Information is the lifeblood of organisations - orders, payments, product details, marketing publications, meeting minutes, and so on. A steady flow of new and updated information is what makes the wheels of any organisation go round. This means that many people’s job revolves around the manipulation of information - creating it, searching for it, updating it, archiving it. This usually requires access to large volumes of pre-existing information, in many formats, from many different locations, owned by many different people across the organisation, and even outside the company. How do you deliver the appropriate working environment so that this information can be retrieved rapidly and exploited effectively?
This report focuses largely on access to, and management of, unstructured information - all the information that is contained in reports, diagrams, spreadsheets, slides, images, audio, video and a variety of other formats. Multiple technologies are converging and creating a 'joined up’ environment for the information worker - one where you can find and retrieve information, exploit that information, and collaborate with colleagues to achieve all your objectives. We look at the technologies that are required to create, find, exploit and manage these many different types of information. The functionality of the major relevant technologies overlaps considerably and we look at how the different ‘brands’ of technology - collaboration, content management, portals and search - overlap and where they are complementary. We look at the most important elements to consider when deciding how to address this large and complex technology space. In other words - how do you mix and match the broad range of existing information management (IM) technologies to create a joined-up environment where you can maximise business success?
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