In today’s fast-paced and competitive environment, higher education institutions are often overwhelmed by the sheer volume of documents, inbound information and unstructured data. Controlling such content chaos while dealing with process bottlenecks and internal roadblocks are major pain points affecting the efficiencies and decision-making processes across the campus.

As information enters and exits higher education institutions at high rates, the only way to eliminate those challenges and gain a competitive advantage is by transforming the way your institution manages information. A holistic solution helps institutions manage their content and improves operational practices that make it easier and faster to find the right information, collaborate with peers, comply with regulations, and complete critical work.

One such solution that fits the bill is content services. While most institutions are familiar with enterprise content management (ECM), few realise that the content services platform is a more evolved and comprehensive extension of ECM. What’s the difference? Well, ECM focuses on how you manage content, whereas content services is a modern approach that emphasises how you use the content and leverage it. Unfortunately, institutions that have invested in ECM or migrated to content services solutions are missing out on its actual value. These institutions are only using the platforms as a digital filing cabinet without realising its full potential and capacity for more.

In this three-part series (Part 1 – Beyond Digitisating Documents, Part 2 – The True Power of Content Services & Part 3 – Digital Connectivity Across Campus), we will explore the full range of capabilities that content services platforms offer and discover how to implement those solutions on campus can help us to leverage the most value from your investment.

Eliminating Paper and Storage Space Consumption Issues

Generally, paper — whether in application forms, bills, receipts, resumes, invoices, work orders and others — is used across campus. Almost all areas of business operations — admissions, financial aid, registrar, human resources, accounts payables and facilities management — are affected by the way paper is handled, not to mention the physical space it consumes.

Content services solutions help reduce paper consumption and regain valuable office space that once housed paper. No matter how much information enters your institution, content services enable you to capture and digitise all types of content with its multi-channel capture capabilities. You can automatically classify, extract and validate critical incoming information, and manage all related documents together in one centralised system.

Tackling Time Thieves and Productivity Killers

Slow processing, difficulties retrieving files, incomplete information and duplicated work often takes up most of your staff’s time, affecting their productivity levels. These are some of the reasons to implement a content services solution.

A solution with content management capabilities can help you organise, manage and optimise critical content regardless of where it originates, providing your staff with a complete view of the information they need when they need it. Thus, successfully eliminating those wasteful, time-consuming, low-value tasks, giving your employees back time in their day. They can now focus on higher-value tasks like improving student interactions with this extra time.

Improving Data Accuracy and Reducing Security Risks

Departments relying on paper-based processes and manual interventions often face information loss and errors, which leads to financial penalties on incidents of non-compliance. Content services solutions like content management and intelligent capture enable information to be captured in high accuracy, leaving minimal room for errors. Content services solutions also have built-in security features like configurable password policies, rights management and security keywords that enable administrators to restrict or authorise access. Users are alerted to unauthorised document modifications by security enhancements like encrypted keywords to protect data directly at the database and digital signatures.

Che-Andre Gordon is a Chief Solutions Architect with over ten years of experience implementing and leading software solutions across web, mobile, and desktop environments. He has been featured in Yahoo News/Finance in over 30+ countries to recognise his contributions towards the Caribbean’s digital footprint.