Enterprise Content Management (ECM) consists of the strategies and methods used to manage and interpret documents related to work in an organization.
In
today’s information age, the success and failure of an enterprise is
dictated primarily by two factors – the rate of influx of data into an
enterprise database and the constant interpreting and evaluation of
this data into logical information as input for strategic planning.
As
unstructured content is checked in and out of a system, each use can
potentially add to the content's profile. With time, the ECMsystem might gradually adopt new filtering, which assists in making
better decisions, determining the relevance of information and
documents.
For
example, in order to improve efficiency while still adhering to Federal
Laws and guidelines, an eminent South Western US University turned to
implement Enterprise Content Management. The university used ECMto bring business processes together and accelerate information
exchange. This solution not only helped the university to ensure
efficient administration, it also minimized the impact on
staff—improving productivity and reducing costs.
According to the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM), Enterprise Content Management can be broken down into five major components:
- Capture: Obtain and organize information.
- Manage: Process and employ information as per requirement.
- Store: Temporary back up of transient information.
- Preserve: More permanent storage of unchanging data.
- Deliver: Provide clients and end users with requested data and analyses.
While
identifying a direct return on investment can be difficult, it is
possible to see the impacts of the improved process efficiency. With
the enforced usage of these tools within the organization, they become
part of the work culture. What's the ROI on a fax-machine? Virtually
negligible, per se. However, who can imagine running an organization
without one?
It's not enough to simply maintain and hold extensive database information. Content must be managed so that it can be used to achieve business goals, which is the goal behind implementation of Enterprise Content Management.
