What is Enterprise Content Management?

Most organizations have automated their key transaction processes using applications such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM), and more recently with applications such as human capital management (HCM), partner relationship management (PRM) and vendor management systems (VMS).

And yet, it remains trite but true that over 80% of organizations’ data is not captured by these systems.  It exists in the form of emails, spreadsheets, documents and even paper forms.   For some of this data, that might be reasonable, except as needed for compliance reasons.

But take a minute and think about all the important workflows and documents in organizations that are managed through email and paper.  The amount of time wasted with manual activity.  Finding the latest versions.  Searching for that contract for a deal this quarter.  Trying to coordinate remote proposal teams on a spreadsheet. Making sure invoices have matching PO’s.  Turning sales people into data entry to get your contracts done.  Dozens of emails to get approval on that newest vendor. 


And don’t even think about trying to make sure that everyone’s changes are included.   Being able to prove how that a loan application has all the relevant documentation.  That your information is secure. 

That’s where enterprise content management (ECM) comes in.  ECM provides the capabilities to capture all that information through forms, email, fax, paper or even integration with enterprise systems.  Make it searchable and tag it so you can automate your workflow processes and easily find it. 

Manage your documents so everyone sees the correct content, and eliminate the endless e-email threads with attachments.    Organize and secure your documents, and have full audit trails.  Have full-text search.   Collaborate on documents and even CAD drawings.

Use e-forms to replace paper or emails. Electronic signature to eliminate the wait between a document’s shipment and approval.

Automatically get documents into the hands of team members, partners and customers via e-mail or fax.

Comply with industry and government regulations for records management.

Have visibility to how fast your processes are, where there might be bottlenecks, and who did the last edits on a document. 

With all the great things ECM can do, why aren’t more business processes using it today?  One big reason is that traditional on-premise ECM is slow, complex and cumbersome. 

Cloud enterprise content management changes all that.  Makes it fast, easy and affordable to automate your workflows, and get a better handle on your documents.

To find out more, check out Why Cloud for Content Management and Workflow