The core of what is now known as Enterprise Content Management (ECM) has been a part of organisations for some time. The idea that the information inside any organisation needs to be managed and requires systems is fundamental.

The fact is that the role of ECM is morphing into Enterprise Information Management (EIM) due to the evolution of the modern organisation with the focus on Content as an Asset, as well as the convergence of document management, data governance, metadata management, BPM, workflow and information management systems.

The drive for companies to engage in digital transformation is only putting more pressure to ensure that all the information collected by the organisation is properly managed so that it can be leveraged to deliver a competitive advantage.

Hybridisations of enabling technologies are making it possible for ECM solutions to take a more leading role in organising and orchestrating core operations. Emerging Digital Business strategies call for more integrated applications that combine the traditional document management capabilities normally associated with ECM with the notion of Information Assets.

As part of this digital transformation from ECM to EIM, I would like to highlight 5 key takeaways:

1. Organisations will begin slowly to realise that information compliance and privacy concerns can no longer be ignored. 

This will be driven by two factors: 1) the sheer quantity of information coming into organisations which will force them to change their approach; and 2) country-specific and often conflicting information management requirements. Digital transformation of your documents and processes is the first step.

2.   The “cloud” question is changing from “if” to “when” and “how.” Sure there are still clients that believe that all business-critical information must be stored on premise. This thought process is normal and is no different in other process areas; for example, there are process owners who struggle with the notion that their sales staff have run off and implemented Salesforce. The truth of the matter is that the ship has sailed on the cloud. The cloud won’t be the solution for all information management problems, but it needs to be a part of every discussion.

3.   There will be continued competition and pressure on solution-provider space. There are now many flavours of content management solutions. Some organisations have been “doing ECM” for a decade and are pushing hard on the integration of content management capabilities into broader customer experiences (such as ERPs) and analytics. Other organisations have yet to encounter even a scanner and still rely on volumes of paper to run their business. It will be critical for user organisations to identify where they are and where they want to be on the digital transformation continuum. Having a roadmap for your digital transformation regarding records, documents and process will save you many IT dollars in the long run.

4.   Reduced Time to Market of ECM/EIM solutions with plug and play integrations. It’s all about applications. It always has been, but it has never been truer that in today’s landscape where multiple applications exist for various content infrastructure and thus ease of integration is required; and for those organisations that have yet to embrace content management in a meaningful way, it will be critical that solution providers provide a relatively painless path to start small, build a bridgehead, and then expand. In order to show a quick return on investment, quick wins need to stand out and thus I always recommend a Crawl - Walk – Run approach. 

5.   Storing Content, on its own, is no longer the goal. It wasn’t that long ago that organisations were able to achieve a competitive advantage by simply getting to a piece of paper. The emphasis was on scanning the paper and storing images. Those are just entry level requirements. The future is all about using and optimising content, not just storing. Being able to store, index, search, manage and equally important govern content has now taken centre-stage for companies. 

Carsten Weber is an Enterprise Application Roadmap Advisor for major Oil & Gas clients at advisory firm Capgemini, in Houston, Texas.