Organizations rely on information to anticipate trends, take advantage of new opportunities, and succeed in today’s world. As organizations around the world adapted to the disruption caused by the global pandemic, the importance of information—and having the right technology to securely connect employees to the information they need, when they need it—became increasingly clear.
The past year has demonstrated that becoming a highly integrated digital organization is now vital. Here are four key capabilities that can help businesses adapt and stay resilient, whatever the future brings.
Security
The rapid shift from offices to home working has created the need for an increased focus on cyber security, with greater attention to securing endpoints. It’s one thing to keep endpoints secure when everyone’s in a company office using the corporate network—it’s a different challenge when thousands of employees are scattered across thousands of locations, all using different devices and different networks.
Remote working requires security that’s effective and adaptable, without getting in the way of work. Ideally, it should stay in the background while watching for—and preventing—threats and reporting intelligence back to the company. And it should also provide continuous backup so no data is lost if, for example, a ransomware attack locks a user out of their device. In addition to our Carbonite solutions for cyber resilience, our latest release of OpenText™ EnCase™ Endpoint Security, for example, features automated alert responses, simplified workflows and a redesigned interface for intuitive use and real-time protection.
Connections
Everything today is part of a network. IT networks let us communicate and process digital information. Supply chains let us exchange resources and bring products and services to customers. Business networks let us create communities and share knowledge. And none of these networks could exist without the right connections.
But making those connections isn’t always easy. Simply finding the right suppliers can be a challenge. And getting systems to work together effectively can be equally tricky. For example, how do you best connect your company’s SAP-based enterprise resource planning system to a vital supplier that uses Microsoft Dynamics GP?
That’s why OpenText has adopted a “connect once, reach anything” mindset. We’ve expanded the capabilities of our Trading Grid to let customers not only connect with suppliers but also with their suppliers’ IT platforms. This can save considerable time and integration expense, making it easier and faster to just do business.
Context
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by data. There’s just so much of it: being generated by machines or people, being exchanged in so many ways, being stored or managed in so many places. Analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) make it possible to turn all this raw data into something more valuable: content with context. And context helps businesses understand historical trends, predict future possibilities and make better decisions.
We’ve put AI to work for our customers through our OpenText™ Magellan™ platform. Magellan can, for instance, analyze data from our Trading Grid and other systems to provide visibility into supply chains or analyze past performance to predict what the picture might look like in six months, 12 months, or five years. It can also help to identify risks and potential opportunities, paving the way for better business growth.
Automation
Digitization and automation are vital for keeping 21st century businesses efficient and competitive. But they’ve become even more important during the pandemic, when so many people who once worked together in large office spaces must now manage a variety of tasks virtually or online.
Consider the simple act of getting signatures on important documents. In an office, this was easy: print the document, walk down the hall to your manager’s office and ask for a signature. But that’s not an option when you’re working from home. The answer? Secure and automated processes for digital signatures. OpenText has made it a priority to build digital processes and automation into everything we do, and our OpenText™ Core Signature offering is one example: it lets users securely share and sign documents—even those needing multiple levels of approval—with just a click or two, while automatically tracking every stage of the process.
COVID-19 has dictated new ways of working and new priorities for digital transformation. With the right approach and the right technologies, organizations can help their employees stay productive — and safe — while keeping their businesses running smoothly now and into the future, no matter what other challenges might come.
Join me for my keynote at OpenText World Asia Pacific to learn how your organization can grow with OpenText.
