Many organizations today have invested heavily in an enterprise content management (ECM) solution that resides on-premise. For many organizations this works well, however there are many pitfalls and a pure on-premise solution reduces the ability to collaborate and co-author documents with partners and consultants. Documents such as bids & proposal and contracts often require extensive collaboration. With an on-premise only ECM solution, this can reduce the ability to get timely input from colleagues and partners.
There are many cloud solutions that are purpose built for document collaboration through filesharing. However, filesharing could be a security risk as files are easy to share and manipulate. This is also the main reason why a comparative discipline to content management, accounting, moved from files to a database driven solution to ensure confidentiality, integrity and availability. When that is said, if the aim is merely to share a file with another party then this is a good option.
However, if the aim is to collaborate and co-author documents with employees and partners in various offices, locally or globally, this is not the most efficient option. A solution to collaborate and co-author documents with colleagues and partners both within your organizations and outside, should have an access system and built-in workflow to manage this process. With a highly mobile workforce, access to content is required by employees, partners, consultants and other knowledge workers your organization collaborates with. And, you then need to manage the workflow and access efficiently.
On the other hand, you can ensure the documents you collaborate on are accessible through your ECM. This would enable you to stay compliant with your internal requirements for document storage and you keep intact your search and archiving within your ECM. You can also link supporting files and graphics directly from your on-premise ECM into a database driven document solution.
Extending your ECM into the cloud can enable you to unlock content from on-premise silos. And, should you also elect to use a database driven document solution, you can avoid a serial workflow process inherent with an enterprise content management solution reliant on files for your documents. This means that you truly can operate with no time or location restrictions - as there are no such restrictions in the cloud.