In this age of information overload, Enterprise Content Management (ECM) comes across as a viable means to manage organizational knowledge and document content in a strategic way. Be it storing, sharing and organizing, or preserving, retrieval and access, content needs to be managed throughout the content lifecycle – right from content creation, to its use and eventual disposal.
Industry experts endorse ECM to gain competitive advantage
Gartner predicts that by 2016, 99% of Global 2000 Enterprises will have incorporated Open Source Software (OSS) into their technology portfolios. By the same time, half of the leading non-IT organizations would have embraced OSS. The trends lean heavily towards capturing, processing and making sense of high density of data and content, and Open Source ECM migration is the key to unravelling this critical business information in a methodical way.
Trends, Challenges and Primary Success Drivers
Some of the key trends that will define ECM migration in 2015 include –
- Hybrid ECM solutions – The blend of cloud-based and on-site enterprise content management modules will define the cost effectiveness and efficiency of companies.
- New Opportunities – The mix of mobility, cloud and big data is proving to be one of the biggest technology disruptors of recent times. This will present newer opportunities for ECM to evolve accordingly.
- Syncing with Business Apps – The extent of ECM system’s integration with business applications (either through custom frameworks or open standards) denotes the degree of value it can provide to the business.
- Administration and Control of Information – With emphasis on content disposition, information governance will be a key enabler within ECM dynamics.
Some challenges that need to be a CIO’s focus –
- Massive influx of data and information resulting in overflowing servers
- Inability to search, retrieve or access information when its needed the most
- Difficulty in maintaining integrity and security of the information
- Information Silos
In order to handle these challenges and remain highly effective, ECM systems need to focus on
- Mitigating risks
- Enhance processes for future-readiness
- Engage effectively with end users
- Analyze content for relevant and easy consumption
What should ECM support?
In order to deliver truly meaningful value to business, an ECM solution needs to fit in with
- Existing business solutions such as DAM, WCM, DM, RCM, RM, LMS etc.
- Non-functional parameters like performance, speed etc
- Intuitive user experience across channels and devices
- Content Management workflows
- Secure, role based access and encryption
- Powerful yet quick Enterprise Search & Retrieval
- Scalable storage to keep pace with the explosive growth of data
- Well-organized content and information repository need
- High-value tech support to ensure zero downtime
- Digitizing paper based documents
Reasons that justify ECM Migration
- Integration Flexibility – An Open Source ECM solution ensures quick and smooth integration of various users with functionalities of third party applications for ecommerce, marketing, analytics, email, CRM and financial management.
Case Study: An independent information provider of risk and industry analysis increased online sales and visibility through an integrated digital marketing and ecommerce platform for its main website and 14 microsites.
- Scalable Repository – You can benefit from a superior level of performance by seamlessly tying up multiple channels to a secure system and gaining massive efficiencies in the process.
Case Study: A US based consortium managing public assistance and welfare programs for 15+ counties transformed the way the citizen correspondences are stored, managed, indexed, retrieved and archived in the ECM system with a repository designed to scale for a billion objects.
- Tech Support – With Open Source ECM, tech support comes in various flavors such as community and enterprise edition along with third party integration.
Case Study: A division of a leading avionics company, leader in IFE systems improved productivity and reduce TCO by streamlining IFE System with an automated solution.
- Cost Effective – You can save as much as 40% costs by eliminating licenses costs for proprietary systems, by opting for open source ECM systems.
Case Study: A leading global developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and leisure products achieved a 99% reduction in licenses, maintenance and support costs by eliminating proprietary tools
- Customizability – You can avail of highly proficient service delivery channel with ECM to create microsites with minimal efforts.
Case Study: A leading Healthcare Staffing Company for hospitals, pharmaceuticals & other healthcare companies across USA automated recruitment and staffing system to improve operational efficiency, productivity and accuracy at lower TCO
- Security – You can gain a deeper level of security associated with your OS ECM solution even with third party integrations. This helps you improve your operational efficiencies, and benefit from increased business visibility.
Case Study: An Event and Marketing Services Company that serves business professionals and consumers achieved high availability with field level security for role based access & permissions
- Faster Go-to-Market – Open Source ECM solutions delivery takes minimal time to develop and deploy. Thus you gain from faster time-to-market for your solutions while providing maximum RoI and increase in productivity.
Case Study: Hotel chain Grupo Posadas in Mexico was able to quickly deploy a collaborative, centralized Alfresco and Liferay-based ICMP across 7 leading brands while reducing TCO by over 40% compared to previous solution. Improved RevPAR and guest experience were other benefits.
- Enterprise Search – Using Alfresco-based ECM solutions, you can provide powerful indexing, search and data retrieval and archival. This in turn, can process huge volume of documents per day at lowest TCO.
Case Study: Alfresco Share based Contract Management Solution for the largest auto-parts company in North America increased productivity with centralized repository, advanced search and reports for 100K+ contracts
- Better Control – ECM helps you gain better administrative and supervisory control over enterprise–wide collaboration and information management.
Case Study: The Marketing department of a leading entertainment company handling “movie promotion approval system” was able to Create-Track-Optimize-Monitor promotions with distributors and channel partners across the world without any dependency on IT team
- Try Before you buy – You can begin by taking small steps towards adopting an Open Source ECM with a pilot implementation.
Case Study: We implemented a 6 week PoC for providing Alfresco ECM and Liferay integrated portal platform (as pilot/PoC) for a leading Ireland-based credit services company resulting in the creation of low cost, service delivery channel which enabled creation of customized sites (vertical-based) without much effort .
Our Enterprise Content Management Services
With the international credibility of Alfresco Certified Gold Partner, CIGNEX offers a wide range of ECM solutions that can deliver substantial RoI for your company. With 115+ ECM implementations, 50+ content experts, 6 Alfresco books authored, and 1000+ community contributions, our expertise and experience in ECM can offer substantial benefits to your company’s content management needs at many levels. We help you easily manage structured and unstructured content across your organization with industry endorsed Open Source products such as
- Alfresco (Document Management)
- Drupal (Web Content Management)
- Moodle (Knowledge Assets Management)
- Ephesoft (OCR/Digitization)
- Apache SOLR (Enterprise Search)
- Activiti (Business Process Management)
Know more about our Enterprise Content Management solutions to streamline your content processes with a strategic approach.
