A new cloud ECM offering for Australian government agencies has been announced by Objective, following last month's launch by HP of a TRIM and SharePoint platform delivered as a cloud service.

Targeted at around 250 small federal and state government agencies of less than 100 users, Objective ECM for Small Agencies promises an “instant-on” Information Management solution. It will be offered alongside the cloud document sharing application Objective Connect.

Local government is not yet on the radar but the company says "Watch this space" for an offering tailored to this sector.

The "instant-on" promise is for many agencies in this category that are simply using Microsoft Outlook, Word and Excel and do not require complex integration with CRM or ERP applications.

The company says business process analysis, redesign, implementation and training are often the greatest impediment to accessibility for small agencies to best practice information management.

Tony Walls, CEO of Objective said, “Objective ECM for Small Agencies is the only offering of its kind. It embeds 25 years of experience in solving content, collaboration and process management challenges for government. We’ve made ECM accessible for small agencies by translating the information management standards into a compliant and easily deployed solution by preconfiguring the system for information management best practice.

“The result is an innovative solution engineered to solve the specific requirements of small public sector agencies, typically saving them up to six months of planning, design and deployment time, essentially it’s an instant-on solution.”

“Delivered from the cloud as a managed service this new offering removes the traditional barrier to entry of the capital budget allocation and also ensures predictability of operational expenses for the life of the solution. It’s cost effective, cost predictable and perfectly matched to governments published Cloud First strategies.” 

Developed with significant guidance and input from national and state government regulators, Objective ECM for Small Agencies comes preconfigured to meet federal and state public sector requirements, including the National Archives’ Digital Transition Policy.

The preconfigured business classification scheme, security model, functional terms and disposal schedules ensure compliance but are pragmatic and manageable. The focus is on usability and practicality with compliance as an outcome, not as a hindrance to good business practice.

Data sovereignty is assured through use of an Australian domiciled cloud and it is managed and monitored by Objective Managed Services, which allows small agencies to focus their resources on their core business rather than on managing their IT applications and infrastructure.

Adrian Rudman, General Manager Sales - Asia Pacific at Objective Corporation, said, "Many of these agencies are moving to capture to deal with information that arrives on paper, but more and more we're finding that email integration is the real key piece. 

"If staff can record an email as a record including its attachments and deal with it electronically then we've taken paper out of the process. They don't have to print something to put it on record.

"Typically things are produced on paper for the process of approval and review and those workflows are native parts of Objective ECM for Small Agencies."

"We believe that we can get these agencies up and running with very minimal business process reengineering for those who want to achieve compliance and get rid of the pain of paper records."

Last month HP launched what it dubs the HP Next Generation Information Worker (NGIW), a new solution that combines an information management (IM) system with enterprise communication and collaboration tools. 

“For many government organisations, there are challenges in managing complexities around enterprise information management,” said Alan Bennett, vice president, Enterprise Services, HP South Pacific. 

“In developing NGIW, we took quite a different approach by analysing the information worker and work performed, rather than the software tools being used. Our consultations with government enabled a unique co-design to address the needs of government departments today and into the future.”