Position Paper on Value of Technical Publications in the Enterprise Collaboration and Content Management Industry

1. Position Paper on
Value of Technical Publications in the
Enterprise Collaboration and Content
Management Industry
1
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2. 2
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3. Introduction
This paper presents the value and need for TWB – Leading Technical Documentation
Technical Publications in the Enterprise
Outsourcing Company
Collaboration and Content Management (ECM)
industry.
TWB is a leading technical publisher with an
Technical Publications in the ECM industry include
excellent record of providing unmatched technical
a wide range of documents such as user guides,
documentation to many major companies.
online help, business collaterals, training material,
reference guides, administration guides, operation
manuals, installation manuals, and Web-based TWB is the ideal choice for leading vendors of ECM
training material. These documents provide solutions. TWB helps customers with all their
information on various processes and procedures technical documentation needs such as user guides,
involved in the ECM industry. administration guides, installation manuals, process
and workflow documentation, configuration
documents and training materials.
With businesses fostering collaboration, ECM
implementation is gaining wide acceptance from
various sectors around the world. This industry is TWB works closely with client teams located globally,
witnessing massive growth with new applications and assists them in meeting their worldwide product
and tools being developed regularly. These tools announcements and launch deadlines. We work
help organizations manage content and collaborate round-the-clock with client teams and help them with
the same with teams located locally and globally. quick responses that facilitate timely distribution of
documents around the globe.
Reaching the right audience and proper
implementation of technology ensure positive “Knowledge is people, money, learning, flexibility
growth, stability and good reputation in the market. and competitive advantage. Knowledge is more
This can be achieved with proper documentation relevant to sustained business than capital or
which is simple, effective, and understandable. The labor. And yet knowledge remains the most
best way to gain expert work quickly and cost- neglected asset of a business. TWB helps you
effectively is by outsourcing the documentation unlock and share your technical knowledge with
work to a relevant professional company. the world.”
Outsourcing helps businesses get quality work from
domain experts in stipulated time without burdening
the existing resources or stretching into unexplored
territories.
“TWB believes that technology cannot exist
without being communicated effectively.”
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4. ECM Industry – Technical Publications
The worldwide ECM market has seen steady growth Challenges and Solutions
through the years with penetration in varied sectors
like IT, Legal, and Finance. According to leading
industry researcher Gartner, inc., this market is Some of the greatest documentation challenges
growing exponentially and will be more than US $4.2 that most companies face today include:
billion in 2010.
 Creating Training Packages for developers and
ECM Market Growth (2006 - 2010) users
 Maintaining accuracy and quality of documents
 Timely availability of quality documents for
Total Software Revenue
5,000.0 4,248.3
product releases
(US$ in Billions)
3,755.2
4,000.0 3,316.8
2,949.3  Creating documentation for a global audience
3,000.0 2,614.4
 Improving user experience
2,000.0
1,000.0
To address the challenges faced by the ECM
0.0
industry, TWB with its expertise in Technical
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Publications provide the following solutions:
Years
 Documentation in simple, easily understandable
English
According to Gartner's latest Magic Quadrant for  Easy-to-read documents, catering to the global
ECM, the market is expected to resume a healthy audience
growth rate by 2011, with predictions exceeding
 Accurate and quality documents
$5.1 billion in worldwide software license revenue
 Multi-staged documentation with in-depth quality
by 2013.
reviews
 Timely submission and quick turnaround time
 Single-point-of-contact for documentation
The industry sources estimate that ECM is growing 7
percent to 8 percent annually, which is a very healthy
trend compared to the overall growth of 2 percent to 4
percent of general IT market. ECM is emerging as Benefits
one of the most promising business with key players
fighting for major market share.
A leading vendor of ECM tools has drawn the
following benefits from its association with TWB:
“For many organizations, unstructured content is
fundamentally out of control,” said Tom Eid,  Enormous cost savings
research vice president for Gartner.
 Professional and error-free documentation
Enterprise content management (ECM) can bring  Timely product releases
business process efficiencies and help the  Maximized documentation usability
environment at the same time by reducing paper-  Improved user experience
based processes and the inherent latencies and
costs, according to Gartner, Inc.
To emerge victorious in this highly competitive ECM
market, it is imperative to have simple, accurate, and
easy-to-understand documentation in place. This
ensures professionalism which will in-turn propel the
business to new heights.
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5. Value of Technical Publications
Technical Communication for Communication for Different Levels of
Transferring Product Knowledge Technical and Product Knowledge
The purpose of technical communication is to transfer In technical publications, audience is the focal
product knowledge to end users in a comprehensible point. Hence, the style, language, and content must
manner. The strategies of communication and levels vary depending on the type of audience being
of information vary depending on the type of product addressed. It is because every user has a specific
and audience. role in the implementation and usage of the
technology. Therefore, it is important that
Providing end users with information about a documents be created keeping in mind the role of
product’s operation and maintenance is critical to the the person who will use the document.
market performance of the product. Hence, the need
for quality documentation is imperative. For example, when you document a software
application designed for highly technical users, it is
In today’s business scenario, technical publications sufficient to provide the users with quick reference
are often developed as an afterthought. This usually information to use the application.
results in inaccurate and incomprehensible
documentation, which, in turn, renders the users For users who start without technical or product
incapable of using the products. knowledge, it is important to provide detailed
product information along with instructions on how
Accurate, readily understandable, and quality to use the product.
documents determine how a product sells in the
market and results in increased customer Attractive Publications as Useful
satisfaction.
Marketing Tools
Faulty Assumptions that Result in Besides transferring knowledge, technical
Problems in Documentation publications are also used for marketing a product.
Before a product is released in the market,
The faulty assumptions listed below result in information about the product needs to be
incomprehensible document: effectively communicated to the customers.
 Developers know their products better than Well-designed, accurately presented, and attractive
anyone else – due to time constraints and limited marketing collaterals increase the market prospects
resources, many companies assign their of a product and reduce support costs.
documentation tasks to the programmers. This
more often results in the creation of technology-
centered information, while end users require
task-oriented information.
 Documentation of complex applications requires a
longer learning curve for the writer - learning the
product will not be a major obstacle for writers
with the right technical background.
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6. Conclusion
 Competitive Growth in the ECM Industry: Growth of ECM vendors relies heavily on an accurate, timely, and
cost-effective documentation process. ECM vendors cater to a global audience and hence need simple-to-read
content that will minimize localization expenses. while staying ahead of competitors.
 Value of Technical Publications: Technical Publications are very essential for transferring product
knowledge to the end users. Provisioning of proper material to use the technology and products enables the
user to accept and efficiently use the product. Faulty documentation can lead to inaccurate and hard-to-
understand content which will have a negative impact on the product’s performance in global markets.
 Role of Documentation Outsourcing: The complexity involved in implementing an ECM tool requires that
vendors and purchasers look at outsourcing their documentation needs to well-established Technical
Publication Solution providers. This helps the company cut costs and at the same time deliver their products
with quality documents.
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7. TWB Services
TWB is India’s leader in technical communication outsourcing and education. TWB offers a complete suite of services that
allow our customers to effectively publish their technical knowledge with their people and processes. TWB’s customers range
from Global 500 – including Cisco, Accenture, McAfee, LG, Samsung, Citrix, SAP, Siemens, AOL, Intel; Indian technology
majors – including Infosys, Wipro; Global defense majors - Pratt & Whitney, Honeywell, DRDO, HAL; and exciting technology
startups. TWB's expertise in technical communication ranges from IT Products and Outsourcing, ITES, Banking, Financial,
Aerospace, Defense, Ship Building to Hi-tech Manufacturing, and Discrete and Process Manufacturing.
TWB’s services include:
Technical Marketing Technical Product Documentation Quality
Solutions Documentation Management
 Datasheets
 Administrator’s Guide
 Datasheets  Copy Editing and Proof Reading
 API Document
 Cheat sheets  Managing Writing
 Configuration Guide
 Solution Briefs/Solution Brochures  Editing Services
 Functional Specifications Document
 Presentations –  Layout and Design
Products/Corporate Profile  Installation Manual
 Creating SLAs
 Brochures and marketing collateral  Interface Document
 Web content  Interactive Electronic Technical Business Documentation
Manual (IETM)
 Audio and video scripts
 Maintenance Manual  Business Proposals
 Press releases
 Online Help  Legal Disclaimers
 Direct mail
 Operation Manual  Policy Manuals
 Newsletter design copy
 Product Demo  Style Guide Design
 Sales catalogues
 Product Specifications Document  Template Design
 Sales sheets
 Product Overview Document
 Quick Reference Guide
Business Communication Content Management
 Release Notes
 Short Reports  Requirement Analysis Document
 Single Sourcing
 Proposals  SDK Document
 File Version Control
 Case Studies  Troubleshooting Manual
 Document Naming Conventions
 Lab Reports  User Manual
 Consistent Document Formatting
 Memos  Open Source Documentation
 Data Transformation
 Progress/Interim Reports  Programmers Guides
 Writing for Electronic Media  Functional Specifications Document
 Use Cases Web site Development
Illustrations  Online Help /Context Sensitive Help
 Web 2.0 development
 Troubleshooting Guides
 Graphic Designing  Web content

 Info graphics  Web applications
Qualitative Analytics for
 2D & 3D animation
Decision Support Translation and Localization
 Line drawings and illustrations
Services
 Economic Business Research
Process Documentation
 Industry Analysis  Software Translation Services
 Workflows  Market Opportunity Analysis  Document Translation Services
 Standard Operating Procedures  Competitive Business Analysis  Localization (L10N) Testing
 ISO Documentation  Company & Prospect Profiling  Internationalization (I18N) Testing
 CMM Documentation  Reporting Solutions
 Assessment of Unmet Market Needs Records Management
Deployment and Support  Status and Potential of Technologies
 Document Management Solutions
 Benchmarking of Strategies Vs
 Record Management Storage and
 Installation and Configuration Competition
Retrieval
Guides  Forecasting
 Operations Manual  Sales Force Effectiveness
 Market Assessments
 Competitive Intelligence
 Opinion Leadership
 Emerging Markets - evaluation and
research
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8. TWB Software Tools Expertise
Our technical proficiency in software and authoring tools includes:
Unstructured Content XML Structured Editors Multimedia/Authoring
Development
 Epic  Adobe Flash®
 Microsoft Word®  FrameMaker+SGML  Adobe Dreamweaver®
 Adobe FrameMaker®  X-Metal®  Microsoft FrontPage®
 Adobe InDesign®  Adobe Captivate®
 QuarkXPress® Macromedia Captivate
 Adobe PageMaker® Graphics/Animations
 Multimedia/Authoring/
Illustrations  Adobe Flash® Supporting tools
 Adobe Photoshop®
 Adobe Flash CS4 Professional  Adobe Fireworks®  Adobe Flash®
 Adobe Illustrator CS3  Adobe Flex®
 CorelDRAW Online Help  Adobe AIR®
 Microsoft-Expression Graphic  Adobe Dreamweaver®
Designer  Adobe Acrobat®
 Xara Xtreme (Windows & Linux)  JavaHelp
 Microsoft Silverlight®
 CuteDraw  Adobe RoboHelp 7.0
 Adobe Authorware®
 Publisher3D(for animation)  HelpScribble
 Adobe Director®
 Sketsa SVG Editor (for vector  WebWorks Publisher
 Adobe Captivate®
graphics)  PowerCHM
 Trivantis Lectora®
 Techsmith Camtasia  Doc-To-Help
 ASP.NET
 Adobe Flash CS4 Professional  WinCHM
 JSP
 Arbortext IsoDraw (technical  HelpSmith 2.1.1(Windows)
 JAVA
illustrations for 2D and 3D)  Fast-Help
 MadCap Flare Standards
Graphics/Animation  Help-Server
 NVU Help
 SCORM 1.2 / 2004
 Adobe Flash®  AICC
XML
 Adobe Photoshop®  W3C
 Adobe Illustrator®  Section 508
 Adobe Fireworks®  XMetal®  QTI XML
 Microsoft Silverlight®  Microsoft Word 2003®,
 Microsoft Word 2007®
Databases Development and Publishing
tools
CMS/ LMS
 Microsoft Access  XSLT/XSL
 Microsoft SQL Server  EDD
 Sharepoint®
 Moodle
Flowcharting  Joomla,
 WordPress
 Microsoft Visio  Media Wiki
 iGrafx  CMS Builder
 EDraw  Author-it (formerly AuthorIT)
 RFFlow  Alfresco
 Flowbreeze
 Smart Draw
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9. Industries Served
TWB services a wide range of technology and knowledge driven industries, helping them meet their markets better, these
include:
 Banking, Insurance and Financial Services  ITES/ KPO/ BPO
 Consulting and Business Services  Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology
 Defense, Aerospace and Hi-Tech Manufacturing  Process Manufacturing and Allied Industries
 Education and Learning  Steel, Ship Building, Construction and Aviation
 IT, ITES  Telecom and Digital Communications
TWB has been the preferred technical documentation outsourcing company for:
The TWB Building US Office:
No: 4062, 19th Main Road, TWB
HAL 2nd Stage, 11701 Norwegian Wood Drive
Bangalore – 560008 Austin, TX 78758
India.
Landmark: Behind Carlton Towers
Telephone: Telephone:
+91.80.40741400 / +1.512.586.8357
+91.80.41256367
Corporate Enquiries:
corp@twb.in
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