Pelz-Sharpe Alan Pelz-Sharpe

ECM in Malaysia

4-Sep-2007

Tags: Document Management (ECM), Building Business Case, Marketplace at Large

I am just back from speaking at the very first ECM Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia -- an excellent event that left me with many things to ponder. Top of the list is the term ECM itself.

You see, the attendees I met tended to view ECM as a new and emerging topic, and stated to me from the get-go that virtually "nobody does ECM in Asia". In fact person after person told me (to paraphrase), "In our organization we do document management, imaging, workflow, records management etc -- but we are not doing ECM --we have come here to learn about it"...

So what was there for these Investment Banks, Islamic Banks, Insurance Firms, and so forth to learn about ECM? Well, first and foremost that they are only behind the West (if one can call it behind) in the adoption of the acronym ECM. Their usage of the core technologies is on a par, and I suspect in some cases ahead of most international peers.

Where there were differences was in Malaysians':

  • Adoption of SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and Web Services (generally far more reticent to embrace than Western firms)
  • Struggle to adopt or utilize methodologies for ECM that are based on Western cultural and business norms (e.g., most collaboration tools tend assume comparatively non-hierarchical groups actively sharing information with all members -- not always the case).
  • Technology procurement practices (the selected vendor usually drafts the RFP!)
  • Limited choice of vendors (due to lack of local support)

 

And where things seemed to be more advanced than the West was in the building of the business case for ECM -- as illustrated in an excellent presentation and discussion by Mr Tho Chee Kin and Ms Melissa Heng (Consulting Practice Managers for Siemens Malaysia). To summarize:

  • Attention should always focus on tying the business case to sustainable competitive advantage
  • Always align ECM roadmaps with the firm's next generation of productivity enhancements
  • Base ECM cost-benefit calculations on individual phases of a project -- never the overall project
  • Process is the most important thing in ECM

 

This highly practical approach to planning, budgeting, process, and strategy work was music to my ears -- for as we all know the business case usually constitutes the single weakest element in ECM endeavors in the West. Of course on the other hand I still cannot get my head around the concept of having a chosen vendor write their own RFP...

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