Guest Blog: Christopher Wynder, OpenText, Product Marketing Manager – ApplicationXtender
Information is a funny thing; in today’s day and age it has become both a business enabler and an anchor holding back a business. That is because for many organizations information is not on their radar link;– oh sure they want to manage documents but information is something slightly different.
Documents– are file type. They can be managed simply by having any file repository from simply a network drive to even many of the consumer grade fileshare and “ECM” products.
Information– is the extraction of the valuable data from documents. Managing information requires a full function ECM system. It also requires thinking outside of the artifact of the document for how information is exchanged between two people.
First let me state the obvious- as the Product Marketing Manager for OpenText’s ApplicationXtender, I believe that our product is the best starting point; it provides an intuitive user experience based on how users work, it has a robust workflow module to automate the extraction and movement of information from documents and into the right user’s hands- and I can tell you that OpenText is committed to investing in ApplicationXtender to ensure that each release brings additional features that modernize the overall functionality while making it easier for day-to-day users to own and operate ApplicationXtender as their ECM.
BUT…
The ECM system itself is only a part the solution to your business problem, which is your real goal for purchasing ApplicationXtender! As I mentioned in my blog on the OpenText website – you need a plan that will ensure that as you implement ApplicationXtender, you are set-up for both quick wins and a long term plan that will continue to give you value in your purchase. There are a lot of moving pieces and frankly no single road to success.
This is why we (OpenText) lean heavily on our partners, you need a local specialist who can help you craft a plan, let you know what has worked in the past and what has not. I have talked about this before (see here). The short version is; you don’t know how your ECM can help you so you build the minimal viable product and hope you can revisit it late.
All ECM projects look different, which is why however the success of either of these implementations have common core elements that directly affect the success of the project. For most organizations, they simply are not ready to succeed. Fortunately, this is where our partners come into play, they have the deep knowledge of ApplicationXtender and how it can work for your business. You need a partner who can help translate your business needs into ApplicationXtender functions. You need a partner who knows the system well enough to know how you take advantage of its strengths to enable your vision.
As a former neuroscientist, I always look at information management as a processing problem. Just like your brain separates important, right now information from might be important lower priority, your ECM should provide the technical basis for building your organization’s brain- not an easy task. I understand how difficult it is I know how important and complex the brain is, yet how unaware people are of how much of their daily life that single organ controls. It is complex in its build but provides simple, unobtrusive control and coordination to the rest of the body. That is what a properly implemented ECM system should be; central to your information management but unobtrusive for day-to-day workers.
This is what we believe our partners bring to the table- that local expertise and that in-depth training that comes from managing business focused implementations of ApplicationXtender. Further to that partnership, OpenText is committed to making sure that our partners have the training they need so that they have full understanding of the software as we expand and update its functionality.
About the Author
Chris is the Product Marketing Manager for OpenText ApplicationXtender. He has a Ph.D in genetics from Rockefeller University, eventually taking a different road moving into consulting and eventually managed the ECM practice for an Information Management firm prior to joining OpenText. He has a wealth of information management knowledge, particularly in highly regulated industries.