Managing Content, the Microsoft Partner Way

Utilitis produce incredible amounts of new information each day.

There are memos within departments explaining a new business process. Engineering observations are generated in response to situations occurring in the field. Text or instant messages create a history of instructions for using software to  solve a reporting function. The list could go on. These types of ongoing content creation, spread as they are over thousands of employees working daily, could easily be siloed within or among departments, and unavailable to future needs. Obviously, sharing the information and structuring it for instant availability makes far more sense.

We bring this up because we noticed recently a financial news article about the current state of competition among software companies provide content management solutions. In the article, one of our remarkable partners, OpenText, is mentioned as a leader in the content management space, even among some more well-known brand names that are fading away. As such OpenText deserves a few minutes of our attention.

OpenText is a serious contender for the top leadership spot in enterprise content management. OpenText is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and earlier this year was recognized as the 2012 Microsoft Alliance ISV Industry Partner of the Year for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology. In more plain English, OpenText has been working very closely with us to solve problems that occur in specific industries, particularly the electricity, gas and water utilities companies that are the focus of the Microsoft Worldwide Utilities group.

As example, OpenText helps utility retailers maximize interactions with customers through the use of their enterprise content management (ECM) system, the OpenText ECM Suite that manages information throughout its lifecycle, providing an integrated set of technologies that bring information together within a business context. Check out OpenText’s Whitepaper on Enterprise Content Management which is available through this page. In the utility context, here is what is important from the Whitepaper:

Engagement technologies focus on the productivity of teams and individuals – or people-centric business issues – and require communications between people. Individual productivity begins with the ability to find the right information at the right time, which is addressed by search, navigation, and recommendation technologies… Team productivity can be increased through synchronous (real-time) and asynchronous collaboration that enables geographically distributed teams of people to coordinate their activities. Social media technology takes this ability to the next level by providing a richer collaborative experience with microblogs or embedded video content, and by facilitating joint authoring of content with technologies such as wikis. Individuals can also use social media technologies for expert locations – giving organizations new avenues to discover and foster innovation.

Learn more about OpenText and look to their solutions as an augmentation to the continuous training and innovation process needs of your utility business. You will be surprised as to how many productivity gains can be achieved through enterprise wide content sharing in a structured, searchable, easy-to-use format. – Jon C. Arnold