Why Breaking Down Information Silos Is a Must- Valutrics

In a perfect enterprise, all data and content would be entirely integrated throughout all business apps, and workflow and business process management (BPM) systems would drive most tasks. But today’s organizations are only beginning to make this transition, according to a June 2016 commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Alfresco Software. The resulting paper, titled “Break Down Content and Information Silos to Accelerate the Flow of Work,” indicates, for example, that few companies have digitized their wealth of collective content—but many more will do so over the next two years. And while similar progress is expected for the deployment of workflow/BPM systems, today’s users are still highly dependent upon old-school tools like email and spreadsheets. What’s more, they’re constantly forced to reference external content while completing core business processes—jumping back and forth between apps, emails and local files, creating an environment that frequently leads to errors, according to the report. Enterprises need “to get their digital transformation projects in high gear now, before becoming digital prey,” said Thomas DeMeo, vice president of product management for Alfresco. “Businesses have approached content management and BPM as separate domains for years … We believe the next challenge for IT leaders will be to integrate a wide range of content across different businesses and systems—to provide context for making better business decisions and, ultimately, to better win, serve and retain customers.” More than 150 U.S. and U.K. IT decision-makers focused on core business processes took part in the research.