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| Management Briefings
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ECM: escaping content chaos: Doug Miles, AIIM (June 2010)
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Productivity savings may be the main business driver for ECM but content chaos is the final trigger, according to AIIM’s latest
survey.
The State of the Industry report, based on responses from 751 organisations, shows that enterprise content management
(ECM) is at something of a tipping point.
Driven by the need to control the content that pervades file shares, email systems and legacy document stores, organisations
are looking to impose order through an ECM project.
Alongside this, the positive benefits of information sharing and improved collaboration are resonating with decision makers,
pushing forward projects to join up repositories and provide enterprise-wide electronic access.
Compliance is seen as an added benefit – but the prime driver is the need to maximise the productivity of employees and
enhance their engagement with each other.
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Secrets of search: Ted Carroll (March 2010)
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Search is an essential component of most document management, collaboration or intranet
solutions. But while search usually does at least produce a set of results, in many organisations
the quality of results often leaves a lot to be desired. This is a missed opportunity, because there
can be significant benefits delivered from a good search capability providing high-quality results.
So how can search quality be improved? The proportion of users who find information through
search varies widely across the range of possible document-based applications; however, there
are clearly many situations where the file plan/folder-based approach to finding a document is
not effective.
When search is selected, the expectations from users are that an intranet site or document
management site search will work as fast, and find as high-quality content, as Google, Bing,
Ask or Yahoo appear to do.
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Collaboration challenge: James Robertson, Step Two Designs (January 2010)
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Collaboration tools have been used in organisations for some time now, and the new generation
of tools is spreading at an incredible rate. However, collaboration tools are generally being
deployed in parallel across many different business units, irrespective of any organisation-wide
strategy or support.
Companies therefore need to take a planned approach to the management of collaboration
tools across their organisation. There are three main issues to face:
1. Collaboration tools are great for meeting local and individual needs, but they can be
detrimental to organisation-wide knowledge sharing – locking up all the content into small
collaboration spaces can make it harder to find key information.
2. Companies need to establish a central team to guide and ‘mentor’ the organisation in adopting and using collaboration tools.
3. Companies should develop a range of resources to help its staff pick the right tools and make the best use of them.
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Paper view: Martin Waldron, In-Form Consult (July 2009)
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Organisations in all industries are under pressure to improve their operational efficiency and
productivity. At the same time, they must address regulatory requirements and properly control
information used within the organisation to reduce their risk.
To achieve these twin goals, companies are increasingly deploying enterprise content
management (ECM) and electronic workflow systems. But this route requires more than just
building a central information repository – companies also need to effectively capture and
distribute all types of content.
Document capture is therefore becoming a key area as businesses seek to better manage the
information they generate themselves, as well as information received from their customers and
partners, whether in electronic or paper format.
However, capturing paper documents is only part of the equation; companies must also bridge the gap between the
management of paper-based and electronically produced documents, and combine them into a common workflow.
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Paper tigers?: David Martin, Ether Solutions (May 2009)
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During the 1980s recession there was a pop group called ‘UB40’ which was named after the
unemployment form used by the UK Government. And while many things have changed since
then, in the current recession there remain a large number of paper forms in use by both
government and commercial organisations. As a result, companies looking to become more
efficient still have the opportunity to target the area of forms processing.
So what options are available? There are currently three types of processes for completing
forms – paper, electronic files and web pages – and each type has its particular strengths and
weaknesses. Paper forms still dominate a lot of business processes; and for many organisations the recession
means the same work needs to be performed by fewer staff, so productivity has to be improved.
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So you think you're doing ECM?: Ben Richmond, The Content Group (March 2009)
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How many organisations truly maximise content use across the business? How many
documents are written from scratch when they could have been drafted from a pre-existing
document? How much time and how many opportunities are wasted as staff are forced to
spend their time writing proposals, presentations and reports ‘long-hand’ – instead of working
smarter from existing material, freeing up time to spend on their core role?
For companies battling the recession, working to maximum capacity has never been more
crucial. And enterprise content management (ECM) technologies, such as document
management and web content management, maximise business efficiency and reduce costs –
vital considerations for organisations in the current economic climate.
Yet despite huge investment in ECM, few organisations are realising quantifiable benefit.
ECM addresses problems ranging from compliance, risk mitigation and improving efficiency to reducing the carbon footprint. It
addresses the issue of managing the vast amount of unstructured information now prevalent in all organisations and it offers
the potential to fundamentally transform the way organisations operate.
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Pandora's box?: Paul Phillips (February 2009)
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Businesses today face an explosion of unstructured content. As the volume of documents,
images, email, web, audio and video content continues to grow, enterprises have moved from
standalone systems that address specific business needs, to a consolidation of content
solutions under the holistic banner of enterprise content management (ECM).
The consequence? Buyers may underestimate the amount of work required to successfully
install an ECM system.
Specifically, ECM cannot be deployed like any other ‘out-of-the-box’ system. Instead, with
content management fast becoming a core element of the IT infrastructure, effective change
management is key to its successful delivery.
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Battling email overload: Chris Reid, Morse (November/December 2008)
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It’s no secret that the amount of email being sent and received is growing fast. According to
research from Gartner, business email will increase by 25-30% through to 2009, as more
businesses depend on it as their main method of external communication.
However, this dependence comes at a price. For many companies, a large proportion of their
confidential information and intellectual property is held in the corporate email system, making it
difficult to locate when needed. The Enterprise Strategy Group has found that 75% of corporate
intellectual property is now trapped in email systems.
The solution to this is to create a comprehensive, long-term email management strategy –
and to do that businesses need to take account of the major factors affecting their email
systems.
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Collaboration is key: David Haynes, Atkins (September 2008)
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Is your organisation involved in project work, either as a client or as a supplier of services? If you are responsible for
commissioning, managing or controlling projects, you may have faced problems including skill shortages, proliferation of
information systems, project teams that are not in one place, participation of several organisations, or large volumes of
information and data that needs to be managed and retrieved.
Collaborative working environments (CWEs) could help you address these kinds of issues. You should consider using CWEs if
you recognise any of the following demands on your organisation, project or programme.
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Print's charming: Louella Fernandes, Quocirca (April 2008)
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As IT environments continue to grow in complexity, many organisations are focusing on
managing and rationalising a diverse infrastructure of applications, hardware and storage
across many locations and an increasing number of users. The rising threats associated
with network and software security, along with managing the growth of networked and
mobile devices, make the task of managing a distributed and multi-faceted IT
infrastructure ever more challenging.
However, although organisations are concentrating on these core elements of the IT
environment, few give the same strategic focus to the printing and imaging environment,
which is an essential component in most organisations’ document workflow process.
With printing and imaging costs reckoned to equate to 1-3% of an organisation’s total revenue, organisations simply
cannot afford to ignore the potential savings that can be achieved through a managed and optimised print environment.
The benefits are manifold – including productivity improvements, financial savings and the ability to boost environmental
credentials through more efficient printing practices.
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Coming to terms with compliance: Cliff Mills, PMP Research (February 2008)
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Businesses face a data management double whammy: they are creating more information today than ever before, yet they
have more compliance and regulatory legislation than ever before. The upshot is that companies need to manage their
information more effectively to satisfy compliance requirements.
PMP Research has surveyed a cross-section of leading organisations to find out how they are progressing.
The results show that legislation has indeed provided a key driver for organisations to improve the management of their
corporate information. Over one-third (36%) of respondents say legislation has had a ‘great effect’ on their implementation of
information management technology, a further 19% a ‘significant effect’ and 23% a ‘moderate effect’. Only 20% of companies
feel that it is not a consideration.
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Search continues: Justin Waters, Serco Consulting (December 2007)
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We have a major problem when it comes to corporate information – it is difficult to get people to
store information in a way that allows other people to find it.
The root of this issue goes back to the time when companies used paper-based registries – a
centralised storage area for paper records where important information was stored, ordered and
archived, and from where information could be quickly retrieved.
But when people began using PCs, rather than a typewriter, secretary or typing pool, to
generate documents and records, they started storing information on their own hard drives – an
individual filing system, with or without structure, and inaccessible to all.
Next, people began using emails to communicate information. But this meant corporate
information was stored in people’s in-boxes, again inaccessible to everyone.
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Connected, but not collaborating: Richard Hall, Avanade (October 2007)
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As commerce has become global, so the need to communicate with the extended supply chain
has increased. Major corporations now compete not just locally but on an international scale,
and have to regularly communicate with a wide variety of divisions, business partners,
regulatory bodies and customers.
The result is that the need for regular and controlled communication has never been greater.
Luckily, there is an abundance of technology available to all organisations to facilitate better
productivity and communications and reduce the cost of the communications explosion. These
technologies work to connect businesses (and are partially responsible for the non-stop
comments that ‘the world is getting smaller’). Improving quality and speed of decision making is
the key goal.
Larger firms are now moving towards enhanced collaboration to reduce costs and time to market and improve customer
experience. And on the surface, the use of digital technology for improved collaboration seems to be key to organisations
generating the productivity and cost reduction necessary to meet the competition head on.
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What's new about BPM?: Janelle Hill, Gartner (May 2007)
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Business market dynamics have changed with the rise of the internet and the forces of globalisation. These trends echo the
arguments presented In ‘The World is Flat’ by Tom Friedman. He describes how business has become ‘frictionless’ as
boundaries that existed for years between countries, geographies, people and businesses have fallen, with many ‘flatteners’
being technological innovation.
Historically, whenever the global economy turns downward, companies explore process thinking and look internally for
opportunities to either reduce waste (cutting costs) or increase productivity. Yet nearly seven years after the dotcom bubble
burst, the focus on operational excellence – or at least operational accountability – continues and is accelerating.
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Email: kill or keep?: John Hookham, Adrelia (March 2007)
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Over the last decade the internet has moved from being a closed tool for the university boffins
to become ubiquitous. Email and the world wide web are available to the masses and for many
organisations digital media is now the preferred method of communication.
However, the web was initially seen by many as the new electronic ‘wild west’; governments
and lawyers had no jurisdiction; you could say and publish anything you wanted on a website;
you could send scurrilous emails; and you could not be sued or even be identified.
Today, we have an information-based economy, and email has evolved to become the
preferred method of communication for business and increasingly for personal use. Most
companies no longer have a post room or individually named racks of trays to receive the
incoming mail. If you do receive a ‘real’ letter, it will probably be given to you directly by
reception and become a talking point during the coffee break.
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Going live: Malcolm Beach, AMTEC Consulting (January 2007)
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An electronic document and records management system (EDRMS) implementation can only
be deemed successful when it is being used as intended and the organisation is receiving the
full benefit of its investment.
There have been many EDRMS projects over the past few years, especially in the public sector.
Other areas, including pharmaceutical and legal, also have years of experience in implementing
such systems. So given this reasonably wide set of experience, can we guarantee that
implementing an EDRMS will be easy and successful?
Well, no. Just because there are a number of successful EDRMS implementations does not
guarantee success in every case. Even now there are cases of unsuccessful projects, and
some have even been cancelled before completion.
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Why integrate when you can aggregate?: Lisa Hammond, Centrix (November 2006)
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Every medium and large-sized company has many organisational and technological silos –
product development units, customer-facing business units, sales and distribution channels,
geographies and information technology.
These silos are separated by well-defined and often rigid boundaries, which diminishes the
company’s ability to build strong brands and broad customer relationships. The more decentralised the business, the greater the transaction costs of such fragmentation;
and in many cases over-engineered enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications and IT
silos can actually increase those transaction costs. As the number and rigidity of silos increase,
a company will tend to miss more and more market opportunities.
Because the boundaries tend to obstruct the flow of information, different parts of the company
can end up selling to the same customers, sometimes even competing for the same business
without knowing it.
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Are some processes more equal than others?: Julian Benson (May 2006)
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Effectively managing business processes requires significant investment in time, effort and resource. So should
organisations manage all their business processes using a ‘one size fits all’ approach – or should they scale their effort
in a measured way? Should you manage business processes within the context of business strategy, or simply manage
them reactively?
Clearly, all organisations possess their own discrete business processes. However, relatively few would claim that they
succeed in fully controlling them. Instead, business process management often falls to practitioners within IT teams,
often in a pretty reactive way. The question of which strategy to adopt goes to the heart of the challenge to manage
processes more effectively – and the dilemma that all organisations face in matching the expectations of their
customers, with the planned fulfilment of a particular good or service.
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Taking the open road?: Finbarr Joy, UPCO (January 2006)
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The selection, implementation and maintenance of an enterprise workflow or business process management (BPM)
solution can be a significant exercise – not least because for many organisations, the workflow solution pervades many
business systems and represents a significant enterprise-scale cost. The level of investment demanded can expand
further if you need customisation or onsite specialist vendor consulting for protracted periods of time.
In this light, organisations should be considering whether the time is right to add open source solutions in this mix. This
article helps answer this question by highlighting the characteristics of current open source workflow solutions.
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