There’s no prize for those who believe they know the winner of this contest, but does it really need to be policy over productivity? In this digital age is there a new perspective that can bring together these seemingly opposing fronts? One that delivers benefits to user, IT and records management.

When it comes to information governance policies, AIIM survey data indicates that a mere 15% of organisations have actually established mature policies. Although a majority are on the right path, are they doing this at the expense of everyday users?

Speaking to a number of government regulated organisations it’s apparent that their users want to do the ‘right’ thing, for example know they’re accessing the most relevant document or simply adding in relevant metadata when uploading documents. These are examples of bottlenecks to efficiency when faced with pressure to perform and deliver quality services.

Let’s explore some of the common issues facing these organisations and how they might be overcome;

Issue #1 – Sourcing Information

Many users from executive levels through to knowledge workers will claim that managing information located within their compliance driven information management systems is simply too difficult. It’s no wonder why AIIM’s research has uncovered that the average user adoption is only hovering around 21%. Let’s assume for a moment that as individuals we use productivity applications, such as Microsoft Office to uniquely tailored software solutions such as a property and rating system to do our daily tasks. From an everyday user’s perspective, the information that is contained within our document management system is there to underpin the productivity application. This means that uploading, retrieving and managing content should be as ‘seamless’ as possible, with limited interaction to the content repository in order to achieve our primary goal of productivity. Modern ECM have been merging the world of content and application for years and the next generation solutions are now embedding the document management context directly within applications such as Microsoft Word and Outlook. Even SharePoint is getting a rework from 3rd party applications that makes it more intuitive, providing access directly to relevant folders within the business classification scheme.

Issue #2 – Access where it’s required

As we move into an activity based workforce, everyday users of business productivity applications are more mobile than ever. IDC predictions claim that mobile workers will account for nearly three quarters (72.3%) of the total U.S. workforce. Where this becomes a concern for regulated organisations is ensuring that mobile access to relevant content is made available, but not at the expense of governance policies. A social worker, for example, requires supporting information about a specific case when onsite to make informed decisions, particularly where there are lives impacted. As information starts to move outside the domain of the governance platforms it’s imperative that it’s easily accessible without placing the organisation at risk. Modern ECM’s are developing mobile access to their productivity applications and in turn the document management repository that underpins them. The goal is to make information governance as seamless as if the user was within the corporate domain. Locking down remote access to specific folders, redacting sensitive information and comprehensive audibility are key to ensuring that remote workers and their clients are protected.

Issue # 3 – Defined business processes

Lack of clearly defined, manual or poorly governed business processes (workflows) with inadequate access to the document management repository. Government regulated organisations rely on a series of business processes to drive daily operations and deliver services to constituents and citizens. These processes should be managed by a framework set out by the organisation that is aligned with the governance policies. When there’s inefficiencies, the impact ripples across the entire organisation affecting organisational results, impacting efficiency gains and opening up the organisation to the risks associated with shadow IT. The fact that Forrester Research discovered that only 33% of government services were meeting citizen expectations is alarming. Mission critical processes require a secure, robust solution, built on government best practice principles if they are to be successfully adopted. In addition that require easy access to supporting documents throughout the various decision points to ensure the most appropriate decisions are made. This might also involve secure inter & Intra-agency sharing of information. Providing business users with a secure workspace that respects the information governance and enables content to be accessible in the cloud by other agencies to facilitate collaboration is one step to increasing efficiency without impacting governance policies.

In a perfect world organisations would build all their information based policies with the goal to support future initiatives. This is not always practical, although many modern ECM solutions are adapting to respond the changing needs of the digital ecosystem alongside the need for good governance. Other options include adopting process governance frameworks or collaborate platforms that extend the capabilities of the existing information governance platforms to increase efficiency without impacting governance policies.