When working remotely, viewing content is excellent, but teams also ought to change documents, share updates, and kick off downstream tasks. Access-only mode doesn’t cut it anymore.

Most mobile apps today provide just a window of access to content. When working remotely, viewing content is excellent, but when my team or i can not change it, share updates, or kick off downstream tasks our hands are tied. The access-only mode that almost all people work in precisely doesn’t cut it anymore.

There is a higher way
To get work done we have to make edits, compare versions, add comments, advance workflows, or approve content — from any location, at any time, and from any device. I actually have worked with many companies that had success with traditional on-premise enterprise content management (ECM) applications. They liked the editing features, tight security, and solid version control, but now struggle to evolve to the actuality of the mobile working world, and to increase those features to mobile workers. By not addressing the realities of mobile employees working with content remotely, companies are creating bigger problems, and CIOs risk losing their jobs.

Case in point: i lately worked with an insurance company that wanted its sales team to go faraway from paper and to regulate contracts on mobile devices. The IT team opposed moving to a cloud-based solution and spent four years attempting to develop another, without success. The CEO lost patience, and within five months of adopting content cloud services, the company’s sales reps were finalizing and renewing contracts in front of clients. Clients love the ease, and the reps are happy, but several IT executives lost their jobs.

[Secure the information, not the mobile device. Read more at Keep Data Off Mobile Devices & Clear of Adversaries.]

The cloud: a boon or a fool’s paradise?
We must be able put critical content to work — like contracts, financial presentations, and product collateral. Employees can’t access that content outside the firewall, in order that they find workarounds, and the cloud offers a seemingly easy solution. Too often they drop sensitive corporate intellectual property into free, vulnerable, consumer-class cloud storage boxes. Recent research has shown that half employees use consumer cloud file-storage services, even if they know that they’re violating company policy, and bosses are the worst offenders.

“The kiss of death” is how one company describes simple cloud storage solutions. This company, like such a lot of, deals with intense regulation concerning product documentation, and it makes frequent detailed changes because it innovates: “We had seven revisions in precisely the last three months.” With cloud storage boxes, salespeople were often walking around with documentation that was several generations old, an important regulatory risk. So the IT department banned use of cloud storage in favor of an enterprise-grade content cloud solution that gives a single source of truth for critical documents.

A happier ending
Another company with a more enlightened IT team saw what its mobile workforce needed and recognized the advantages of cloud-based content management. The corporate provides and supports highly technical, customized products to global customers within the broadcast business. Employees, typically at customer sites, need immediate mobile access to the most up-tp-date product details; using outdated information could delay broadcast of a first-rate sporting event or awards program. With a cloud-based content management approach, the corporate gave 400 employees access to product information within 90 days.

Lessons learned
Mobile working is a given. Be a champion for enabling employees to work with content on their device of choice. Otherwise they resort to risky workarounds. Perhaps, that’s already happening. In keeping with my experience working with hundreds of businesses, cloud-based content management is the fastest, safest path to let mobile workers put content to work.

As you evaluate how one can shift to mobile safely and securely, listed here are some things to think about:

• Employees want choice. Make BYOD easy, so support as many devices as possible. At a minimum, allow iPads, iPhones, and Androids.
• Employees download content and alter it. Automatic synchronization is prime. The subsequent time an employee logs in, offline edits may be automatically updated within the corporate repository, ensuring that everybody is using the most up-tp-date version. Also consider the flip side with automatic sync. Employees can log in and automatically get the newest content on their devices, so that they needn’t check to make certain they’ve the newest version of the corporate presentation.
• Require and restrict content downloads. Require that sales teams always have the most up-tp-date collateral, and prohibit sensitive content (e.g. company financials, HIPAA, and FERPA) from ever being synchronized.
• Audit trails are essential. Despite the fact that your organization isn’t public or working in a regulated industry, you should be ready to know who accessed what, when, and the way.
• Workflow is fundamental. Employees must be ready to kick off workflows — for such things as contract approvals or employment offers.
• Mobile devices are lost or stolen, and employees terminated each day. Make sure to manage to wipe devices of all sensitive information.

Because work doesn’t stop simply because we aren’t within the office, we have to empower employees to position content to work anywhere at any time. Enabling mobile content management is that last mile within the shift to mobile. By not addressing the mobile content demand, we’re simply creating bigger problems. It is your choice: Be a blocker or an enabler.

IT groups need data analytics software that’s visual and accessible. Vendors have become the message. Also within the State Of Analytics issue of InformationWeek: SAP CEO envisions a younger, greener, cloudier company. (Free registration required.)

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