Beware of “lift and shift” when migrating to the cloud

According to Marco, effective information management means, among other things, that information can be found in one place and accessed in various ways. “Ease of use is also very important in this regard. In addition, it’s important that—by integrating systems with one another—information can always be found easily. This provides housing associations with both security and greater efficiency.”

“When it comes to information management, we use the ERP system as our starting point,” Marco continues. “This system contains all the data regarding tenants and properties. By using this data as metadata and linking it to other content, the user has very little to do. We can automatically capture user-generated content and link it to the appropriate metadata.”

However, achieving a single source of truth within the organization is more difficult for many housing corporations than it sounds. “That’s because data enters the organization through many different channels,” Marco explains. “Users often process this information in different applications and have multiple ways of storing it. For example, they communicate with tenants via Outlook, which creates mini-archives—and thus new versions of the truth. In practice, we often see that people store information in their own way because the necessary tools are often lacking and existing solutions lack good integration capabilities.”

The move to the cloud adds an extra dimension to information management. “It means your cloud partner must be knowledgeable about EIM solutions. Additionally, it’s important that the information is stored in the Netherlands and that you can, so to speak, drive there to access it. Furthermore, the environment must meet the required security standards and comply with ISO 27001 and ISAE 3402 Type 2. Through effective guidance and support from the partner, the housing association is then kept up to date on the latest developments.”

“Thanks to our many years of experience in the field of EIM solutions and an extensive client base across various industries, we can offer housing associations sound advice on information management,” says Marco. OneXillium operates in the financial and healthcare sectors, among others. “These sectors—just like the housing association sector—are often document-intensive, involving large volumes of documents. Security is a top priority here, as is ensuring the availability of files and the integration with applications for data enrichment. Our experience within these industries truly adds value for housing associations. We see that many housing associations remain stuck with the solutions offered by traditional ERP vendors. As a result, current DMS solutions are often just an afterthought to the ERP system, which makes effective information management more difficult.”

According to Marco, using integrations to facilitate data exchange is essential: “We’ve been using standards for years and are seeing growing demand in the sector to integrate with the Datarotonde, for example. Our guiding principle, established 25 years ago, has been to integrate the EIM solution with existing applications, which is why we’re already operating in the background for many clients. This ultimately allows us to address the most important developments in information management: the security and availability of information.”

OneXillium provided more details on this topic on June 29 during a webinar on effective service processes. “In this webinar, we’d like to explain how we can support housing associations. We have years of experience in the industry and have already completed several implementations for SWEMP housing associations. During the webinar, we’ll discuss our vision and the added value OneXillium offers compared to other DMS providers in the sector.”

Source: CorporatieMedia