Ovum Decision Matrix: Selecting an Enterprise Content Management Solution,

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1 Ovum Decision Matrix: Selecting an Enterprise Content Management Solution, Publication Date: August 2013 Author: Sue Clarke SUMMARY Catalyst Selecting an enterprise content management (ECM) platform is not a decision that should be taken lightly. Because much of the functionality is now commoditized, and the industry has gone through a period of consolidation, which has reduced the number of platforms available, it is becoming increasingly difficult for businesses to select the most appropriate solution. Ovum believes that there are currently just eight major platforms that provide the widest range of capabilities for organizations seeking to deploy ECM, but despite the commoditization there are still differentiators for organizations in the selection process. These include specific functionality, which is required to support the organization's business processes, and the profile of the vendor in terms of its market share, profitability, and capability to support the deployment through its lifetime. In addition to these eight vendors, other vendors focus on a narrower set of capabilities, some have horizontal products, while others are aligned to the requirements of specific vertical industries. Ovum view The large ECM platform vendors EMC, HP Autonomy, IBM, OpenText, and Oracle provide the widest coverage area in terms of functionality of the vendors covered in this Ovum Ovum (Published 08/2013) Page 1

2 Decision Matrix for enterprise content management. However, these platforms can also be complex products to implement, requiring a high level of services. Although some large enterprises require all of the technologies that come under the ECM umbrella, the majority of organizations will only need a subset of the total technologies available; therefore, the most comprehensive solutions may not be the most appropriate. Organizations should always list their requirements and then look for the solution that provides the tightest fit. For example, if case management is a priority then look at the vendors that have strong capabilities in this area. The main focus of Hyland Software is case management, and although it does not have functionality in all of the ECM technology areas, it offers one of the strongest solutions in case management. Many organizations prefer a best-of-breed approach to specialist areas of ECM, where they implement an ECM platform for the core functionality but then deploy third-party products in other areas such as web content management (WCM) and output management. Again, in these circumstances, a big, all-encompassing platform may not be the best option. The acknowledged leaders of the ECM market are EMC, IBM, and OpenText, so it will come as little surprise that they are in the leaders category in this Ovum Decision Matrix. The growth in capabilities of Alfresco's open source platform means that it can compete favorably against the large proprietary ECM platform vendors. The development of areas such as digital asset management and transactional content management has helped Alfresco move up into the challenger category from the followers category, where it was positioned in the Ovum Decision Matrix for ECM. If Alfresco continues to add to its capabilities and extends its platform, there is no reason why it cannot become a leader in a future Ovum Decision Matrix report. Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 is well suited to mid-market organizations, departments within larger enterprises, and ad hoc users, and its position in the followers category reflects this, as it is missing many of the features of enterprise solutions. This means that larger enterprises that require extensive ECM features or have a large number of users will need to deploy a solution that has more capabilities and scales to a larger number of users. Changing end-user demands have resulted in ECM vendors including additional features in their products. For example, end users are demanding empowerment through the use of social media in a business context, which ECM vendors must reflect by managing social media as another content type. This has a large impact on several technologies, including records management and web content management. It also creates many problems for organizations, including how they can implement and manage a "bring your own device" (BYOD) policy from the perspective of how corporate content on personal devices can be managed, particularly when an individual leaves the organization. This is becoming even more of an issue as more organizations adopt file sync and Ovum (Published 08/2013) Page 2

3 share solutions where content can be remotely removed from devices, which the ECM vendors are increasingly adding to their portfolios. Key findings EMC, IBM, and OpenText have been identified as leaders in the Ovum Decision Matrix for enterprise content management. The Ovum Decision Matrix shows that open source Alfresco can compete favorably against the large proprietary ECM platform vendors. Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 is well suited to mid-market organizations, departments within larger enterprises, and ad hoc users, but larger enterprises that require extensive ECM features or have a large number of users will need to deploy a solution that has more capabilities and scales to a larger number of users. File sync and share is becoming the next must-have feature in ECM systems as organizations demand secure ways of sharing information outside the firewall. End users are demanding empowerment through the use of social media in a business context, which ECM vendors are having to reflect by managing social media as another content type. Users want access to content anytime, anywhere, which means that ECM vendors must support a wide range of mobile devices within their platforms. ECM vendors are moving away from providing platforms to becoming providers of case management systems. While many of the features in ECM are now commoditized, there are differences in capabilities and, using the Ovum Decision Matrix, organizations should draw up a list of their requirements to ensure that they select a platform that addresses the highest number of their needs. MARKET AND SOLUTION ANALYSIS Ovum Decision Matrix: enterprise content management Content management technologies are relatively mature from an IT software perspective, and differentiation between the major providers of ECM platforms is consequently limited. Ovum's analysis spans products from the software behemoths, the independent sector, and open source. Microsoft chose not to participate in the Ovum Decision Matrix so all of the information relating to Microsoft has been researched from published sources and from Ovum client enquiries. Similarly, OpenText's participation was limited. Ovum (Published 08/2013) Page 3

4 Figure 1 shows the solutions clustered together in the full-scale Ovum Decision Matrix for technology (x-axis), execution (y-axis), and market impact (size of bubble). We have not labeled the bubbles in Figure 1, as Figure 2 shows an expanded view of the same data plot. Figure 1: Ovum Decision Matrix enterprise content management, Source: Ovum Ovum (Published 08/2013) Page 4

5 Figure 2: Expanded view of Ovum Decision Matrix enterprise content management, Source: Ovum Table 1: Ovum Decision Matrix enterprise content management vendors Market leaders Market challengers Market followers EMC Alfresco Hyland Software IBM HP Autonomy Microsoft OpenText Oracle Source: Ovum Ovum (Published 08/2013) Page 5

6 Market leaders: EMC, IBM, OpenText EMC was, for many years, the undisputed leader of the ECM marketplace, and its platform is considered to be a high-end, expensive solution. The company is addressing this through the EMC OnDemand offering, which it is hoping to push into the mid-market space. EMC has made a number of strategic acquisitions over the years to fill gaps in its functionality, but it has addressed its weakest area, web content management, through a partnership with SDL. Implementing Documentum is a major undertaking and one that will generally require accompanying services. There may also be a need for integration with line-of-business applications, which can be easily achieved by those organizations implementing Documentum xcp. Globally recognized with a significant partner ecosystem, EMC is still the first name that comes to mind when CIOs think "content management." IBM established itself as a leading ECM vendor when it acquired FileNet, which allowed it to focus beyond the traditional big IBM-house implementations. Since then it has boosted its capabilities further through the acquisition of complementary technologies. IBM still has two ECM products, which offer solutions for a wide range of issues, both of which are covered by this Ovum Decision Matrix. The company is acknowledged as the largest ECM vendor in terms of volume, revenue, and market share, and it has a huge global services organization and partner network, which enables it to provide assistance in the implementation process. OpenText is the last remaining independent tier-one ECM vendor. Like EMC and IBM, it has made numerous acquisitions, although some of them have resulted in duplicated technology, which has forced the company to support more than one ECM platform and two WCM products. This has resulted in a high level of integration work, which has sometimes affected sales of its ECM products. However, the company now has a strong strategy and its acquisition of the BPM vendor Metastorm is enabling OpenText to strengthen its capabilities in the case management area. Ovum (Published 08/2013) Page 6

7 VENDOR ANALYSIS EMC Documentum 7 Ovum recommendation: leader Figure 3: EMC Documentum ECM radar diagrams Source: Ovum Ovum SWOT assessment Strengths EMC has one of the most extensive content management portfolios EMC has an extensive portfolio of content management-related products. In terms of innovation, EMC has always been Ovum (Published 08/2013) Page 7

8 the vendor to follow. It is generally the first ECM vendor to add new technologies to its ECM portfolio, something which the other leading vendors quickly imitate. The latest technology to be added is enterprise file synchronization and sharing, through the acquisition of Syncplicity. Documentum ensures that organizations can manage content in a compliant manner Documentum's RM capabilities have been certified by several bodies, including the Department of Defense (DoD) in the US. Documentum also includes both hardware- and software-based archiving, which when used in conjunction with RM help organizations to retain content to meet the requirements of regulatory compliance. Documentum xcp accelerates the development of solutions EMC provides Documentum xcp, which allows developers to build and deploy custom, information-intensive, process-centric, and case management solutions with minimal customized code. In addition, the company provides productized industry-specific solutions on top of the Documentum platform, such as EPFM (engineering, plant & facilities management) in energy and engineering, and quality and manufacturing (Q&M) and electronic trial master file (etmf) in life sciences. Weaknesses EMC does not have its own strong WCM capability The WCM capabilities within Documentum are weak, although they will suit the requirements of organizations that provide mainly informational services. This may push some potential customers towards vendors that offer strong WCM capabilities natively as part of their platforms. EMC partners with SDL Tridion to provide more extensive capabilities. ECM implementations can be complex Because of the number of technologies that are potentially involved in ECM and the need to set up taxonomies and policies, ECM often requires a high level of professional services during the implementation process. All ECM vendors need to make their portfolios much easier to implement with more out-of-the-box functionality. However, more customers are buying EMC Certified Solutions from partners and/or deploying EMC OnDemand, which has reduced the amount of consulting required. Opportunities Vertical solutions are a growing area in ECM EMC has already introduced 80 EMC Certified Solutions from partners and several of its own solutions that map onto a variety of vertical industries, such as energy and engineering, life sciences, healthcare, public sector, and financial services and insurance. However, EMC has the opportunity to provide further vertical solutions in its chosen areas. It also has an opportunity to provide solutions for additional verticals by extending its partner network. Ovum (Published 08/2013) Page 8

9 Collaboration enhancements should increase EMC's market share One of the recent additions to EMC's portfolio is Syncplicity, which provides SaaS-based synchronization and fileshare management, which strengthens EMC's collaboration offerings. Some of the functionality in CenterStage, EMC's collaboration product, will become available through D2, and upcoming SaaS-based offerings will provide a further opportunity for EMC to extend its collaboration capabilities. The cloud provides an opportunity to increase Documentum's market share While EMC OnDemand is delivering the benefits of agility, lower TCO, and simplicity to larger enterprises, it should enable the company to drive Documentum into the mid-market, although Ovum believes the company will have to better target its marketing campaigns for its OnDemand products at midsized organizations to successfully break into this market. EMC must keep innovating As a market leader in ECM, EMC has continually pushed back the boundaries of ECM in an attempt to offer end-to-end information management solutions. However, each time it makes an acquisition in the ECM space, other leading vendors follow suit, which has resulted in little differentiation between major ECM platforms. EMC must therefore keep adding new capabilities to its portfolio to maintain its leading position, but at the same time it must ensure that the implementation process is made as easy as possible for organizations. Threats Relying on partnerships for WCM is a risk Partnering with SDL to provide WCM capabilities could be regarded as an opportunity, but it is also a threat. An earlier partnership with FatWire failed when FatWire was acquired by Oracle, and the same danger lies with SDL. There is also the chance that SDL will decide to end the partnership, leaving EMC without a strong WCM product to offer its customers. EMC needs to end the perception that it is a high-end-only vendor ECM is a very competitive market with a number of large players. Documentum has always been seen as a highend enterprise offering, which may push smaller companies towards other ECM systems, particularly lower-price, open source ones, even in situations where EMC OnDemand may be a suitable option. EMC also offers ApplicationXtender (AX), which is a comprehensive ECM product targeted towards small and mid-sized businesses. This is a channel-driven product with an extensive partner channel positioning this offering, and EMC needs to communicate to smaller organizations that this is an option. Ovum (Published 08/2013) Page 9

10 APPENDIX Further reading The Fundamentals of ECM, IT (May 2013) Author Sue Clarke, Senior Analyst, Software Information Management Ovum Consulting We hope that this analysis will help you make informed and imaginative business decisions. If you have further requirements, Ovum's consulting team may be able to help you. For more information about Ovum's consulting capabilities, please contact us directly at Disclaimer All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, Ovum (an Informa business). The facts of this report are believed to be correct at the time of publication but cannot be guaranteed. Please note that the findings, conclusions, and recommendations that Ovum delivers will be based on information gathered in good faith from both primary and secondary sources, whose accuracy we are not always in a position to guarantee. As such Ovum can accept no liability whatever for actions taken based on any information that may subsequently prove to be incorrect. Ovum (Published 08/2013) Page 10