It’s an exciting time to be a CIO, but also a challenging one.
As a result of emerging technology, organizations and the internal business practices which guide them are being permanently altered. As the importance of technology grows, CIOs are becoming more and more involved in critical organizational decisions.
It’s Not Just About Technology
Rather than simply overseeing databases and core systems, Government CIOs now have the added responsibility of building relationships with other government leaders and constituents. The increasing use of big data and analytics to guide decisions are huge drivers of change within the role. IT is now more than ever being developed to serve citizens and transform traditional processes. CIOs who do not adapt their personal and professional skill sets to meet today’s demands risk becoming ineffective, and therefore irrelevant.
Contending With Outside Forces
It’s important to be able to operate with speed when faced with the myriad of concerns facing governments today: population growth, the possibility of natural disasters, and providing efficient and high quality social services. Although it may seem overwhelming, governments are currently ripe with opportunity for CIOs to force the pace of innovation within their organizations and choose technologies that will streamline standard processes.
A New Vision for Cloud
Government CIOs are looking to the Cloud for the future of government information accessibility and security. Content Services Cloud platforms provide the infrastructure to access key information sources wherever they are, and key features – such as identity management – that governments need. These capabilities allow governments to provide fast and effective service to their constituents.
Ready to learn more about how Content Services can help you improve your organizational processes, save you money and keep you compliant? Call us at 1-800-214-4139 or email us at jlefever@paperlessus.com to discuss your opportunities for digital transformation.
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Justify the case for digital transformation
Government agencies are under mounting pressure to perform tasks efficiently, store information securely, and satisfy their constituents. When taking into account operating budget and the outdated legacy case management systems on which these organizations are forced to rely, the challenge is readily apparent. Critical information is often spread across multiple disconnected platforms, making the case management process disorganized and inaccurate. A digitized case management system eliminates these information ‘silos’ and creates a single access point across every channel. Not only will this allow departments, agencies and caseworkers to provide better public services, but government employees will be able to pursue more productive tasks with the time previously spent scouring for information.
Set your digital priorities and strategize
What is your organization’s overarching goal? What are your priorities? As a government entity, you’re likely focused on providing quality service to citizens and constituents. However, your digital transformation could also be a facet of a broader cost-cutting initiative. Knowing how you intend to maximize the benefits of the transformation will guide you through the process more quickly and give you the results that your organization needs. Create and manage a detailed strategy that incorporates your organization’s unique needs and goals.
Ensure that government leaders are playing meaningful roles in your digital initiatives
Lead by example. Leaders should man the helm of any digital transformation effort. These individuals can provide both internal and external resources that will keep the process moving smoothly. In addition, demonstrating a focus on digitization affects the entire organization from the top down, creating a digital culture centered around smarter, more efficient practices.
Select the best ECS software for your needs
With so many options to choose from, how can you tell which Case Management platform is right for you? Here are some tips to remember:
Listen to constituent feedback and build upon your implemented software
Be sure to regularly evaluate the effectiveness of your Case Management solution and adjust or build upon your platform as the need arises. Your priorities, as well as those of your constituents, can change. A quality Case Management platform can mold to suit your current requirements. Most importantly, listen to the feedback of your constituents and end users. Their happiness with the solution will lead to yours!
ECS for Laboratories: Managing Your Content Supports Your Mission
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Every day, commercial and government research labs explore the potential of new discoveries and technologies to benefit our society. To accomplish this important work, their research results need to be secure and they need to run an efficient organization to focus as many resources as possible on the efforts that can lead to important discoveries. And, with days full of data gathering, managing the content and the processes to share the research can be difficult and slow in a paper-based world.
As a lab, you might think that the challenge is finding new discoveries or the complexities of studying important areas of our world. Those are real challenges, but what about the difficulties of running your lab in a paper-based world?
Your Challenges Aren’t Just Discovery or Science
Files, reports, photos, videos, correspondence, contracts, grant agreements, invoices, calibration reports, chain of custody information and more. This is the content that any organization creates, stores and consults. In the case of your lab, this isn’t just files, it includes the records of your scientific work, proof of contract deliverables, grant-supported activities and vital documentation for litigation. Your source data and results are likely digital but we still operate in a world of paper especially when dealing with external contractors, law enforcement, grant sources, etc.
Our current clients include both Commercial and Government Research labs.
Consider these challenges of the paper-based world:
Securing Your Research Results – there are many possible scenarios from unauthorized access to lost files, offsite storage retrieval to files on desks. Balancing high availability of results with the need to secure access to results and track this access is difficult in a paper-based world.
Focusing Your Resources on Your Mission – access issues are important, but the cost of creating, managing, storing and destroying paper
consume resources that your lab might need to put to the real work of the lab. These resources include staff time and the cost of paper, both represent dollars diverted from other uses. Paper may be familiar, but it has costs that you might not want to assume. So, activities in accounting, human resources, credentialing, training and certifications are essential to support your lab, but they create additional costs and workload when they are documented and managed with paper.
Fulfilling Requests and Obligations – if you receive grants or take on work under contract agreements, critical content isn’t just the results of research, it is also supporting documentation that accompanies funding requests, demonstrates compliance with the terms of agreements and acts as an overall audit trail for your organization. Trusting this supporting documentation to paper means risking loss of work product and financial records and failure to find or produce documents and files can affect your ability to get reimbursed for work performed or to access grant funding that supports your work. Similarly, if you have business processes that go to the heart of your
mission, tasks like producing litigation packets, working in a paper-based world means your staff needs more time and efforts to produce deliverables. Here’s one lab’s experience in that area.
Managing Your Content Supports Your Mission
Your peers are grappling with the same challenges. Increasingly, they are turning to enterprise content management (ECS) to answer these challenges. ECS offers tools that are uniquely positioned to addresses the challenges generated by paper files and processes. Here’s some of the benefits that support their investments in ECS as a core technology platform:
Secure access to your research – digitizing your paper files means better control. Version control, encryption at rest and in transit, user authentication and control all help you comply with regulation and guarantee that your research findings are secure. Fast retrieval of information – digitized content is easy to search with keywords, full text, document type and more. This represents crucial time savings when staff need to find information or aggregate content for deliverables like litigation packets.
Drive faster and cheaper processes with automation – once you eliminate paper, automated processes can ensure that your busy lab completes work faster. Electronic notification and routing eliminates hand-delivered paperwork, freeing staff time while ensuring that staff are aware of work in a timely manner. Without paper, any process from litigation packet requests to contract management and more is transparent, with the potential of reporting dashboards for managers that help you stay on top of deliverables and other tasks.
Adopting ECS has produced dramatic and measurable results for research labs. As you consider your next technology investment, ECS is a technology that closely aligns with your needs and challenges and is delivering benefits to your peers. That’s why managing your content is one of the smartest things you can do to support you lab’s mission and operations.
