Last week, we released our latest update to our Document Management (aka ECM) research. As a buyer, navigating such a broad category can be overwhelming. One of the easier ways to to start the process is to identify which of 3 main categories your enterprise falls within.

Most document management systems in the market today fall into one of three broad camps:

1. Transactional Document Management Systems – Typified by high volumes of simple documents (scanned documents usually in TIFF format) that then pass through formal and pre-defined workflows. For example: insurance or medical claims processing.

2. Case Management Systems – Typified by a collections of highly complex but related documents (or sets of documents) that are worked on and accessed by multiple people, sometimes simultaneously. For example: legal matters or regulatory submission documents.

3. Departmental Document Management Systems – Typified by Office documents shared by departmental project teams, sometimes with some light workflow or rules applied.  Such systems typically replace shared drives.  

Identifying your camp is a start, but getting the right document management takes much more research.  When you're ready dig deeper, the research is here to help.