“Ultimately, governance is the structure enabling content stewardship, beginning with metadata and workflow strategy, policy development and technology solutions to serve the creation, use and distribution of content.” 
- John Horodyski (Executive of Digital Asset Management for Optimity Advisors) 

As businesses continue to become heavily content- and data-driven, content governance will be an important and required process for organizations to operate efficiently and effectively. Content governance is known as the structure and policies around how organizations manage content creation, along with proper guidelines for use and distribution of the content, including  the implementation of a content strategy and content guidelines.  Without properly managing content and data, business can end up in serious trouble for mismanagement; however, with the proper tools and procedures, governance can deliver sustainable success through day-to-day operational structures and innovations, creating overall greater returns on content. 

Content Governance 101 

Global research firm Gartner defines content governance as: “The specification of decisions rights and accountability framework to ensure appropriate behaviour in the evaluation, creation, storage, use, archiving and deletion of information. It includes the processes, roles, and policies, standards and metrics that ensure the effective and efficient use of information in enabling an organization to achieve its goals.” In the simplest terms, content governance ensures all content and tasks surrounding the production and distribution of this content is performed in the right way at the right time by the right person. 

Obviously content does not just create itself.  It is the result of people working together, with the appropriate technology, to execute a process or create a piece of content. Managing the content an organization creates is not a one-stop temporary job, but should be looked at as a continuous program of creation, distribution and strategy managed through a proper governance structure. Governance must go beyond the IT department and become a cross-organizational policy at all levels and in all company departments in order to be truly effective in its purpose. 
 

Why Content Governance 

Due to the growing demand for content and the rapid rate  at which content is mass produced, the introduction of governance can be easier said than done from both an organizational and technological standpoint;  however, the benefits greatly outweigh the costs. A solid governance plan and content strategy can actually help an organization be more agile to changes and market developments and can ensure good day-to-day operational management through:

• The facilitation of strategic planning and decision making around content strategy and distribution of such content.

• The creation of an omnichannel experience  or consistent customer experience across the organization and various distribution channels.

• Establishing and understanding of required roles in the organization and the responsibilities of those roles to create, produce and distribute content.

• Delivering innovation and success by building collaborative opportunities between roles or teams.

• Showing  gaps in the organization or in the market where content can be created or re-distributed to solve consumers’ needs.

• Onboarding employees to the organization through a streamlined process predetermined through governance procedures.

In addition, an organization's governance program, when properly structured, can help an entire organization excel in content deliverables and overall return on the content investment by:

• Facilitating the creation of a strategic content plan and decision-making procedure around content development, strategy and distribution to help organizations reach maximum potential.

• Avoiding content bloat, or content duplication when the same content can be restructured for different purposes or audiences.

• Increasing and improving the monitoring of content and an ongoing quality check on content through policies and standards.

• Facilitating  the creation of new, fresh, relevant content that can solve issues and provide value for people who will in turn become customers.

Conclusion 

Now that we have determined what governance is, along with how it can help an organization, how does your organization go about implementing a proper governance structure? This is where Stantive’s OrchestraCMS can help! 

Stantive’s OrchestraCMS is the only digital experience platform built 100% natively on Salesforce, one of the largest and the most commonly-used, cloud-based CRM systems. OrchestraCMS allows companies on Salesforce to manage and create compelling digital experiences for customers. OrchestraCMS allows users at an enterprise level to combine content with business data to provide customers instant access to personalized information, regardless of the device or channel, supporting dynamic engagement at its best using governance procedures and extensive workflows. 

Traditional content management systems cannot accommodate and implement enterprise level governance that is necessary to create a content strategy that includes an omnichannel experience and more. With OrchestraCMS, you can create a governance structure that includes a robust workflow including role responsibilities  that can effectively manage the rapid production and distribution of content and ensure all content across your organization is relevant and meets company standards. 

Is your business ready to implement an extensive system for content? Learn more about how we’ve helped other business leaders with OrchestraCMS by visiting our landing page.  You can also check out our landing page on governance and compliance here to learn more. 

Have questions? We invite you to ask us! Tweet us at @stantive and ask or let us know what you think of content governance.