Lord of the Files: The Solvable Practice Creating Uncertainty in the Workforce.

Accessing, editing, storing, and sharing internal documents.

You got the meeting.

Now, you and your team need to build a pitch deck.

To start, you’ll have to collect a few things to successfully assemble the presentation; things like the new executive summary slide approved by the brand team, the updated solution info from the product team, and maybe that recent case study that compliance signed-off on.

File governance, maintenance, and version control make for better collaboration.

Collaboration is at the heart of any successful b2b organization. Shared workspaces allow marketing, enablement, and sales teams to work together seamlessly.

These collaborative spaces are where ideas are brainstormed, project briefs are updated, drafts are created, and feedback is incorporated. That’s why it’s essential to delineate between where these working versions live and where the final, client-facing files are stored. File version control, and the systems used to enforce it, directly contribute to revenue growth. 

Seems a bit drastic, doesn’t it? 

Well, in their day-to-day use of the tech stack, marketing, enablement, and sales teams in b2b organizations need to be able to navigate, collaborate, and share resources fast and reliably. Their ability to perform effectively starts and ends with access to the most accurate resources. 

This underscores the need to maintain consistency, accuracy, and efficiency in the ways resources are accessed, worked on, stored, and shared.

So, file version control is critical.

File food shopping.

For argument’s sake, let’s say your company is really on their game and everything you need to build your pitch deck is easily accessible in one, reliable content repository.

To make the case for the importance of version control, we’re going to compare your company’s content repository to a grocery store full of items. 

Now, for this metaphor to land, we need to spotlight a key bit of context: 

• Within your organization, there are teams who solve for other, internal employees in the way that their peers solve for external customers.

• In a file repository full of resources for internal employees, some teams are patrons “shopping” for supplies and others are “staffing” the storefront — both work for your organization.

• Some resources in the “store” are for internal, company-use only. 

• Other resources in the “store” are designed to be used externally with clients.

Aisles, files, tiles.

In this grocery store metaphor, where your team is on a mission to get the necessary ingredients for their pitch deck, the store’s aisles represent a repository or knowledge base.

Shelves in a given aisle, following the same logic, would illustrate the role of folders containing files in a content repository. Individual items stocked on the shelves portray the singular tiles that can be selected within a file folder of the repository. Using the search bar for the repository instead of going into the store is curbside-pickup.