Enterprise content operations are generally less cohesive than they ought to be. Content teams face the problem of “sprawl.” Important resources needed to support content are scattered across the enterprise, with different teams using different tools and CMSs. Because resources are stored in a number of systems, it’s hard for everyone who might need them to access them.  And essential tasks can take too long to do. 

Successful content operations depend on a broad range of processes, tools, and systems. Too often, these are disconnected and isolated from each other. In some cases, content team members have to manually copy information from one tool to another. When processes, tools, and systems are disconnected, teams can’t see how different activities are related. They miss important insights into the performance of content, and how content can better support important business objectives. 

Silos of Activity Create Friction in Content Operations

The fragmentation of content operations hurts productivity. It stretches the capacity of content teams to deliver their work. Teams have a growing volume of work to do, but that doesn’t mean there are more people available to get that work done. Content teams need a smarter approach to getting work done. They need a way to be more agile.

Rather than add more resources, enterprises can make their existing resources work more effectively. It’s critical that all activities relating to content across the enterprise support one another. CaaS allows such support to be realized.

CaaS offers a more holistic approach that:

• Empowers stakeholders in different areas of the enterprise.
• Utilizes existing tools and technologies more effectively.

Connecting Your Ecosystem

Enterprises need agile content operations in order to execute their content strategy successfully. Content operations rely on the performance of the underlying content ecosystem that supports and shapes the development and distribution of content.

To create and distribute digital content for their global customers, enterprises must coordinate input from diverse business units and teams. The orchestration of content development and delivery relies on various business processes and the exchange of data and information with other IT systems.

A key goal of CaaS is to provide a layer of shared services that support content operations. CaaS unifies enterprise activities through its extensive use of APIs and microservices. CaaS connects the four key areas of an enterprise content ecosystem:

1. Coordinating content and business processes to ensure collaboration, agility, and consistency
2. Relating different content types and assets so they are accessible to everyone in the enterprise
3. Connecting different tools and technologies to enable information sharing and automation
4. Unifying delivery to different channels and touchpoints

Gaining Agility through a Connected Ecosystem

Content operations need to support:

• The exchange of information
• The collaboration between different groups and systems
• The automation of activities 

CaaS provides a central hub for content that can connect with other systems and knit together activities across the enterprise.

A connected content ecosystem, enabled by a Content-as-a-Service approach, provides enterprises with important benefits:

• Empowering different teams to share content they’ve developed with other teams
• Allowing distributed teams to access common tools and functionality to create and manage content
• Enabling access of all content across the enterprise that can be used wherever it is needed
• Providing a unified, single point of delivery for content for all channels and touchpoints

CaaS Can Accelerate Content Operations

CaaS is an integrated approach designed with the needs of enterprises in mind. 

CaaS lets enterprises:

• Pull relevant content items and data from different parts of the organization.
• Coordinate the exchange of information between customers, content owners, and product teams.
• Accelerate the delivery of content to customers from different parts of the organization.

In our next post in this series, we will look at how connecting your ecosystem can reduce the problem of tool fatigue, where teams have to work with too many separate tools that all behave differently.

Related Resources

On content ecosystem maps:

https://www.braintraffic.com/blog/an-introduction-to-content-ecosystem-maps