3/3/2010

Unstructured Information - Quiet Killer or Profit Opportunity?
We hear it all the time¾We are now living in a knowledge economy with information drowning many of us. During the next five years very dramatic changes and challenges will emerge around managing that valuable corporate asset (information). And you need to understand and plan for that now.
We just published a white paper for business executives who either aren't aware - or aren’t convinced of the dangers and liabilities of the un-managed information being produced in their organization and, even more importantly, how leveraging these assets can generate significant revenue gains.

Click on the White Paper Button on our Home Page to read more.
Comments please!
Posted at 1:21 PM by Joyce Query | Email this Post

3/2/2010

SharePoint Running Amock

I have blogged about this before, but it is important enough to mention once again. Organizations are letting their IT departments stand-up SharePoint and then broadcasting to the organization that it is a tool ready for their use.

So what happens? Sometime you get great results. Sometimes there are insightful people in your organization that can really run with the tool and turn it into true business value. But from what we see, for every single success where this is happening, we find hundreds of unused or abandoned sites where oftentimes critical information is forgotten. We see users who don’t understand the full feature set of SharePoint and are therefore not using it to its fullest capacity and are losing out on huge efficiencies and revenue gains. We see information at risk because no one has planned correctly for access.

We see dollars flying out the door.

Executives need to better understand the impact of tools like SharePoint. And they need to build strategies for deploying them.

When implemented with a plan, tools like SharePoint can significantly increase revenue, decrease costs, improve customer and employee satisfaction and lead to real collaboration and innovation.

 

Posted at 12:01 PM by Joyce Query | Email this Post

11/13/2009

Our InSites on SharePoint Support

We work with lots of firms, large and small, that have in some capacity released SharePoint into their organizations. And over and over, we see the same issues surface—little adoption and no training. There are other issues, but these two go hand-in-hand. Most firms are using SharePoint as a document repository and missing out on its real power and value for the organization.

It’s a great tool, and somewhat easy to learn if you think like a technologist. But really, who in your organization thinks that way beside the folks in IT?

When SharePoint is deployed, end users need support and training. And they need encouragement and recognition to change the way they do business today. If these things are missing, I can guarantee that it just won’t succeed.

Because these issues are so prevalent, i-Squared has build a SharePoint support template we call InSites. We put to use our own methodology in designing the site and set out with these goals in mind:

Garner Adoption—the site recognizes employees who contribute and who go beyond the ordinary with implementation.

Push Advanced Feature Use—There are tons of advanced features and functions offered by SharePoint that can add real value to an organization.  InSites feeds up tips one at a time with a new tip displaying each time a user accesses the site.

Provide On-demand Training—employees need a tool that they can use when they have the time to learn. InSites  is available when they want—24/7.

Provide Training Videos—often a pictures says a thousand words so InSites has over 50 training videos geared to different user levels—end users, site owners and administrators.

Promote Collaboration and Social Networking—the site is built to encourage participation and peer-to-peer support.

Capture Your IP – as the site is used and information captured, the site will become a huge resource for your firm. It will capture how to use SharePoint in your organization, the rules and governance around usage, and the latest ideas for how it solved a business issue.

Reduce Support Calls—InSites gives you a starter list of FAQs and you can add your own specific to your environment. Common Help Desk questions and answers can be stored and users are encouraged to solve their own problems.

And best of all it costs a fraction of what classroom training would cost.

Leverage our years of experience and knowledge – sign up for our next webinar on InSites. Go to our home page and click on the Insites Webinar button.

Posted at 3:12 PM by Joyce Query | Email this Post

9/18/2009

SharePoint Mishaps

We love SharePoint. I know you can probably point to some things it may not handle effectively if you are a true records management guru (just wait for 2010), but to tell you the truth our experience shows that most users use about 25% of the functions of any software and SharePoint handles that 25% and more.

But what we are seeing is that even the firms that have adopted SharePoint as their enterprise platform for collaboration and document management continue to miss out on much of its value to the organization.

Their IT group deploys the technology and supports it from a functional use, but they are allowing their businesses to implement it. Ok, yes, the business owners understand their business needs but that alone is not enough. You need to understand how SharePoint can be leveraged to best address those business needs and how to build a strategy for SharePoint. Too many times we have seen customers fall into the “build it and they will come” scenario when, in fact, a lot of time and money goes into the effort that fails every time!

Business owners don’t have the skills they need to implement SharePoint – would you allow the business owners to implement an ERP system without help?—yet many firms are doing just this with SharePoint.

SharePoint is a powerful technology that can positively change the way you do business and create real value for the organization. Therefore, it cannot be taken lightly or implemented without a strategy.

Until management comes to grasp this fact, your firm might be left in the dust by your competitors who do “get it.”

Posted at 12:01 PM by Joyce Query | Email this Post

8/13/2009

ECM – Mining Your Hidden Intellectual Property (IP)

In this BLOG series we have been covering three topics i-Squared believes should be top of mind for every executive—Collaboration and Networking, Business Process Improvement and finally this topic, Mining Your Hidden IP.

Let me first start by defining IP. Many firms immediately think of their patents and trademarks.  In ECM, IP goes well beyond this definition. It’s the lifeblood of your organization. In ECM, we mean all the critical data and documents that your organization operates on every day. Every department in your organization has their set of IP that makes that department run. For example, in Finance in addition to all the financial data they store and report on, there are NDAs and contracts. In HR it might be annual performance reviews, your organization’s handbook of policies and procedures, or announcements of employee achievements. In Operations, it might be specifications for manufacturing your products or instructions on how to operate them. And as an Executive you rely on certain KPIs and status reports to assess your organization’s health. All of this data and information is part of your IP. Your organization operates on the flow of this IP. And it operates best when this flow is efficient.

Much of this valuable information is stuffed in shared drives under folder structures or server stores only seasoned veterans in your organization can locate. And worse, some of the most valuable information is stored on your employee’s desktops. File names are cryptic and multiple versions of the same information can be found throughout.

Think of the hours wasted by your employees just trying to locate the right information every day or the time wasted when they have to recreate it. Just think of hours you spend seeking information and how you have to assemble the pieces in order to make critical decisions. 

And just think about the risk your organization faces if critical regulatory documents go missing or if multiple HR policies surface defining the rules differently.

Now imagine your world with information flowing efficiently throughout. You need information--you get the right information immediately and you know you can trust that information. Or your customers have product questions and they find that information without a hitch—just imagine how well that reflects on your organization. Think of that auditor who can locate the information and is assured it is current—imagine what that does to your report.

 It is an old saying, but as important as ever—Get the Right Information to the Right People in the Right Time and the Right Location. ECM gets it there in the RIGHT WAY.  It’s the effective and efficient management, distribution, storage and archival of your IP. It’s the lifeblood of your organization and needs to be top of mind everyday.

Posted at 1:51 PM by Joyce Query | Email this Post
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