Member Article

Organisational productivity is suffering because of outdated approaches to information management, finds new research from M-Files

M-Files launches M-Files 2018, a major new product release that changes how businesses manage information through its system-agnostic approach and the power of artificial intelligence

New research from M-Files Corporation, the intelligent information management company, has revealed that two thirds (67 per cent) of organisations are seeing negative impacts on staff productivity caused by them continually needing to navigate through different systems to find and verify the most current versions of their documents. To address these challenges, M-Files has launched a major new product release designed to revolutionise how businesses manage information – M-Files 2018.

The findings are part of a wider research project conducted for M-Files by Dimension Research, which questioned 350 office workers about their information management habits and challenges. Key findings from the research include:

• 60 per cent of respondents found it difficult to locate the most recent version of a document or file at least once a week; almost a quarter (23 per cent) encountered the problem every single day. • 66 per cent of participants find different versions of document or files spread across different systems or locations and 40 per cent say that it is difficult to confirm whether they are working to the most recent version of a file or document. • Nearly half of organisations (48 per cent) believe that their company struggles with managing information silos.

Miika Mäkitalo, CEO at M-Files, comments on the findings: “The amount of information companies must manage is exploding, while demands relating to compliance and the need to automate and simplify are increasing, which, as the data demonstrates, is placing a great strain on businesses.

“Legacy enterprise content management (ECM) systems and other traditional approaches to managing information aren’t working. Information is either locked up in rigid, one-size-fits-all systems or it chaotically proliferates across multiple disconnected systems. Companies are struggling to manage documents and other information stored across these ‘information silos’, and as a result, employees can’t quickly find the information they need to do their jobs. It’s clear that a complete re-think to the way that organisations manage their information is needed, which M-Files 2018 is pioneering,” he continued.

M-Files 2018 and the Intelligent Metadata Layer delivers a simple, unified experience for intelligently finding, accessing and managing information residing within any system, without disturbing existing processes and the users that depend on them.

Firstly, the Intelligent Metadata Layer, a new innovation in the M-Files architecture, supports connectors to external systems. Once a connector to an external system is installed, information residing within that system is immediately available directly via the M-Files mobile app, the M-Files desktop application and web access. Users can search and browse without migrating data and without impacting users of the connected system. Information residing in external systems can also be enriched with metadata, which enables M-Files to establish relevance and context when searching for information across existing business systems.

Additionally, M-Files 2018 also incorporates patent-pending artificial intelligence (AI) to assist users by automatically analysing, classifying and tagging documents and other information. A key aspect of this is establishing relationships with objects in other systems, such as relating a document to a customer, project or case managed in a CRM, ERP or HR system. These relationships, along with other metadata, establish context that can vary by role, workflow state, and even individual preferences, to create a dynamic and personalised experience that lets users work the way they want without the organisation giving up control.

Mäkitalo concludes: “It’s clear from our own evidence that traditional approaches to information and document management aren’t working. With M-Files 2018, we’re putting an end to the myth that ‘all content must reside in one system’. Our vision has always been that it doesn’t matter where information is stored; what’s important is the actual information itself, as well as what it’s related to and the context that makes it relevant. M-Files 2018 will reinforce this vision.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by M-Files .