up paying a hefty sum in regulatory penalties because you have to sort through several different versions of key documents to find the information you need — and you may not find it. But with the version control and document tracking of WCC, all the information you need for an audit is at your fingertips.
You also get the peace of mind that comes with top-of-the-line security protocols that can be built into your workflows so that your data is constantly, automatically monitored and protected.
The tools and functionalities that Oracle WebCenter Content brings to the table can save you a lot of money while making your team members’ workloads much easier and less time-consuming.
The intelligent automation that WCC offers helps reduce human error while speeding up processes like categorizing and sorting content. It also improves security and governance by building key protocols and data security processes into your automations.
WCC also makes collaboration across distances and across devices simple and efficient. It allows documents to be processed quickly, no matter where your staff members may be or what device they use for secure access.
The benefits that come with Oracle WebCenter Content digital workflow management pay dividends almost immediately. To ensure you get the smoothest transition and best ROI on your ECM investment, reach out to TEAM IM today and see what WebCenter Content can do for your organization.