Each day, more and more countries around the globe are recognizing the need for a technology strategy that will improve and streamline their government processes. Nowhere is this more evident than across Australia and New Zealand. There, from Christchurch in New Zealand to Western Australia's Fremantle, dozens of government agencies are embracing technology as the key to meeting their most critical mandates. Fortunately, Interwoven enterprise content management (ECM) is there to help.

Interwoven currently serves more than ten state and national Australian government agencies that span the entire country. These include Australia's Department of Transport and Regional Services, Western Australia's Department of Justice, and New South Wales' Department of Education and Training, among others. Interestingly, all of these agencies, including the two described below, have turned to Interwoven to meet a very universal set of challenges. These include the reduction of costs, increasing internal efficiencies, and expanding public access to critical government services.

Tourism Australia - Promoting Australia Abroad
Since 1967, Tourism Australia (formerly known as the Australian Tourist Commission) has been promoting Australia to consumers and the travel industry in more than 40 countries around the world. As a diverse, global organization with tourism representatives situated in 17 locations, it was critical that the Tourism Australia choose an enterprise content management system that would enable employees to easily contribute all types of content assets, including documents, images, application code, and Flash graphics.

With almost 5 million visitors to its site during 2001, Tourism Australia needed an enterprise content management system that would allow for different types of content in multiple languages to be added easily and in a timely manner. Taking these factors into consideration, Tourism Australia determined that Interwoven was the only company whose solution could meet the agency's criteria, and would enable collaborative, enterprise-wide content contribution.

In particular, Interwoven TeamSite templates and workflow processes gave the organization's Sydney-based editorial teams the ability to collaborate with colleagues spread across the globe. With Interwoven workflow processes in place, Tourism Australia contributors now can translate and approve documents quickly and easily. Interwoven's simple-to-use templates have enabled Tourism Australia to extend content contribution and management to any of its employees familiar with Microsoft Word, thus eliminating IT bottlenecks. Because of these features, the Department now can offer its viewers compelling, dynamic content that keeps them coming back for new information again and again.

Today, 60 contributors collaborate worldwide at Tourism Australia to provide appealing, locally relevant content to the Sydney-based operations for the organization's site, www.australia.com.

Queensland - The Smart State Forges Ahead
Known for its beautiful beaches and lush rainforests and formerly nicknamed "Sunshine State," Queensland now refers to itself as the "Smart State," in part because of the strides the state has taken in technology. According to Queensland's Premier Peter Beattie, the state government has placed a high priority on "developing Queensland as an Asia-Pacific hub for the new industries of the 21st Century -- industries that include biotechnology, information technology, nano-technology and communication technology."

All of this is no surprise to Interwoven. The Department of Emergency Services, Department of Employment and Training, Department of Natural Resources and Mines, and Smart Services Queensland all use Interwoven for their Enterprise Content Management needs. The spread of Interwoven technology across the state led to the establishment of the Queensland Government Users of Interwoven (GUI) Group. Attended by representatives from more than ten agencies, GUI holds informal meetings for those currently using or in the process of considering Interwoven products.

New South Wales Department of Education and Training
Another Australian agency that is embracing Interwoven enterprise content management is the New South Wales Department of Education and Training, responsible for the delivery and coordination of education and training services across the State. In 2001, the Department chose Interwoven to empower its contributors to create, preview, and approve online content such as course and subject information. The Department, which hosts a number of sites including TAFE, HSC online and New HSC was driven to choose an enterprise content management system by its desire to manage all of the content on its sites in a cohesive, comprehensive manner.

Interwoven was chosen because it allows schools, institutes, and state office directorates to capture and edit content and to publish material in a range of formats to their appropriate Internet and intranet sites. Working closely with reseller ComTech, Interwoven delivered a solution that empowered any user within the Department to contribute content through an easy interface.

Another important reason for choosing Interwoven was TeamSite's open, standards-based architecture, which works seamlessly with the Department's existing technology. In addition to supporting a diverse range of desktop configurations from Macintosh to WINTEL systems, TeamSite also supports the Department's Sun/Solaris development platform and has the ability to interface with a Digital/Unix Internet environment. In addition Interwoven provided a scalable solution that could potentially handle a very large number of contributors. The end result, is that the agency is now better able to support multiple online initiatives.

As is clear from these stories, Australian governments have found an ideal partner in Interwoven. To find out more about how Interwoven's ECM Solution is transforming governments throughout the world, visit us at www.interwoven.com.tw.