Pelz-Sharpe Alan Pelz-Sharpe

The E in ECM

1-Oct-2007

Tags: Document Management (ECM), Marketplace at Large

These past few weeks as I have been working on the ECM Suites Report I pondered what it actually is that makes an ECM tool truly "Enterprise" ready.

It can of course mean many things -- from a suite of vaguely-connected products, to a departmental solution that can scale -- but what should it really mean? What, separates a product that can play across the whole enterprise from one that is better suited at a departmental level? If you are looking for an ECM Platform -- something that can be a layer in your Enterprise Architecture and served up as and where needed across your enterprise -- what kind of things are you looking for in a product?

It used to be functionality (hence the evolution of ECM Suites), platforms that can theoretically do everything from Imaging, through Records Management, to Digital Asset Management and back. But on closer examination that is not a particularly good way of defining true Enterprise players. In fact some of the better Enterprise products have quite limited functionality. In my eyes the key differentiators are:

  • Designed to be used as a platform rather than an application
  • Able to integrate with true enterprise access-control and identity management solutions
  • Integration with Enterprise BPM (not just providing its own BPM at the application level)
  • Provide a full, rich, and easily accessed development environment
  • Adhere to industry norms and standards

Now you might just say: well that's all obvious stuff -- motherhood and apple pie -- but sadly it's not. Very few vendors rate highly in any of these areas. Virtually all "E"CM tools have been built and sold as departmental applications; they may get the job done, but are proprietary and myopic in nature.

A new breed is emerging of true Enterprise CM vendors, but it will take time, and for now if you are in the market for ECM technology, just take the E part of every vendor presentation with a shovel of salt. At the same time, remember that if you are like most buyers of ECM systems, you don't really require a true Enterprise-wide solution. In short, you have is a specific business problem within a particular process or department you need to fix. If that's the case then the E may not be the important part in ECM. Platforms are handy at some levels, but sometimes real products are better.

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