Enterprise Content Sucks & You’re Not Doing Anything to Change It

It’s no surprise that enterprise applications that have been built with the end user in mind have made the strongest impact on our workday productivity.

Slack has changed the way we communicate; Google Drive simplifies document creation, and Concur allows for quick, on-the-road expense submissions. All of these advancements have not only streamlined their respective processes, but also made the technology easy to access on mobile, via the cloud. By keeping end user experience top of mind, these apps have fundamentally shifted the way we do our jobs for the better.

But what about enterprise content?

However, one category that seems to lag in innovation is the creation and consumption of internal enterprise content. There are numerous applications that help companies build glamourous websites, blogs, and newsfeeds that render beautifully on both desktops and mobile devices targeted to their customers, but why is this not the case with internal content? Wouldn’t employees be an internal customer? How do we unglue ourselves from the age of SharePoint, overgrown wikis, and static files like PDFs and Word Docs? Even Box, which has made strides by lifting the file off your desktop endpoint, is still a repository of files. Files are not engaging, not mobile-ready, and not easily updatable.

If we aim to follow the consumer trends of content, documents in the enterprise should mimic the best properties of content on the web: real-time, interactive, mobile, and searchable. News articles posted online can quickly be updated as new data is received, ensuring the reader is accessing the most accurate information possible. Websites consist of videos, images, and social activities that stimulates and engages the reader. Content dynamically scales and flows across all devices, avoiding the pinch and zoom of PDFs and PowerPoint. And best of all, Google has made it so easy to index the entire web so everyone can easily find what they need.

Delivering accessible content in real-time

Content strategists need to be pushed towards solutions that allow for real-time, accurate information that can be consumed on any device. One might argue that intranets have these properties. However, even the best kept intranets are still a farmland of static files rendered immediately out-of-date the moment they’re downloaded onto a desktop. The ideal enterprise content solution is a solution where content is built directly in HTML. HTML allows the integration of digital assets (such as videos and images), is easy to update, and is already mobile optimized to improve the reading experience for your employees.

If everything in our personal lives is accessible via the tap of an app, workforces will demand the same (especially millennials). Sales teams will want to know industry specific strategies just before their meetings. Support teams will look for quick fixes in the form of video, not static documents. Now’s the time to innovate, content strategists! Are you up for the challenge?