What Are the Top 5 Essentials for a Modern Content Management Platform?

Mission-critical to today’s businesses are content management solutions that go beyond basic functionality. A modern content management platform isn’t just a tool – it’s a critical foundation for improving workflows, meeting compliance demands, and empowering users. 

With customer expectations growing and organizational needs evolving, the right platform must deliver a seamless user experience, flexible deployment options, and a clear path for future scalability.

In this article, we’ll discuss the five essentials every modern content management platform must have to help organizations streamline operations, enhance security, and deliver exceptional customer support. Whether you’re actively upgrading from a legacy system or just exploring new alternatives, these are the key CMS features to watch for that make all the difference in driving your business forward – and Systemware will show you how. 

Table of Contents:

1. A Robust User Experience
2. Deployment Flexibility
3. A Quick and Easy Migration Path
4. Mitigate Risks by Satisfying Current and Future Compliance Requirements
5. Exceptional Customer Support
6. Conclusion: The Systemware Solution   

#1 — A Robust User Experience

User engagement has become an immediate priority for any kind of technology, and providing a great user experience is one of the most important things you can do for your business – in fact, a compelling UX can be the difference between a sale and a loss.

What Makes for a Great User Experience?

Today’s modern content services platforms must be designed with the user in mind. Mobility and ‘instant access’ capabilities are continuously raising user expectations. Paired with the growing needs of the 24-hour, 7 days a week, increasingly global workforce, and the need for secure access and speed, designing a comprehensive yet streamlined UX seems like a lofty (or virtually impossible) goal. Users want systems that work the way they do – processes that are simple, systems that are secure, and speed that delivers a seamless experience free from interruptions to their daily lives and the flow of business. Systems must be nimble, flexible, secure, and accessible.

Empowering Users: Automation and the All-in-One Platform

Organizations must empower users and accelerate business processes by offering improved content workflows. Automation and repeatability are replacing outdated ECM systems by streamlining workflows and improving efficiency. Freed from mundane tasks that slow systems and impede the user experience, organizations are looking to move toward all-in-one platforms designed for usability and personalized choices. Users should be able to find specific information contained within their repositories quickly. Solutions providing open APIs help organizations develop applications with easy integrations and extensions to deliver a tailored, user-centric experience.

In the end, all of the systems, processes, hardware, and ECM software share one purpose: to connect people with content better. As an ECM services provider, we are in a unique position to take advantage of this and reinvent the way users interact with enterprise information.

#2 — Deployment Flexibility

The right modern content services platform is the one that can meet an organization’s present needs as well as provide the flexibility to choose how the solution is deployed, as needs change over time. This requires a nimble and intuitive content services solution.

Different Organizations Require Different Approaches

No two organizations are the same. Each business has varying circumstances, and an effective ECM services provider must be able to meet the organization where they are in their data migration journey, as well as be able to look down the road and anticipate future needs. Some organizations require the installation and management of ECM software in-house. Others prefer hosted cloud-based solutions. Then there are those who would benefit from a hybrid solution – the marrying of both cloud and on-premise. Many factors come into play when making these critical business decisions and it is essential for modern content services platforms and components to offer flexible choices for deployment options.

Finding the Perfect Fit for Your Organization

Systemware is an innovative content services platform that intelligently manages critical business information for many of the world’s largest organizations. It offers the essential quality of deployment flexibility.

A fully hosted cloud allows organizations access to unlimited server availability, but also to utilize only the amount of infrastructure necessary to meet demand. Systemware’s elastic scalability can quickly and easily scale up and down, providing the best of both worlds – server capacity to handle volume when needed and cost savings when not.

On-premise deployments provide the same robust solution capabilities while utilizing in-house infrastructure and resources. Hybrid solutions provide flexible options combining both on-premise and cloud computing, allowing customers to best leverage their existing environment for maximum cost savings and efficiency while also benefiting from a modern cloud solution.

The Systemware Difference

Systemware has the technical agility to easily adapt and integrate with converging technologies and the flexibility to deploy any individual piece of the system on the appropriate infrastructure to meet your changing business requirements. A Systemware deployment creates personalized choices for maximum cost savings with a seamless connection to information resources.

Systemware delivers optimized performance in public, private, or hybrid cloud environments – as well as a fully hosted SaaS offering. Organizations can deploy Systemware’s enterprise content management platform seamlessly in external cloud platforms such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, Google Cloud, and more.

#3 — A Quick and Easy Migration Path

The Myths Surrounding Content Migration

Content migration has long held the reputation of being risky, time-consuming, and difficult. Companies often fear the change will disrupt key business processes and take years to complete. Information includes not only content but also the ancillary knowledge and experience surrounding it, which provides a wealth of meaning and history. It’s a big move, and it can often be overwhelming if not approached with a clearly defined strategy. In addition to a solid game plan, organizations need an experienced business partner to help execute and monitor the content migration for a smooth and seamless transition. With the right combination, a quick and easy path to a modern ECM services platform is within reach for any organization – and it can be done in weeks without disruption.

What Makes Systemware Stand out From the Rest

Systemware’s intelligent approach to content migration provides a simplified way to move your business forward. With our proprietary 5-step migration process, organizations can efficiently access, migrate, and manage content stored in legacy systems and disparate repositories. Our migration process provides flexible choices to meet specific business requirements and is supported by a team of experienced content services professionals who are highly skilled at converting companies from other solution providers. Additionally, our process ensures proper compliance for retention, data privacy, and information governance while also providing organizations with flexible deployment options to utilize existing infrastructure for budget constraints.

#4 — Mitigate Risks by Satisfying Current and Future Compliance Requirements

Data Privacy

Data privacy has become a top priority for organizations and is expected by today’s consumers. A recent Pew Research study found that 62% of Americans believe it is not possible to go through daily life without companies collecting their data. The need to protect personal data has become mission-critical across all industries, ushering in compliance challenges and opportunities for competitive advantage while ensuring a satisfactory user experience and continued brand loyalty. It is imperative that customers feel confident in their decision to trust companies with their personal data.

GDPR-The First Step in a New Era of Data Privacy

EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect on May 25, 2018, paving the way for a new era of data privacy. The GDPR ushered in new laws for consumer protection by providing EU residents control over their own personal data regardless of where it was collected, stored, or processed, and a precedent was set for harsh penalties in the event of non-compliance. Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was landmark privacy legislation and the first major effort by legislators to offer consumers more legal protections.

The California Consumer Privacy Act–Just the Beginning for the U.S.

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which came into effect in January 2020, marks the first similar step in the United States. Much like the GDPR, this legislation gives consumers the right to erasure, or the right to be forgotten, and places limitations on businesses for storing information beyond necessity. CCPA requires businesses to notify people of the intent to monetize their data and to give people the opportunity to opt out of that monetization. One difference between the CCPA and the EU’s GDPR is that the CCPA has a broader definition of personal data than GDPR. The CCPA includes not just the data but also the information around the data that infers about a customer, such as shopping preference.

Most organizations store personal data in multiple repositories and systems but lack an easy and straightforward way to search, access, and secure information across those repositories. In such a case, organizations must have processes in place to locate data in files that are oftentimes enormous in size – and securely delete it without affecting the integrity of surrounding data. Organizations are at risk of fines, penalties, and a damaged reputation for improper handling of personal data or for storing information beyond necessity. As you can see, the cost of doing nothing is high. Modern content services platforms enable the identification of content with granular indexing and useful metadata processes that are time-consuming, if not impossible, with traditional legacy ECM systems.

What Systemware Offers

Regulations such as the CCPA are not something you simply “solve” – they require a continuous series of best practices and internal processes to manage personal information better. Systemware’s cloud computing solution provides customers the ability to securely find, extract, and manage the exact content needed and gain the valuable insight necessary to address any compliance challenge. Robust encryption, data masking, user roles, and secure group access help ensure your organization can mitigate risks by staying ahead of current and future compliance requirements.

#5 — Exceptional Customer Support

“Customer experience is the new marketing battlefront” – Chris Pemberton-Gartner

Customer Experience (CX) is a term that encompasses all aspects of a customer’s relationship and interaction with your brand from start to finish. A great product or service is just not enough. Customer experience is just that – the customer’s experience. The experience itself is not something a company can “manage”; the experience belongs to the customer. Companies may adopt a process-based approach to management, but in the end, the customer defines the experience. While customer service and support are all pieces of the big Customer Experience puzzle, the systems and services are, at their center, focused on the customer. It only takes one bad experience for a great partnership to end abruptly. A recent poll found that 54% of American consumers believe most companies need to improve their customer experiences. So, what is the secret sauce to CX?

The “Customer-Obsessed” Culture

Organizations must be “customer-obsessed,” putting the customer at the heart of all that they do, including strategy, products, execution, brand value, touchpoints, input and feedback, services, and all experiences surrounding these essential moving parts within the organization. As more and more data comes in, more and more attention must be paid to how to manage the data to deliver the experiences customers expect. Customers expect a lot, and those expectations grow as technology improves. Technology and processes are important, and while the tech may drive fundamental shifts in the market, the customer defines the experience. Today’s customers expect always-on, performance-based, integrated solutions that deliver anytime, anywhere, on any device.

Delivering Excellent CX with the Cloud

Customers want to feel confident with the time and money they have invested in your business – and that is reflected in every single interaction you have with them, including digitally. To deliver the very best customer experience, your business needs modern, compliant systems that are both reliable and fast – and that requires digital transformation. Information is a valuable asset, and it needs a safe and secure place to be managed and useful for your organization. ECM services in the cloud can be that safe place. Cloud-driven content services solutions enable a more flexible way to manage content and can help your organization efficiently deliver differentiated products and services, simplify manual processes with workflows and automation, and provide an enhanced customer experience.

Conclusion: The Systemware Solution

A modern content management platform is more than a convenience – it’s a strategic asset that drives efficiency, enhances security, and enables businesses to meet the changing needs of their customers and workforce. By focusing on essentials like a robust user experience, flexible deployment options, seamless migration capabilities, compliance readiness, and exceptional customer support, organizations can transform their operations and tap into new opportunities for growth.

Systemware’s enterprise content management platform facilitates these core qualities, offering a cutting-edge cloud solution that adapts to your unique needs while delivering exceptional performance. Whether you’re upgrading from a legacy system or looking for more agile ECM software, Systemware’s expertise ensures a smooth transition and long-term optimal performance.

Ready to boost your content management strategy? Contact Systemware today to learn how we can help your organization achieve its goals and stay ahead of the accelerating pace of business.

About Systemware Systemware has been a pioneer in enterprise content management for over 40 years, helping organizations capture content from a variety of business systems, find it wherever it is stored, and deliver it in the context needed for each business line. Our content services platform helps organizations modernize their content management, connect with a range of repositories and systems, automate their processes, personalize their experience, and enable their content for business intelligence. Systemware is committed to ensuring organizations meet information governance requirements in a manner that optimizes cost and complexity while providing a tailored experience for users.