The sheer number of communication tools that we, as human beings, have at our disposal is rapidly growing. Modern technology has given us an innumerable volume of quick and easy platforms such as blogs, wikis, social networking, web pages and email to which we can use to interact with each other, and this dynamic is constantly changing and evolving to incorporate new technologies.
This ever present growth naturally results in a challenging environment for IT departments. As employees ask for more varied and sophisticated technology to be plugged into their working lives, IT is forced to expand their offerings while keeping up to date with the latest trends within the global market.
Today, it is particularly important that technical solutions providers are aware of three significant trends which are shaping the industry. Let’s take a closer look.
Collaboration
Increasingly, businesses are made up of teams which are dotted across the globe. In fact, 73 percent of respondents in a 2009 Forrester Consulting study commissioned on behalf of Adobe indicated that they collaborate with people in different time zones and regions at least monthly.
As a result, more and more workers are requesting better collaboration tools. What is concerning for IT however, is the significant amount of teamwork on projects takes place outside of the protected enterprise environment.
For this reason, IT needs to provide a document collaboration tool that enables workers to protect company information, even when documents travel outside of the document management system and the corporate firewall.
A good example of this can be found in Bombardier, the world’s largest civil aircraft carrier. In this case, the organisation found there was a need to provide pilots and technicians who are employed outside of its internal structure with comprehensive training manuals.
“While we want to make these documents easily accessible to authorized viewers, we realize the materials contain a tremendous amount of intellectual property that needs to be protected,” says Ken Knitter, supervisor of web-based training and learning for the company.
The answer in this instance was migration to Adobe’s PDF solution, which allows for secure collaboration outside of the organisation’s corporate framework.
It is of vital importance for IT to be consistently vigilant when external collaboration is required. Additionally, technical departments should ensure that they are aware of any shifts and challenges within this environment by keeping ‘up to speed’ on new industry offerings.
Dynamic Documents
As devices and software which are able to more easily produce rich content become more prevalent, workers are growing increasingly eager to create more engaging and compelling content.
Unlike traditional static documents, dynamic documents are interactive. They include links, buttons as embedded calculations while incorporating rich content such as drawings, images, videos, embedded web pages, and forms.
Significantly, dynamic documents should display and behave as intended across a number of platforms. They are also easy to create, can be shared with other employees using standard methods such as email, can be secured, and can be quickly integrated into existing document based processes or document management systems.
In short – dynamic documents are the way forward for information processing on a corporate scale. This technology give corporate workers the ability to engage with their colleagues and clients in a more interesting way while delivering the same outcome a simple text document usually would.
It is important for IT to evaluate the need for dynamic documentation within the business from a current and future perspective. This requires closer investigation into how the organisation can better support the increase of rich media in a secure and effective manner.
Reducing Cost through Efficiency
Most, if not all, corporate IT departments are under constant pressure to reduce costs through greater efficiency.
In this case, senior IT executives should focus on implementing applications which really address the needs of the average worker. Most often, employees look for assistance from IT in the following areas:
Content Reviews
Content reviews are part of a large number of organisational employees’ weekly, if not daily lives. By implementing a platform such as Adobe Acrobat X as part of the standard desktop image, workers can prepare for content review more efficiently.
Accelerate Approvals
More often than not, the approval process within any given organisation is unnecessarily complex and long winded. Efficient electronic approvals that can be archived with the original document can mitigate business risk when questions arise or litigation occurs while speeding up the process.
Find Information Faster
Employees waste countless hours trying to find lost electronic information. Reducing this time can significantly boost productivity.
Automate Common Tasks
As a part of internal processes or compliance with corporate policies, employees might be required to frequently perform a set of document tasks. By automating these tasks, the company not only gains employee productivity but also ensures consistency and adherence to the policies that it has set.
In these cases it is important that IT work with business owners and employees to identify gaps within the organisation and then to move forward with a comprehensive solution. Adobe Acrobat X answers a number of these questions while delivering greater collaborative ability, support for dynamic documentation and ease of use.
Staff writer
