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A content manager at a large Medicare provider recently talked to us about his challenge to comply with stringent government audits around policies and procedures managed through his intranet.

"As a Medicare provider we get audited practically daily by the government," the content manager told us. "All of our intranet-based processes for creating and revising policies and procedures fall under a tremendous amount of scrutiny. We're mandated to implement strict internal controls to meet reporting objectives."

The answer to his regulatory dilemma: adopting a workflow-driven content management solution (CMS) to power his corporate intranet.

By utilizing a CMS with features such as workflow and task management, version control, and content audit trails, the work of dozens of editors and writers who create and manage thousands of pieces of Web-based content is fully automated. But at the end of the day, this healthcare organization is also keeping government auditors satisfied thanks to a complete, solution for managing and tracking their processes and procedures.

Reduce Compliance Risk

Does this compliance challenge sound familiar? Increasingly, companies in healthcare, insurance, financial services, and other industry sectors find themselves forced to cope with stringent compliance requirements around a variety of content on intranets and Web sites.

More than just enabling users to "manage content," a CMS can provide the end-to-end process management framework that organizations need to address both organizational desires and external requirements for day-to-day management of their content and sites.

The proper CMS can, for example, satisfy internal pressures to reduce costs and complexities of managing information, increase worker productivity, and globalize content for multiple audiences. For organizations that have a government entity looking over their shoulder, a CMS can help to reduce compliance risk by bringing total oversight and accountability to processes for managing Web-based information.

If your organization is trying to get its content management processes under control, consider these key benefits of a workflow-driven content management solution:

Increase knowledge worker productivity
We believe that in most organizations today, everyone is a knowledge worker. The demand for individuals to contribute expertise and knowledge to a multitude of content initiatives will only increase — as will the need to enable them to be individually productive in a Web-based content environment.

A key enabler in supporting a growing number of content contributors is a CMS that provides ease of use for content authoring, as well as a method for contributors and managers to handle their many content-centric tasks and projects. A CMS with strong task management and workflow capabilities automates efforts and unifies the work of people in a multitude of roles. It allows knowledge workers to focus on their own content tasks — and complete them quickly and accurately.

At the same time, a workflow-driven CMS empowers managers and site administrators to assign and monitor tasks and projects, route them through proper approvals (such as legal and regulatory approvals) and ensure timely, accurate content management.

Support efficiency with collaboration
Because intranets thrive on the contributions and teamwork of many subject-matter experts, organizations must support the ability of far-flung colleagues to collaborate in a Web-based environment. A workflow-driven content management solution provides the collaborative tools (like ad hoc email, threaded discussions, and configurable workflows and approval chains) to make this a reality.

An automated, workflow-driven CMS supports the "aggregation of effort" of everyone involved in the Web content lifecycle: writers, reviewers, managers, Web staff, and third-party contributors - no matter where they are located. It makes it easy for your outside contributors, such as your language translation service and your PR agency, to contribute content within a Web-based environment that can be automated, managed, and monitored for maximum effectiveness and efficiency.

Deliver accountability and compliance
You may not have government auditors reviewing your intranet content processes, like the content manager in our earlier example. Regardless, your intranet (or Web site) content strategy could benefit from a higher degree of accountability than it currently delivers. Ask yourself: Can the right people within your organization access, create, and manage content, or be notified that they have to complete a content task? Are their efforts being managed and monitored in a centralized way? Can content changes and updates be tracked (and reports generated) showing entire content/document lifecycle, including the steps of authoring, collaboration, review and approval, and archiving?

A workflow-driven content management solution provides complete process control and accountability for the day-to-day workings of your intranet or Web site. When a CMS tightly integrates people, process, and information within a single Web application, your content efforts are more unified and structured — and more accountable.

Just as overnight shippers like FedEx and online retailers like Dell enable you to monitor the real-time status of packages via the Web, the right CMS enables content managers and administrators to monitor the status of Web-related tasks, in real-time, through a centralized and automated interface.

The ability to track a package in real-time has major business benefits — it lets you plan, prepare, adjust to circumstances, or take an action, by providing critical insight into the state of your shipment. In short, it provides accountability.

Similarly, the ability for managers to assign intranet-related tasks, monitor their progress, and make decisions and adjustments based on real-time status checks, brings true accountability to an organization and their content processes. It makes Web-based content initiatives more effective and ultimately more successful.

For many organizations, efficiently managing information is a significant challenge in meeting regulatory requirements — and in keeping their intranets accurate and up to date. These processes are complex and often costly and time-consuming. But with thousands of pieces of content being created each year, it is absolutely crucial that organizations have a software infrastructure that can help automate these processes and disseminate this critical information.

The good news today is that buyers of content management technologies are in a position of strength. The market is responding with new and innovative solutions that support business processes and the need for efficiency, accountability and compliance. Vendors are truly looking at your business requirements and content-strategy goals and mapping their solutions to your needs — not the other way around.

Bill Rogers is CEO of Amherst, N.H.-based Ektron, Inc.