Key benefits of moving content services to the cloud include increased efficiency, greater security, remote accessibility, speed of deployment and ease of maintenance.[1] When making the shift to cloud, organizations have many paths to choose from. Whether you are migrating your existing implementation or launching a new cloud-based application, the choice of vendor is critical. It will impact not only the move itself but also your long-term success.
Here are five things to look for in a cloud content services provider:
1) Market-leading content services capabilities
Look for a vendor that has been recognized for its strengths across a full spectrum of content services capabilities including:
- Records management
- Archiving
- Information capture and intelligent document processing
- Information governance
- Process automation
2) Strong partnerships and robust integrations
25% of IT professionals say siloed information in different applications, making it difficult to search, access and use, is a top tooling obstacle for team success, and 24% say a top obstacle is applications that don’t integrate with one another.[2]
Integrating with lead applications embeds information management directly within a workflow – seamlessly connecting business processes with both front-end applications and backend systems to drive organizational agility and uplift operational experience.
Seek out a vendor that delivers deep integrations into the leading applications your teams are working in every day, including:
- SAP®
- Salesforce®
- Microsoft®
Working with vendors that have strong partnerships with industry leaders can help you future-proof your investments by ensuring the extensibility of your applications. Leading vendors that offer deep integrations also often allow customers to obtain applications via cloud marketplaces, simplifying transactions and enabling the use of committed spend.
3) Scalability to meet the needs of large, complex customers
Find a vendor with a track record of delivering integrated, enterprise-grade solutions built to solve today’s complex business challenges. Assess the scale of customers and the solutions the vendor has successfully delivered. If a vendor is capable of meeting the needs of some of the largest and most complex business environments, processing millions of objects daily and managing billions of objects securely, you can be confident that its information management solutions will scale with your business.
4) Freedom to run anywhere
48% of IT professionals say that leveraging multiple cloud platforms to support flexible delivery of business applications is a key priority.[3]
The freedom to run anywhere lets you avoid locking into a single deployment model. Some vendors claim to be cloud-native but offer only a single deployment option. With the right vendor, you can choose to run your information management solutions in the cloud of your choice:
- Private cloud
- Hyperscaler public cloud, such as Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure
- Multi-tenant SaaS
This also allows you to choose the implementation that best fits each new application and to customize your content services solution to your unique needs rather than your vendor’s limitations. Other benefits of flexible cloud deployment models include:
- Ability to build on what you have by introducing new cloud-based applications and services that integrate with and extend your existing solution
- Option to leverage multiple cloud deployments within a single solution
- Flexibility to move to the cloud your way and at your own pace
5) Trusted Advisor
Whether you are looking to migrate existing applications to the cloud or launch a new cloud-based content services implementation, partnering with a vendor who can provide advice rooted in both deep domain knowledge and extensive experience is essential to success. Look for a vendor with proven expertise supporting every phase of your information management journey, including:
- Strategy and planning
- Implementation
- Migration
- Upgrading
- Integrating
- Extending use cases
- Building information management roadmaps
Some vendors also offer customers the ability to fully outsource day-to-day management of their cloud-based applications, freeing up IT to focus on the core priorities of their business.
There’s one key differentiator that put some vendors above the rest: a cloud-first innovation roadmap.
Without continuous investment into cloud-based applications, infrastructure, and integration, the very capabilities that first set any vendor apart from the competition will quickly become out of date.
OpenText was recently recognized as a leader in both the Forrester Wave for content platforms and the IDC Marketspace for cloud content services and is one of the only vendors in the market that meets all five of these cloud content services criteria.
Discover how choosing OpenText can help you master modern work.
[1] Jan 2022 – IDC U.S. IT Quick Poll — Content Services Survey
[2] 451 Research, Market Intelligence Business Impact Brief: IT Turns its Attention to Employee Productivity and its Preference Toward SaaS. (2021)
[3] Ibid.
