What Does Enterprise Content Management Really Mean?

10th March, 2009 - Posted by Sean R. Nicholson - 2 Comments

Sean R. Nicholson

Over the last few years, the term “Enterprise Content Management” (ECM) has become a term familiar to those working in the Intranet, Web, or Knowledge/Information Management sectors. The difficulty lies in the fact that, while the term is easy to toss around, the actual definition of what is expected to be encompassed by ECM continues to evolve. As a result, ECM to a Records Manager often means something very different than what ECM means to a Web Developer. In an attempt to more accurately define ECM, this article deconstructs the term into a variety of subcomponents that are commonly included in discussions about ECM.

Core Functionality for ECM

Recently, when conducting a search for an ECM solution for a Fortune 500 organization, the following core requirements were set forth as required elements to participate in the selection process. These core components provided a basis for what was expected to be included in an ECM offering:

• Document Management (DM) – Centralization of millions of documents was core to the functionality of this particular business and document management is probably the most consistent component in the definition of ECM. In this case, the DM system was required to have a browser-based folder view of the repository as well as check-in/check-out document collaboration, robust full-text searching, and the ability to secure documents at the organizational, folder, and document level. In addition, the solution required full auditing capabilities of each user and object within the repository. Finally, integration with the enterprise email system, while not required, was favorable.
• Web Content Management (WCM) – Although the goal of this particular RFP was to select a content management system (CMS) for an Intranet portal, the principles were the same as the selection of a Web Content Management System.  The solution had to include a “What You See Is What You Get” (WYSIWYG) rich text editor that allowed content creators and managers to easily edit and permission content. In addition, the solution had to offer the ability to schedule content for future publication.
• Records Management (RM) – To comply with the corporate retention schedules, the RFP required that the selected solution provide Records Management functionality that included the ability to schedule the review and destruction of items marked as corporate records. The ideal solution would allow for the creation of a variety of retention categories that allow for the movement of corporate records from real-time storage, to secondary, and eventually tertiary storage as the lifecycle of the record progressed.
• E-Discovery Tools – With E-Discovery weighing heavily on the minds of corporate attorneys everywhere, it was required that the selected solution provide the ability to locate content based on keyword searches or metadata and place those documents or records on legal hold for review. These documents, while in hold status, would be exempt from the records retention/destruction policies. In this case, the E-Discovery tools were only required to access content and not data. The distinction is that the ECM tools were focused on content stored in document and portal/Web content repositories and not in application databases such as customer relationship management (CRM) solutions or billing systems.
• Enteprise Search Integration – To provide a single search interface to users, the solution was required to provide search integration through an Application Programming Interface (API) using the Web Services Definition Language (WSDL) or other suitable messaging platform. The implication was that users should be able to search many sources of content using a search interface integrated into the corporate portal.

Just to participate in the selection process, each vendor was required to demonstrate that they offered the above functionality. That doesn’t mean, however, that these five elements completely defined ECM for that organization. Even after the solution was selected and implemented, the definition of ECM continued to evolve as users identified new content types and needs. Discussions of blogs, Wikis, and digital assets identified new potential content and required the reshaping of how content would be captured, stored, and governed. As this evolution progressed, several additional components were added to the organizational definition of ECM.

Secondary Functionality For ECM

• Transactional Content Management – Activities such as claims scanning and processing, invoice processing, and human resources employee packet processing all require that data be captured via scanning or electronic methods, and processed through a workflow until completed.
• Business Process Management - Activities that require documents or content to be passed through a workflow needed to be automated using a business process management tool. These tools allow the Business Process Owner to lay out the business process in a graphical manner and then create worflow rules that govern the routing of the document or content to various roles in the organization. The classic example is that of the content creator/editor/approver. The content creator creates the content and then routes the content item to the editor queue for editing and review. Once the content is edited, the editor forwards the content item to the approver for final review and publication.
• Digital Asset Management – In this age of digital media, the protection of electronic assets such as coporate logos, images, videos, and audio files is becoming of increasing concern to organizations. Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems focus on securing and protecting those assessts, restricting whether they can be used, duplicated, or altered by users and tracking when those activities occur.
• Knowledge Management – Knowledgebases, Wikis, blogs, microblogs, forums, and mashups are surfacing more frequently in the enterprise and the content created by their authors is key to capturing information once trapped inside each employees head. Using these tools, content authors can share their experiences and understanding of the organization. Each comes with its own challenge, however, as the content is often controlled by the creator and often has not review process.

Clearly, to this organization the definition of Enterprise Content Management went far beyond the ability to simply store a document in a centralized location and locate it when necessary. Just as in this example, organizations are continually being challenged to define what should be included in their Enterprise Content Management solution. As new types of content are identified, the need to store, secure, and locate them becomes more and more crucial to business operations. As a result, the definition of ECM will continue to evolve and the solutions offered to manage these content types will be required to either specialize in specific aspects of the content or grow to become all-incluse of the various content types.