Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is a key business technology that assists organizations of all sizes and industries in organizing, managing, and distributing unstructured content. This technology is really valuable in most companies. In this guide, we’ll learn what ECM is all about, with examples, as well as how to choose the best software for your company.
What is ECM?
An Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solution helps businesses to manage content and information securely throughout their lifecycle. It provides the secure storage and distribution of unstructured data such as Word documents, PDFs, emails, and scanned photos to authorized users.
The motivating factor for installing an ECM system is to execute business more efficiently, from commercial supply chains to contract management, and HR processes to government administration. Organizations can simplify and streamline work by removing the reliance on paper documents and categorizing unstructured information according to business needs. It is different from a consent management platform CMP with a few similarities.
Applications Of ECM and Examples
#1. Digitization
Digitization is the process of converting analog information, such as paper documents and photo prints, into a digital format. Many firms that wish to reduce expenses, streamline processes, and save time use enterprise content management (ECM) systems to convert paper-based offices to paperless digital ones.
Scanners take digital images from paper documents throughout the digitization process, and the ECM system organizes them into cohesive structures, extracting information and classifying material based on document names, extracted information, and additional metadata.
Digitization benefits any firm that wishes to develop digital processes, but let’s take a look at a specific application example.
Example of Digitization
Consider a manufacturing firm with several hundred employees. All human resources (HR) documentation is kept in paper files, beginning with job descriptions and résumés for new hires and progressing through performance reviews, finance and medical details, and severance or retirement forms. Keeping this knowledge on paper presents various challenges:
- Inadequate security (anyone with the filing cabinet key can access it)
- Access is slow, especially when actual papers are held off-site.
- It is time-consuming to share and update
- Fire and flood can completely destroy a structure.
- Misfiling is common – according to Gartner, 25% of incorrectly filed documents will never be found.
- Zero collaboration — only one person can work on the physical paper document at any given moment.
These concerns are addressed by digitizing paper HR documentation and implementing automated efficiencies through ECM. The digitizing process is divided into two stages:
Scanning each existing document and running it via optical character recognition (OCR), intelligent character recognition (ICR), and forms tools to extract critical data directly from the page for storage in the ECM system for quick and easy access.
The development of easy processes and user interfaces to allow for the continuous insertion of fresh materials – not from paper, but from digitally born resumes, forms, and systems.
Digitization may significantly reduce the amount of paper in a business, enhance efficiencies, provide remote access, and accelerate the digital transformation strategy.
#2. Document management
Consider business document management systems to be tools that enable enterprises to move beyond simply storing content to efficiently searching and organizing it. The document management system, which builds on digitization efforts, provides more comprehensive storage capabilities than digitalization and also organizes, tracks, and retrieves content, with features such as document version control, security and access management, and audit trails.
Example
Consider a team producing and collaborating on a project proposal as a real-world example of a document management tool. Document management not only allows several users to update the proposal at the same time, but it also ensures that modifications do not overwrite one another, ensuring a single source of truth at all times.
Version control lets the team to see what the current iteration of the proposal looks like while also allowing them to backtrack to prior versions in the event of an error or a rethink. In addition, an ECM document management system provides a thorough audit record of all user activity on the document to verify compliance and safeguard both the organization and the users.
#3. Compliance and governance
Noncompliance with government and industry laws can result in significant financial penalties, company disruption, ruined reputations, and, in some cases, prison sentences in regulated areas such as healthcare, financial services, and energy.
ECM solutions include features such as records management (RM), retention management, destruction, eDiscovery, and audit trails to assist enterprises in meeting governance and compliance laws.
Example
In the healthcare industry, for example, HIPAA Retention Requirements state that documents must be kept for a minimum of six years from the date they were prepared.
An administrator can use a secure content management system to set the retention time on a document at the creation level to keep it safe until its automated destruction, allowing for less audit and database bulk, as well as a lower risk of fines.
A more advanced example occurs in the legal business, where attorneys may be forced to submit digital data and records pertinent to a lawsuit case, such as emails, papers, account reports, and chat messages. eDiscovery refers to the process of identifying, gathering, conserving, and disseminating electronic material. During the eDiscovery process, legal teams establish a legal hold, which stops the processing or disposal of relevant information.
#4. Case management
While document digitalization and management are focused on documents, an enterprise case management system focuses on a little more sophisticated element – the case. A case is a collection of connected papers and information about a single entity, such as a patient, a court case, or a planning proposal. Case management treats the case as a single, collected item and provides a single user interface from which all activities and workflows on that case can be done.
Example
For example, a customer, or subject, of an insurance company may be involved in a vehicle accident and file a claim. An insurance case manager builds a case containing paperwork, police records, accident images, medical reports, signed affidavits, repair quotations, and any other pertinent data to guarantee the client receives the proper medical care and reimbursement.
To deliver the most effective solutions and services, the caseworker must be able to see all information from the case unit on a single screen when required, which is where an ECM’s case management feature comes into play.
Loan origination and processing, insurance policy and claims administration, employee file management, medical records management, and new client account opening and onboarding are all common instances of case management in any business. Case management systems can assist any group of activities that rely on many documents per subject and have an accompanying business process.
#5. Knowledge management
The process of developing, acquiring, structuring, preserving, and distributing knowledge, experiences, and information inside an organization is known as knowledge management. It provides firms with a competitive advantage by boosting efficiency and decision-making abilities while also developing a well-informed, collaborative workforce beginning with the onboarding phase.
Within an organization, knowledge management software often provides a combination of capabilities and benefits such as enterprise search, federation, and ideation:
Enterprise content search
The pace of modern business is critical. The time spent searching for information is one of the most significant impediments for workers. Workers may quickly and simply search against numerous characteristics of the file, known as metadata, to find the information and related knowledge they seek. This sophisticated search functionality, which enables users to cross-reference documents by type, date, topic, case, author, and other criteria, enables them to quickly discover the knowledge needle in the content haystack – a major benefit of knowledge management.
Content federation
In order for a knowledge management system to best serve the organization, users must be able to reference content from all systems. However, this is a difficult undertaking because most organizations have many, disconnected, antiquated information silos within their environment. Content federation breaks down these virtual barriers by connecting fundamental business systems, allowing users to quickly search, retrieve, and disseminate relevant information regardless of where the underlying content sits.
Ideation
During the innovation process, ideation may be the most important factor in producing new and usable information. Every company contains a wealth of information, yet databases storing massive volumes of data can be overwhelming to consumers. A simple subject search can yield highly relevant information and ideas from within and outside the business, leading to more creative decision-making and new solutions.
Example of knowledge management
A customer support help desk is an example of an ECM knowledge management application. When a customer contacts or files a ticket, the support team must resolve the issue as fast as possible, especially because 75% of firms can demonstrate that greater customer retention or lifetime value leads to revenue growth.
The support professional can use a knowledge management system to locate the customer’s file and review notes from earlier calls. The system can then deliver information related to the present problem, such as manuals, product videos, the most recent corporate news or policy updates, and any other relevant information that would assist them in solving the problem quickly and efficiently.
Read Also: CONTENT MANAGEMENT: Definition, Strategies & Tools
What Is Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Software?
Enterprise content management (ECM) software is a platform that allows a large organization’s material to be intelligently stored, organized, and retrieved. According to a 2020 Markets and Markets analysis, options for both buyers and sellers of ECM software are expanding, and the industry is predicted to reach $67 billion or more by 2025, representing an almost 50% increase in five years. This may increase further when the COVID-19 shutdown drives more and more businesses to convert to remote work, increasing demand for an online ECM even more.
Important Features Of An ECM Software
Before deciding on an ECM software, make sure it includes the essential characteristics. Here is a list of features that firms should think about before deciding on a product.
#1. Strong document and asset management
A strong and intelligent document and asset management system with customized folders and access verification is one of the fundamental aspects that an ECM must provide. This covers any form of content and assets meant for internal or external (customer) communication, such as articles, marketing PDFs, staff training documents and materials, sales pitches, proposals, templates, and so on.
#2. Safe Collaboration
Collaboration should be a crucial option for your ECM; especially with employees working from home around the world during the COVID-19 shutdown, the demand for collaboration capabilities on ECM is significant. Collaboration capabilities allow numerous users from different departments to work on the same document at the same time. It also allows managers to track the progress of content creation in real time. However, increased accessibility necessitates greater security and user verification. Only authorized users should be able to view, alter, or delete documents in an ECM that has comprehensive user access level verification.
#3. Record keeping
Your business content management software will serve as a centralized document management center, including all of the company’s and department’s internal records. Sales reports, accounting and customer data (CRM connectivity is encouraged), budget and spending, and so forth are all included.
#4. Advanced lookup
With your whole organization’s information centralized in one platform, it is vital that the ECM has an advanced and speedy search capability to guarantee that your team can immediately access the correct documents depending on search criteria. These fields include searching for papers by departments and internal classifications, titles, content terms, dates, and so on. ECMs that do not provide quick and accurate search results should not be considered.
#5. Rollback and modification history tracking
With several people accessing and editing organizational files, it is critical that your ECM tracks and stores edit history in real-time – who is making changes and when. If a wrong edit is made, the ECM should have the option to roll back a document to an earlier version.
#6. Automatic detection of redundancy
One of the most important applications of an ECM is the ability to keep only the most recent and unique copies of documents. This is accomplished by automatically detecting superfluous files and presenting them for deletion. This guarantees that your employees only view the most recent version of a file and are not confused by various versions.
#7. Integration with existing applications
Integration of enterprise content management is critical if you want to create a centralized operating landscape. Your ECM software should support API integration with your existing department/role-specific systems. You can ensure that you have the most sophisticated and full repository of organizational content and records, ready for authorized access, using this integration. Your website, vendor management portal, and human resources information systems (HRIS), for example, could all feed into the ECM software.
#8. Compliance
From the start, a smart enterprise content management system will adhere to all essential regional and industry-specific regulations. For example, GDPR-compliant content retirement and retrieval processes will preserve records of user consent for each asset. Furthermore, advanced customizations will allow it to meet company-specific archival practices.
#9. A hybrid hosting setting
You have the option of hosting your content and ECM processes in the public cloud, on a private server (remote), or on-premise. And having the freedom to select the best-fitting combo is wonderful. Hybrid hosting allows you to choose an environment that is compatible with your industry’s requirements. A contact center with a big distributed staff, for example, may demand a cloud-first infrastructure for simple access around the globe, whereas a bank may choose to store all content on-premise for security reasons.
#10. Analytical sophistication
The integration of analytics and standard ECM results in intelligent information management (IIM), which the Association of Information and Image Management refers to as the next step in the growth of ECM software. This feature expands on content management by providing data handling capabilities. Now that you’ve learned everything there is to know about enterprise content management (ECM) software and its essential features, let’s look at the top options on the market right now.
In Conclusion,
An Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solution helps businesses to manage content and information securely throughout their lifecycle. Enterprise content management systems have numerous potential applications, and they will continue to expand alongside business and technology. Whether your organization is interested in digitization, automation, optimizing business operations, compliance, document preservation and/or destruction, or building a more cohesive culture, an ECM system can provide a significant competitive advantage.
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