Pelz-Sharpe Alan Pelz-Sharpe

Compliance is not a big driver for ECM

11-May-2007

Tags: Document Management (ECM), Building Business Case

I have just been reminded of one of the fundamentals involved in business process change (while reading through Dan Madison's excellent book on the topic): the principal of "Away From" and "Go To" reasons for change. We may change to get "Away From" things that we don't like and want to avoid -- jail and bankruptcy are two good examples. "Go To" reasons for change on the other hand are those things that inspire us, create more revenue, improve efficiencies, make customers happier, and so forth. Typically we tend to do just enough as organizations and individuals to get away from nasty situations, but once out of the direct heat feel safe and lose interest. But we are inspired and continue to work relentlessly toward aspirational goals. Hence, I don't believe compliancy is really the business driver many would have us believe for ECM. Cost reduction and process efficiency improvements are much more compelling. I have thought this for a long time, and my personal experience in consulting confirmed this, but polls and analysis by my industry peers say otherwise. From my perspective the uncomfortable truth is this: building an honest, worthy business case for ECM based on compliancy will have little chance of success, while building one for process and revenue improvement will likely breeze though every time.

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