Enterprise content management in action: ECM use cases, benefits and challenges

Transcription

1 E-Book Enterprise content management in action: ECM use cases, benefits and challenges In this ebook, read about enterprise content management (ECM) projects at organizations that have adopted ECM technology, and get real-world insight from experienced users and IT industry analysts into the potential uses and benefits of ECM systems as well as the common roadblocks that companies can face on ECM deployments. Both IT and business professionals interested in ECM will learn: The potential benefits of ECM and the potential pitfalls to avoid Learn more about use cases and best practices for implementing ECM Sponsored By:

2 E-Book Enterprise content management in action: ECM use cases, benefits and challenges Table Of Contents Users see potential benefits, some pitfalls to avoid in ECM projects ECM implementation efforts need focus on interoperability, end users Resources from docassist Sponsored By: Page 2 of 11

3 Users see potential benefits, some pitfalls to avoid in ECM projects By Mark Brunelli, SearchDataManagement.com News Editor From tighter document version control to improved business continuity and speedier disaster recovery, enterprise content management (ECM) software offers many potential benefits to users, according to IT industry analysts and several veterans of ECM projects. But organizations need to be careful when evaluating, purchasing and implementing ECM software, or else they risk falling victim to some common ECM dangers, cautioned experienced users such as Glenn Cobb, vice president of IT at Tompkins Financial Corp. in Ithaca, N.Y. Cobb said companies can avoid unnecessary and potentially problem-causing ECM system sprawl by taking steps to ensure that there is some level of consistency between different business units on document types. For example, an organization should consider standardizing on one file format for documents containing budgetary information, he said. That issue has come into play at Tompkins, a holding company for three community banks and several financial services subsidiaries that all operate independently from one another. For us, it s a little tough because the content has to change from institution to institution, Cobb said, adding that prospective users should take such issues into consideration when they start looking at an ECM deployment. Restoring order to the document management process via ECM projects The good news is that when ECM projects go smoothly, the benefits can be plentiful. Cobb said a properly designed ECM system can put an end to the confusion and complications that often arise when workers make copies of and then modify important corporate documents. Sponsored By: Page 3 of 11

4 At Tompkins, it used to take 10 hours to combine all of the different changes from the different sources, he noted. A good ECM tool would have made that seamless because all of the changes would have been version-controlled. The exact definition of the phrase enterprise content management is often disputed by vendors and analysts with differing opinions on what technologies fit under the ECM umbrella. But generally speaking, it refers to the methodologies and myriad software tools that companies can use to capture, store, manage and deliver documents, images and other forms of unstructured content to employees, customers and business partners. IT research and consulting firm Gartner Inc. predicts that the worldwide market for ECM technologies will grow from $3.7 billion last year to $6 billion by Analysts say the rapid growth in ECM demand is being driven by potential benefits that include easier access for end users to archives of unstructured information and an improved ability to comply with information-retention rules and other government and industry regulations. A shared ECM system can also put an end to the inefficient document shuffling that often takes place via . Full-function ECM software packages offer everything from document and records management tools to social networking collaboration software and enterprise search capabilities. In addition, there are hundreds of more specialized content management products that are tailored to specific industries or focused on individual technologies, such as Web content management or image management software. Not so fast: taking an incremental approach on ECM projects The Retirement Services Division within the Office of the State Comptroller in Connecticut recently completed an ECM project designed to help the government agency get a handle on more than 40 years worth of documents and forms related to state pension plans. Much of that content was stored in paper files or on microfilm, making it hard to manage and access the information, said David Wemett, a lead technical analyst who worked on the project. Sponsored By: Page 4 of 11

5 But despite the expected benefits of automating the document management process via ECM, the project team was careful not to overreach. After implementing the ECM software, Wemett said, the agency decided that it made sense to transfer the existing documents and files into the new system on an incremental basis to ensure the best results. For example, if state workers came to the Retirement Services Division looking for their historical employment records, that would be the cue for Wemett and his staff to upload the information about those workers into the new system. We did it more or less on-demand rather than trying to do it wholesale by dumping everything into the system A to Z, he noted. Wemett added that the ECM project wouldn t have gotten off the ground without active interest and financial support from his bosses. You ve got to have management buy-in, and the people who actually use [the system] have to feel as though you re doing them a favor, he said. If you don t have both these things, then you re really going uphill, and I ve done some other projects where we really went uphill and wound up stuck there. Use of hosted systems in ECM projects is growing, but slowly Hosted, cloud-based and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) ECM offerings are gradually growing in popularity as well although not as quickly as their on-premise counterparts, according to Karen Shegda, a content management analyst at Gartner. We re seeing more and more interest from our clients in Software as a Service and cloudbased options, Shegda said. But hosted technologies currently account for only 5% of the overall ECM market, she added. That should increase to least 10% by 2013, according to Shegda. Hosted ECM products can be the right choice for smaller organizations with limited IT resources, said William Poole, senior director of marketing communications at The Trust for Sponsored By: Page 5 of 11

6 Public Land (TPL), a nearly 40-year-old nonprofit organization dedicated to land conservation. The San Francisco-based TPL uses a hosted content management system primarily to store, share and keep track of its vast collection of nature photographs and videos. While the hosted offering has allowed TPL workers to focus more closely on what they do best preserving land there is still some ECM-related work that needs to be done internally, Poole said. That includes keeping the content files properly updated with meta tags and working with the hosted system vendor when problems arise. Managing the ECM system gets more complicated every year as the amount of content stored in it increases, according to Poole. His advice to new ECM users: I think that the more dedicated staff you have, the better off you are, he said. Be sure that you ve got somebody who is able to devote an undivided amount of time and attention to the thing and don t just try and do it on the cheap, whether it s hosted or not. Sponsored By: Page 6 of 11

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8 ECM implementation efforts need focus on interoperability, end users By Mark Brunelli, SearchDataManagement.com News Editor Organizations making new investments in enterprise content management (ECM) software need to think hard about technical interoperability and cultural change-management issues prior to moving forward, according to IT industry analysts and technology professionals. Experts say the biggest barriers to a quality ECM implementation are interoperability problems that can arise with existing content management functionality and the seemingly innocuous but often painful challenge of getting people to actually use the ECM system once it s deployed. They add, however, that there are some practical steps organizations can take to overcome these implementation hurdles. ECM encompasses the many tools and techniques that can be used to capture, store, share and archive documents, s, images and other types of unstructured content related to business or operational processes. Interest in ECM technology is growing fast, analysts say, because organizations are increasingly looking for new and more efficient ways to get a handle on their ever-growing stores of unstructured content while complying with government and industry regulations in areas such as information retention. ECM implementation success depends on software interoperability The interoperability issues that can plague new ECM deployments stem from the reality that most companies already have some type of content management technologies in place whether they re small point solutions or large-scale implementations with more robust features, said Karen Shegda, a content management analyst at Gartner Inc. Organizations are wrestling with how to make these tools interoperate and how to consolidate down to fewer, more strategic vendors, Shegda said. Rationalizing what they already have is often a challenge. Sponsored By: Page 8 of 11

9 A good way to start the process is to look at the level of investment financial and otherwise that has been made in each ECM tool currently being used, according to Shegda. A business might find that it has some good candidates for removal, she noted. If they ve got a system that is only being used by one department, or maybe it s approaching end of life, they may want to plan an exit strategy for that system, Shegda explained. She added that other things to consider when looking at ECM consolidation include whether products can be easily replaced; whether there is significant overlapping functionality between systems; and the stipulations of related technical support and maintenance contracts. New standard could help ease ECM implementation headaches Reducing vendor headcount may increase the chances of successfully achieving interoperability between systems. But the best way to ensure that a new ECM implementation plays well with existing technologies is to invest in software that supports the Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) standard, said Colleen Jones, principal and founder of Content Science, an Atlanta-based ECM consultancy. CMIS was formally ratified by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards last May, and Jones said that many new ECM software products already support the interoperability standard. She added that it s important to keep the CMIS specification in mind when shopping around for software, customizing applications or developing homegrown content management functionality. People are often afraid of change, and that can be especially true when an organization implements a sweeping new content management system. That s why internal change management is important from the beginning to the end of an ECM implementation, according to analysts. One of the main drivers for ECM projects is to get business workers to stop duplicating corporate documents and ing them around to one another without any control of the process, said Kathleen Reidy, a content management systems analyst at The 451 Group in Sponsored By: Page 9 of 11

10 New York. And if people aren t using the ECM system, it defeats the whole purpose of the investment. To ensure end-user adoption of new ECM technology, analysts say organizations need to keep a cross-section of rank-and-file business users involved in the decision-making process from start to finish. But getting high-level executives on board can present a major challenge, even if they re the ones that approved the project in the first place, said Sara Roberts, founder and CEO of San Francisco-based Roberts Golden Consulting, which focuses on change management issues. Immersing business users in an ECM implementation When you talk about change management for ECM, you absolutely have to focus a lot of your efforts on the management and leadership layer, Roberts said. Because let s face it, managers are really the most influential people in an employee s day-o-day working life. One way to get both business users and executive leadership invested in a new ECM implementation is to conduct technology immersion sessions, Roberts said, describing them as similar to training sessions but longer and much more interactive. You would bring those [users] into the room and let them play with the technology, she said. It s kind of fun because it gives them a non-threatening environment where they can learn to really understand [the technology] and be able to see the business applications and the use cases right then and there. A final method of ensuring ECM uptake is to work closely with end users and executives to help them understand that the new functionality has the potential to make their jobs much easier. You pretty much have to act like you re doing everybody a favor, said David Wemett, an ECM software user and a lead technical analyst at the Connecticut Office of the State Comptroller. And you are doing them a favor because they don t have to get up from their desk [to find documents] and five people can look at one thing if they want to, whereas before things were literally in filing cabinets. Sponsored By: Page 10 of 11

11 Resources from docassist The Benefits of Distributed Capture and Process Automation with Cloud ECM Automate indexing - Many methods, one goal - resource optimization Removing the barriers to deploying cloud ECM in your enterprise About docassist docassist is a pioneer and leader in the cloud enterprise content management (ECM) industry. Our goal is to provide powerful tools that will simplify your business and help you work smarter. We provide an integrated set of document, content and workflow management tools that enable organizations to truly automate document related business process. Today, thousands of users in 25 countries and diverse industries rely on docassist on-demand. Whether it is industry specific or common departmental level processes organizations of any size can work smarter with docassist on-demand. Sponsored By: Page 11 of 11