Pelz-Sharpe Alan Pelz-Sharpe

ECM Marketplace - Blind leading the blind

20-Dec-2006

Tags: Document Management (ECM), Marketplace at Large, Selecting Technology

If you think overcoming the marketing hype that surrounds an "ECM Suite" is hard (it is for me, and I do this for a living!) then you might presume that talking to enterprise content management vendors directly could resolve your confusion. That would seem logical, but recall that all the major ECM vendors have either been acquiring or been acquired in the past few years. Underneath the covers, you'll find not only old and unintegrated products elements, you will also find rag-tag sales teams who each may know a part of the puzzle, but claim to understand it all. As I research the forthcoming ECM Report, I am reminded daily of the plethora of competing and overlapping options available (often from the same vendor), and frankly how little coherence to be found beneath the surface. I am aware of mis-selling going on, but I am also aware of mis-buying, as salespeople sell what they know, buyers have failed to do their homework, and sadly a more fitting solution remains inadvertently on the shelf. I will protect the innocent until report publication, but multiple vendors sell overlapping or redundant products across each function-point in their suite. Advice for you: when buying ECM technology do ample homework in advance, and be sure that the ECM salespeople understand your needs -- as well as their own product sets. For the fact of the matter is many do not, and too often the blind lead the blind in today's marketplace...

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