The integration of content services platforms with smart manipulation capabilities is a key trend increasingly shaping the content services market, helping firms to organise, integrate and transform their data to drive actionable insights.
This is according to Jean Van Vuuren, associate VP of EMEA commercial sales at Hyland, speaking at the Hyland Summit South Africa 2023, in Johannesburg, last week.
Hyland provides enterprise content services and management to organisations across the globe. The company’s content services platforms help firms modernise information management and elevate user and customer experience.
Discussing the trends shaping the EMEA content services market, Van Vuuren pointed to modernisation of legacy content systems, the migration from on-premises to the cloud, and personalisation and immersive experiences.
This, as more enterprises move from traditional content management platforms to modern content services that go beyond just storing and managing documents.
A content services platform allows users to produce, collaborate on, distribute and save text, video and audio information. It is a collection of services and micro-services utilising a variety of content formats, to serve numerous customers and accommodate multiple use cases throughout an organisation.
Smart manipulation capabilities within content services platforms are increasingly being adopted by enterprises, specifically organisations that want to future-proof their content strategies, he noted.
“Smart manipulation is a more organised way in which users would access content or data today. Historically, businesses would have a folder structure and users would have to find the content or the data they are looking for.
“But today, people want to be presented with the right information in the right content almost immediately. It’s a mixture of using content with new forms of categorisation process automation, to determine which kind of content is relevant for specific people and end-users.”
Over the past few years, Hyland has observed emerging technologies, such as virtual and augmented reality, enabling new forms of storytelling and immersive experiences that are transforming the content services industry, noted Van Vuuren.
Content providers are also increasingly leveraging data and analytics to create personalised experiences tailored to consumers’ interests and preferences.
These trends are among the factors that have contributed to Hyland witnessing increased demand for content solutions and services from clients over the past few years.
“We’ve had steady growth year-on-year in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and last year, we grew by 20% in the region. Our growth has been interesting because historically we offered just one platform, but since we expanded our portfolio to three platform offerings, our growth has almost doubled in the region. Our projected growth is probably another 20% to 30% increase next year.”
Hyland is investing in more sales people in SA and the rest of the EMEA region, to tap into more growth opportunities in the market, Van Vuuren added.
“We have a clear focus on the South African market. One of the biggest contributions to our growth in the region is our partner ecosystem. We have 15 partners consisting of distributors, implementers and systems integrators. They all meet up regularly, work together and engage on all the latest in this space and create a community where they help Hyland grow.”
In SA’s future content services platform market, Hyland anticipates further demand for immersive technologies, as more organisations integrate immersive customer experiences into their offerings to drive business growth, he concluded.
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