The Asia-Pacific represents the fastest growing regional market for Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions, growing at about 15% with Australia and Korea at the lead, according to a new report from Global Industry Analysts, Inc. (GIA).

The report on Content Management Software found  China and India are among the faster growing regions.

The US remains the largest regional market, where new regulations on retention of information have been driving the market for content management software.

According to the analysts, Web content management (WCM) continues to be the largest segment in the global content management software market. WCM is becoming essential for enterprises and businesses owing to the growing significance of Internet as a retail channel.

As enterprises increasingly become globally integrated, the demand for systems capable of building localized web e-commerce sites that offer support for a brand in each region is growing. The post recession period in particular has driven companies towards online communication, thereby directing the spotlight onto web content management software.

Initially, web content management software was considered merely as a tool for website management. The perception has changed, with the software being widely used to optimize solutions for designing, managing and deploying web content.

WCM is gaining significance owing to the significant rise in volume of rich media assets, which make it difficult for companies to search, modify and re-purpose the rich media content in enterprise environment.

The global WCM software market is expected to register robust growth as more and more organizations increase investments in order to enhance the effectiveness of web-based initiatives. Enterprises are also looking to increase business value by acquiring capabilities such as personalization, interactive applications, e-commerce services, website analytics, streaming media, security, and security.

Content management is one of the fastest growing segments in the dynamic Information Technology industry. Globalization is playing an important role in the expansion of content management market; owing to internationalization of products, and the resultant demand for translated content.

The trend towards simultaneous launch of products around the world presents enormous challenges to organizations in translating content, and keeping all product catalogs up to date.
Enterprise content management (ECM) software, comprising a set of software products that facilitate in efficient management of the content’s entire lifecycle, is aimed at extending content governance as well as best practices throughout the entire enterprise.

The ECM market has been insulated from the recession owing to the growing complexity and volume of enterprise content. Growth is driven by the need to lower risk, ensure regulatory compliance, improve productivity of information worker, and enhance cost-effectiveness of various document-centric business processes.

The growing competition from open source vendors or suite vendors is also driving growth in ECM market, while the need to manage risks pertaining to unmanaged digital and paper content is encouraging enterprises to focus on content governance and valuation.

The increasing trend among organizations to leverage information for revenue generation, and synchronize business processes is expected to drive demand for content management software.