Reach the low-hanging fruit of content
Organisations that invested in document management systems are now looking for solutions to assist them with their changing management needs.
As multiple industries become driven by a combination of time and knowledge management, efficiency in the collation and propagation of this data will be a key business driver.
Document and content management are becoming increasingly important as companies realise the value of the intellectual property represented within these documents.
The fact is that documents are a serious headache. In the current economic climate, few would argue that all business processes are constantly being revisited in a bid to increase efficiencies.
With documents, however, there is still a chasm of inefficiency to be crossed, specifically in the management of content. Literally, this means the wording within a document.
The inefficient handling of content presents the opportunity to provide compelling solutions.
Because of the growing interest in document and content collaboration, especially in particular vertical sectors, this has become an increasingly appealing market for VARs.
These products offer good margin to the reseller as well as the ability to provide additional services such as training and consulting for business analysis.
Seat-based licensing models, inherent in software solutions, also provide resellers with clear up-selling opportunities.
This comes at a time when VARs are struggling with traditionally strong products, such as networking hardware and servers. Companies overbought a few years ago, expecting significant bandwidth expansion.
Now they are recognising that a lot of assets are intangible, so they need a document/content management system to protect their property.
Organisations that realise the importance of their documents were the first to invest in document management systems (DMSs), content management systems and enterprise content management infrastructure.
They are now looking for solutions to assist them with their document change management needs.
Legal, financial and pharmaceutical organisations have generally been the first to adopt DMS technology, because they are also the first to recognise that documents do not hold much value if the content is not manageable or adaptable.
These are 'low-hanging fruit' opportunities for the channel. One question remains: will resellers see the wood for the trees, or will the paper trail simply pass by the writing on the wall?
Shannon Pitchford is channel manager at Workshare Technology.