Reaping New Value from Existing ECM Solutions with the Cloud
For many organizations, enterprise content management has been an unrealized dream and the source of technological and budgetary challenges. Most large companies have invested millions in ECM solutions, but many are less than satisfied with their results. Even those that are happy with their deployments typically see them used by only a small number of employees in specific application areas.
And as shifting trends and new technology have pushed business to an increasingly mobile landscape, enterprises are finding that their legacy ECM solutions are even less accessible. In response, many organizations have adopted a hybrid cloud solution to supplement their IT infrastructure and finally reap ECM’s long-promised benefits.
An ECM strategy has and will be a vital component of the business IT landscape. Thus, organizations must do something to control the information they gather and create each day.
“The content management software market—including document management, capture and image management, Web content management, digital asset management, and records management—grew 5.3 percent in 2010, rebounding nicely after the challenging prior year” said Melissa Webster, Program Vice President, Content and Digital Media Technologies at IDC. “We expect to see growth rates continue to strengthen in 2011, and in the out-years of our forecast period [through 2014], as the global economy improves.”
Trials and Tribulations
However, companies’ ECM investments don’t always result in empowered knowledge workers. Improving efficiency and optimizing processes are drivers for continued investment in ECM, a 2011 study by the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) found.
The AIIM study also discovered that:
• 68 percent of installed ECM systems have no browser or mobile access options
• 72 percent of larger organizations have three or more ECM/data management/records management systems. One-fourth have five or more
• 28 percent feel constrained by their ECM/workflow system when it comes to making process changes, and 15 percent said it has limited their ability to achieve an enterprise-wide solution
