Ask any business leader what their main goal is and you’ll get a one-word answer: growth. It’s a universal objective and one that can be extremely difficult to achieve due to the challenges and obstacles that lie along the way. To guarantee smart business growth, you need to first ensure your business is adequately prepared to scale up. Any current process inefficiencies in your company will only worsen if your business growth plan is not implemented correctly, especially when facing the evolving business landscape.
Thankfully, Content Services solutions are specifically designed to help your business break free from inefficient processes and enable smart business growth. Streamlining workflows, organising data more intuitively and controlling how information is used are just three of the ways that new technology can transform your organisation and improve processes.
1. Automation streamlines workflows
In some companies, workflows end up being so complex that even the simplest of tasks take an excruciatingly long time to complete. Imagine that an employee from one department needs to request data from sales, but it's stored on paper in a filing cabinet. It would have to be brought over in person or scanned through - and that’s if they can find it amongst all their other files. Afterwards, someone has the responsibility to ensure it makes its way back to storage. And there’s always the risk that it will be modified, lost, or destroyed at some point on its journey. Plus, each step in the process may require decisions to be made and verified. Ultimately, all this slows business workflows down and reduces productivity considerably.
Luckily, Content Services provides an incredibly simple solution: workflow automation. Cut out the unnecessary steps and let your employees get on with their work. With an automated file management system, the same story would play out completely differently. With a quick request, approvals would be given and verified in one click, the file could be found instantly thanks to smart indexing that utilises tags, and it could be accessed right away.
Once workflows are functioning more efficiently, productivity levels increase as employees focus on doing the high-value tasks they were hired for. And with improved efficiency and productivity comes measurable business growth.
2. Smarter data organisation improves efficiency
If data is stored on paper, or even on servers but with no clear system, then you are unintentionally hindering your own growth. When information is difficult to track down, employees waste valuable time looking for it. This is frustrating for them and infuriating for customers that are unlucky enough to deal with these delays. In short, poor data organisation will cause drops in productivity and your relationship with customers is likely to suffer.
Again, the solution is a simple one. Content Services provides smart systems for organising your data, with paper documents scanned into a digital storage system like the cloud. During this process, tags can be added for advanced indexing, meaning that in future you only need to search for keywords, such as the date and document type, and you will instantly find what you’re looking for. Once all your data has been digitised, it will be securely stored and can be accessed by anyone with authorisation at any time.
And if your business growth plan includes hiring new employees, they won’t have to get their heads around a convoluted and inefficient storage system that would only end up complicating matters further as they add data themselves. Instead, they can get straight down to doing their job helping your business build strong, lasting relationships with customers.
3. Controlling data fuels collaboration
Information is critical to businesses nowadays, but unless you control your data effectively you won’t be able to extract its full potential. A huge pool of data is useless if your employees can’t access it effectively, leading to wasted time. This is especially problematic for international companies with offices operating in different time zones around the globe. Waiting until the next day for the information you need just isn’t acceptable in today’s world of instant satisfaction; you can’t leave customers on hold indefinitely or they’ll go to a competitor that treats them better.
In order to remedy this and foster growth, businesses should invest in Content Services. If your Content Services Platform is set up in the correct way, data can be stored digitally and access can be granted as required. If an employee located in another country needs to see or edit a document filed by another department, they can request access and retrieve it instantly. This fosters collaboration between teams and offices while resolving issues such as time zone differences and inefficient customer service. Customer satisfaction is, after all, a major driver of business success.
Simple improvements with measurable impact
In short, most of the inefficiencies around content management that hold companies back from smart business growth can be resolved using Content Services technology. Reduce wasted time and get your entire business working in unison, regardless of time zone or physical location. Digital data is available to whoever needs it at any time, facilitating collaboration between departments and offices. The end aim of all these changes is to improve efficiency and streamline your business to increase productivity and provide better customer service. And with increased customer satisfaction and a productive workforce, your business will soon achieve the growth you’re aiming for.
Businesses are handling more documents and data than ever before, and many are struggling to keep up. The answer to this challenge lies in using modern technologies such as Content Services to drive business efficiency and growth. Download the ebook today to learn more.
