Practical IT Research that Drives Measurable Results
Vendor Landscape Plus: Enterprise Content Management Suite
ECM: A vendor marketing concept, not an IT strategy.
Introduction
Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is an important but potentially costly
technology. Each vendor presents a different set of strengths and weaknesses.
Ultimately, ECM success is about fit with the vendors.
Use this research to identify appropriate ECM vendors for your enterprise. It will help
you create a shortlist of vendors and introduce you to how these vendors present their
strengths and strategies. Our goal is prepare you for the first four meetings with any
particular ECM suite vendor.
This research is designed for
This research will
 ECM project leaders and team
members.
 Introduce the core components of
an ECM strategy.
 Executives and line-ofbusiness managers tasked with
selecting an ECM solution.
 Identify how well different
vendors address those
components.
 Introduce vendor positioning,
strengths, and weaknesses.
Executive Summary
Understand: What is
ECM and why is it
important?
1
Strategize: Focus on
the key issues that
drive ECM selection
projects.
2
• ECM is a popular technology. Interest is being
driven by an exploding volume of information and
an increasingly complicated compliance and
litigation environment.
3
• ECM initiatives are driven by three crucial
considerations:
o Compliance and litigation concerns.
Compare: Explore
the strengths and
weaknesses of
different offerings.
o IT efficiency.
o Business efficiency for both process and
knowledge workers.
• ECM products differ by their ability to address
these considerations. Only ECM Suites cover them
all.
• Vendor fit is important. But it’s crucial to not
over-buy.
Understand:
What is ECM
and why is it
important?
Strategize:
Focus on the
key issues that
drive ECM
selection.
Compare:
Explore the
strengths and
weaknesses of
different
offerings.
1
2
3
Understand: What is ECM and why is it important?
• ECM is the strategy and tools to manage information within the
organization across its entire lifecycle.
• ECM includes records management, document management, Web
content management, and a variety of ancillary technologies.
• The low hanging fruit for ECM includes solutions that improve IT's
ability to deliver business functions, collaboration, and business
throughput.
ECM is the strategies & tools to manage content
The Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) provides the following definition:
Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is the strategies, methods, and tools used to capture,
manage, store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to organizational processes.
ECM tools and strategies allow the management of an organization's unstructured information,
wherever that information exists.
Understand
Strategize
Compare
ECM strategy is implemented with a variety of technologies
The core of ECM is a pyramid of three
technologies: records management,
document management, and Web
content management.
ECM bleeds into a fringe of
related ancillary technologies
like archiving and
collaboration.
Forms
Search
Dedicated ECM suites include
both the core and fringe
technologies.
Workflow
Capture
Collaboration
eDiscovery
Repository
Intranet
Archiving
Web Content Management
Wikis
Blogs
DAM
Analytics
Understand
Strategize
Compare
ECM projects are driven by many factors but a focus on IT efficiencies &
niche technologies like collaboration, business process integration, and
search provide the best complexity tradeoffs
The whole point of implementing
ECM is collaboration.
- Infrastructure Manager,
Marketing Firm
How much the component contributes to project success.
“
“
Efficiency: Reduction of IT
support for business functions
”
Collaboration: A centralized
location for documents
External Communication:
Improved contact with clients
Web Content: improved management
Cost reduction: lessening of
physical storage
Search: Increased
findability
Litigation: Streamlined defense or
preparation
Productivity: Better business
process throughput
Compliance: controlled record
accessibility
Importance of the technology component to the project plan.
For litigation, there has to be a process in place of going through things, organizing
them, and making sure all of the right stuff is there. This is important, but not the key
driver for our project.
- Infrastructure Manager, Marketing Firm
Low hanging fruit
Poor risk/reward
Complexity
ECM costs vary drastically
Consider: A power generation and distribution company wanted to deploy an ECM solution to
manage internal documents for 150 users. The team originally considered extending their existing
SharePoint deployment. Their requirements were not, however, met by SharePoint given their needs
for compliance-driven records management and their need to maintain engineering drawings.
RFPs revealed a wide range in estimated costs.
Option 1:
Existing technology
(SharePoint Services)
Option 2:
Existing technology
(SharePoint Server)
Option 3:
RFP from leading ECM
vendors
Concerns:
Concerns:
Concerns:
SharePoint Services was
SharePoint Server was
inexpensive. It could
more appropriate for
meet rudimentary
the project. The
business efficiency
project team still had
needs for knowledge
concerns about its
workers but was wholly
appropriateness for
inappropriate for both
records and for
compliance
engineering drawings.
considerations and the
needs of knowledge
workers.
$0 licensing
$40,000 licensing
Consulting 30% of total
Consulting 50% of total
$6,000
$105,000
The RFP responses
varied widely in their
quality and approach.
The team was
impressed, however,
with the solutions built
specifically for their
needs and their
industry. This domain
experience was
important for final
selection.
$250,000 to
$1-million
Info-Tech Insight:
Requirements are crucial. Poorly scoped projects create widely variable RFPs that are
very difficult to evaluate.
The first two months of an ECM project are about building the business
plan, assessing organizational readiness, and estimating project costs
Establish the
business need
Build the
project team
The first step in an
ECM project is
identifying the need.
There must be some
trigger for the process
typically related to
litigation/compliance,
IT efficiencies, or
business efficiencies.
It should include the
executive sponsor for
the team and have
representation from
the business units that
will be affected by the
project. Legal counsel
is a crucial part of
teams involving
compliance/litigation.
The project team will
have an important role
in both scoping the
project and ultimately
in product selection.
Deliverable:
A statement of
direction.
Deliverable:
A team list.
:: Month 1 ::
Assess organizational
readiness
Solutions may involve
a great deal of
technical and process
complexity.
Enterprises must
ensure that they either
have the appropriate
resources in place or
are willing to acquire
or build those
resources.
Deliverable:
Appropriateness
assessment.
Determine
approximate cost
Develop the
Business plan
If the preliminary
requirements can be
met by a set of
products but those
products are
excessively expensive,
then the enterprise
must reconsider either
requirements or
approach. This cost
can be difficult to
quantify due to
extreme range in
quoted costs.
An important part of
the project is to
prepare a business
plan that explores the
potential benefits of a
particular solution and
how they will affect
different parts of the
organization. It should
explore market
dynamics and include
both an opportunity
assessment and
recommendations.
Deliverable:
A rough-cut cost
estimate that meets
senior management
expectations.
Deliverable:
Completed business
plan.
:: Month 2 ::
Understand:
What is ECM
and why is it
important?
Strategize:
Focus on the
key issues that
drive ECM
selection.
Compare:
Explore the
strengths and
weaknesses of
different
offerings.
1
2
3
Strategize: Focus on the key issues that drive ECM selection.
• ECM initiatives are driven by three crucial considerations:
o Compliance and litigation concerns
o IT efficiency
o Business efficiency for process and knowledge workers
• ECM products differ by their ability to address these considerations.
Only ECM Suites cover them all.
• It’s important to create an Enterprise ECM Profile that matches
internal requirements with vendor deliverables.
The ECM business case depends on three interlocking factors:
compliance/litigation, IT efficiency, and business efficiency
Compliance and litigation get
the attention of senior
management and other key
stakeholders.
Internal efficiencies
encourage IT departments to
support ECM. But the real
benefits for ECM lie within the
business.
IT
Efficiency
Dedicated ECM suites include
the core and fringe
technologies.
Understand
Strategize
Compare
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