enterprise content management in the information age

Enterprise Content Management in theInformation AgeIsn’t it time for you to use your information to your advantage?

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An AIIM BriefingHelping you manage and use information assets.

Produced by AIIM TrainingBy Bob Larrivee, Director / Industry Advisor

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Figure 1 – The Content Lifecycle

As we see here in figure 1, the content lifecycle is comprised of many elements. There is the infrastructure to support thelifecycle consisting of a taxonomy, retention policies, security, metadata, and disposal. These form the foundation to support thefive core elements of enterprise content management (ECM): capture and create, organize, collaborate, search and retrieve, andpublish and deliver. Taken together, these five elements represent the content lifecycle. Surrounding this is the ongoing need tomanage not only content but content-related processes, change, and governance.

Enterprise Content Managem

ent in the Information Age

1© 2013 AIIM - The Global Community of Information Professionals - aiim.org/ecmtraining

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“It is said that information (or knowledge) is power, but on theother hand, that information by itself is worthless and cannotsolve problems. Information has power only when used andapplied effectively.”

(Boon 1992; Martin 1984; Paez-Urdaneta 1989)

We are heavily into the information age. Information is acompetitive advantage – to some organizations it’s even a form ofcurrency. Not managing information effectively isn’t onlyirresponsible and reckless; it’s also one of the dumbest non-decisions any organization can make today. While this might seemfundamental to many of us, the mantra of providing the rightinformation to the right person at the right time, securely andaccurately should prevail regardless of where it lives and thedevice of choice to capture and access it. In fact, not only shouldyou be able to provide content seamlessly; you should be able totailor it to meet the specific needs of the individual. This is wheresome might view it as basic blocking and tackling to filter out theunnecessary information and provide only the information that isimportant and relevant to the recipient. This leads us to theconcept of developing a strategy that addresses contentmanagement through its entire lifecycle; from creation todestruction.

What is Enterprise ContentManagement?Enterprise content management: the technologies,tools, and methods used to capture, manage, store,preserve, and deliver content across an enterprise. Atthe most basic level, ECM tools and strategies allowthe management of an organization’s unstructuredinformation, wherever that information exists.

ECM technologies, properly implemented, improveaccess to your content, enable the reuse of content,and can provide faster time to market. Justremember that technology is only part of the solution.You must select the right technology for yourparticular business issues. The best technologyinstalled in the wrong way (or for the wrong problem)is often useless.

Change Management and Information Governance

Management of Content and Process

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Capture &Create

Organize Collaborate Search &Retreive

Publish &Deliver

Information Architecture

Taxonomy Retention Security Metadata Disposal

In order to accomplish anything even close to resembling this, youmust take a holistic view of the organization’s informationenvironment. Not only do you have to address the technology, youhave to include people, process, and the actual information aswell. In other words, if you plan to make changes to the way youmanage and work with information, you must take time to fullyunderstand:

n The information itself and the value it holds to the organizationand individuals, both internal and external

n The lifecycle of that information from birth to death andeverything in between

n Who has a need for this information, when do they need it andwhat they do with it when they find it

n How this information is captured and even more importantlytoday, how it will be sought and accessed

In too many organizations, technology is thrown into the mix toaddress a perceived business problem without fully understandingthe actual problem, but rather to address a symptom like slowprocessing times or poor customer response times. Technology isviewed as a solution yet, in many cases, it proves just theopposite and enhances the underlying problem due to afundamental lack of understanding what the goal is, never mindtrying to maximize the information to derive greater value from it,which leads us to the movement toward improving informationmanagement practices, operational efficiencies and effectivenessto how to leverage a key corporate asset, your information. I knowit is easier said than done at times so to get started, you mustidentify a need or the business drivers to move your organizationforward [on this page, Business Drivers for ECM].

Develop a strategyAs always, you must align your project and match up thetechnology tools to address YOUR businesses needs. Technologycan enable streamlined management of content, but theunderlying strategy must come first. This is where you canleverage your findings using the seven points checklist and alignthem to the “4 Cs” of an ECM strategy.

ComplianceThe key to a successful compliance strategy is integrating the ideaof compliance success into your business – not viewingcompliance as a project that can be completed and thenconsidered “finished.” While painful, complying with regulationsshould be viewed as an opportunity to improve common businessprocesses and not just an ongoing cost to the business. It is nosecret that there can be high costs associated with yourcompliance initiatives for both technology and employees. Onlysecuring compliance for one regulation such as Sarbanes-Oxley or




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Business Drivers for ECMMany organizations, while they realize there is aneed to better manage and leverage their contentassets, may struggle to make the case for ECM.While there are many reasons one might consider,here are seven points to consider when trying toidentify business drivers in your organization to makeyour case for the need of ECM.

n Increased operational efficiency

n Cost reduction

n Enhanced litigation support

n De-duplication of content

n Risk reduction

n Value-added services

n New ways of working

When looking at your organization in relation to ECM,think about these seven points and try to identifywhere and how they might align to the needs andgoals of your organization. Turn them into questionsthat would then be answered. For example, is yourorganization faced with the challenges of litigationlike ediscovery and what amount of effort is used toidentify, sort, and present all of the electronicinformation requested? How much duplication ofyour information assets is there and would de-duplication be beneficial? While this checklist is asampling, it should give you a sense and startingpoint from which to move forward.

Many organizations create and manage informationfor little to no business reason and as such couldpurge much of what is stored.

HIPAA will cause your costs to continue to grow as each new regulation is delivered over the years.To help limit the risk and cost, proactive ECM strategies must be developed within key areas, such asrecords management and business process management. A proactive strategy will ensure that theproper business practices are followed and that content is properly captured, stored, managed, anddisposed of at the appropriate and legal time in its lifecycle. Developing a compliance initiativeproperly will tap many areas of expertise, particularly legal, IT, and records management; all insupport of the overall business objectives of the organization. Individuals from each of these areasmust contribute their knowledge and perspectives to ensure the benefits of a sound complianceprogram. While compliance is not always a technology problem, information technology, and themassive growth of unstructured content, contributes to corporate exposure. The tools of ECM,properly used, can help reduce the overall cost of compliance to the business.

CollaborationCollaboration is the art of working together. The key to strong collaboration is using the set oftechnologies – instant messaging, whiteboards, online meetings, email, social tools, etc. – that allowwork to take place wherever and whenever needed. It’s good business; groups can accomplish morethan individuals. Collaboration allows individuals with complementary, or overlapping, areas ofexpertise to create better results faster than before. With today’s collaborative tools, business unitsand teams can work together anytime – whether in adjoining offices or a world apart. The technologycan now address operational objectives like saving time, streamlining processes, cutting costs, andimproving time to market. With the many different types of collaborative tools available, companiesmust be sure they select the correct tool for their business need. Functionality can be broadly groupedinto (1) communication channel facilitation, which enables short-lived interaction such as chat,instant messaging, white boarding, etc.; (2) content lifecycle management, which manages contentobjects involved in a business process; and (3) project facilitation, which organizes and simplifies theway that people work toward a common goal. However, there is a catch with collaboration. Whenusing collaborative tools, you must be aware of records management, knowledge capture, andcompliance requirements. For some industries, all customer communications must be kept. And, fora collaborative product design process, companies must be sure that the results are kept as businessrecords.

CostWhile ECM can be a costly initiative, what are the costs of not properly managing your content? Thecost of not implementing ECM tools is too often left unmeasured until too late. Things like the cost oflong legal proceedings, the loss of repeat business through the inability to perform simple customerservice interactions, and the cost of typical business process delays are easy to measure after the fact– lawyers’ time, the cost to acquire new customers, and FTE salaries. Understanding the cost ofthese potential losses will allow you to see that ECM investments have valuable benefits that oftencan be measured, but not always. The key is to set your key metrics for success up front andmeasure your success based on those expectations. Measuring the revenue based on improvedinformation in the call center can be done as well as measuring the cost benefits of improvements inprocess speed for a loan application, claim process, or FDA drug approval (to name a few). Theimprovements will not always show on the final balance sheet but they are out there. Whileidentifying a direct ROI can be difficult, it is not impossible to see the impacts of the improvedprocess efficiency on the business. ECM tools can make your organization more efficient and drivedown the cost of doing business. These technologies provide value to your organization by moreefficiently organizing information for its subsequent retrieval, use, and, ultimately, disposition. Plus,as these tools are used by more organizations, it becomes part of how you work. What’s the ROI on atelephone? Yet, you wouldn’t think of doing business without one, would you?




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Assess your needs and requirements before making atechnology decision.

Collaboration tools can now address operationalobjectives like saving time, streamlining processes,cutting costs, and improving time to market.

ContinuityKeeping a business going 24x7 is the task of business continuity planning. While often mentionedwith disaster recovery, business continuity planning is the overall strategy for ensuring thatoperations continue in the event of any disruption-natural or man-made. Disaster recovery is morenarrowly focused on getting an organization’s IT infrastructure going again, a subset of businesscontinuity. Because the lifeblood of most businesses today is represented by electronic documents,ECM has a key role to play in continuity. After all, without access to the most vital electronicdocuments, a business is dead in the water. ECM technologies allow the creation of centralizedrepositories where all vital corporate information can reside. The method of storage will varydepending on how critical the content is to the company – from off-site back up tapes to redundant,mirrored sites separated by geography and on different power grids. A strong continuity plan willshow you that not all content is critical. Companies must prioritize their content to determine howquickly content needs to be back online in the event of a disaster. Business continuity begins with asound plan and high-level executive support. Next, mission-critical processes and the entities onwhich they are dependent must be determined, followed by a business impact assessment todetermine the impact of a disruption, or losing, those processes. Defining what a business considersa disaster and explaining how key processes will be recovered are the next steps in the plan. A crisisoperations center should also be established with procedures for chain of command and other roles.Finally, don’t forget to update and test the plan annually or as business needs change. Effectivelydelivering on a continuity plan will enhance your ability not only to recover during a system failurebut will enable you to better define the priority of your business content and improve your overallECM strategy.

Moving forwardOnce you have identified the business drivers and formulated your strategy, it is time to take the nextsteps in moving your project forward. This means it is time to identify your content assets, map andvalidate your processes, establish consistency in the organization, and select the appropriatetechnologies that meet your needs and support your goals.

Know What You’re HoldingConduct an information audit or inventory to identify what information resides in your repositoriesand storage facilities. In an ideal situation, you would only need to look in one place but in the realworld, and we all know this scenario, it resides in many places that may include a designatedrepository, shared drives, laptops, removable media, and so on. In other words, you need to sortthrough both the structured, semi-structured, and unstructured storage locations to truly know whatyou have out there. Along with this you will need to:

n Identify who creates it and why

n Any duplicates and why

n How it is used and by whom

n Opportunities to consolidate and minimize not only the amount you hold but the associated riskthat goes with redundancy

Until you understand what you have, why you have it, and who creates and uses it; how can youpossibly be effective in managing and maximizing it to your advantage?




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Take action today. Gather your requirements, developa strategy, and implement your plan.

Because the lifeblood of most businesses today isrepresented by electronic documents, ECM has a keyrole to play in continuity.

Know the FlowMap and validate current processes and document the on-ramps and off-ramps of your informationto these processes. Learn and document how internal and external customers interact with yourinformation and inquire how they prefer to interact with it. By understanding how people interactwith and how information interrelates with process, you can design your information managementenvironment and processes to be more streamlined for maximum results.

Some of the questions to ask include:

n What processes are associated with this information and are they mapped accurately?

n How does information enter and exit the process?

n Are there bottlenecks in this process related to information and could they be removed?

n Is there an opportunity to move this action and inject this information upstream in the process?

n What impact will a change in this process have on adjacent processes and related information?

Establish Consistency Inconsistency in information practices with regard to the capture and management of theinformation means less efficiency and opportunity to maximize your information use. Manyorganizations create and manage information for little to no business reason and as such couldpurge much of what is stored. Along with that, the information that is created is typically managedinconsistently with little to no consideration about organizational structure and naming conventions.While there are some strong technologies available today to help us search, findability is still theultimate goal and this requires effort. Some considerations:

n How is information being labelled and grouped?

n What is the information? Correspondence? Contracts? Intellectual property?

n Is there a need for this information to be physical and, if so, what are the reasons?

n Who is selecting the terms and organizational structure for this information?

n Is there a better way to capture and organize this information using automation technologies?

Technology Is a ToolAssess your needs and requirements before making a technology decision. Remembering that ECMis an umbrella containing many technologies like document management, imaging, workflow, etc.,the choice you make must be based on clear requirements and as part of an overall plan to improveand maximize the benefit from your information assets.

As you conduct your assessment and define the requirements, look at the type of information andprocesses you are dealing with, how you will improve them, and, ONLY then, consider what typesof technology will be best suited. Things to consider are:

n Where can this information be used? Not just now but in the future and by what otherorganizations?

n Will this be for internal or external consumption? Or perhaps both?

n Can you automate structured decision-making elements in a process based on the information type?

n What level of systems integration will you use to streamline data flow between systems?




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Developing a compliance initiative properly will tapmany areas of expertise, particularly legal, IT, andrecords management; all in support of the overallbusiness objectives of the organization.

ConclusionMany organizations continue to create and store huge amounts of information without being ableto fully leverage it to their advantage. From a business standpoint, this is not the best way tofunction nor is it the most efficient. Planning, designing, and developing an environment thatfocuses the organization on reaching a level of information management that affords them anopportunity to maximize its use and value should become a priority. Once you have a clearunderstanding of the information you hold and the value it represents, identify how and where itcan be repurposed to bring about greater use and benefit to your organization and clients.Continuously improve upon your information management practices and enhance your businessprocesses. Always look to maximize your information use and keep your business running asefficiently and effectively as possible.

Implementing ECM and the results gained from information management improvement andautomation can be significant. Success is dependent upon:

n Organizational readiness

n Repurposing of valuable information assets

n Information interdependencies

n Automation technologies

Take action today. Gather your requirements, develop a strategy, and implement your plan. Taketime and periodically assess whether your information assets are still relevant and the value theyrepresent to the organization as a whole. This should be embedded as part of your corporateculture to ensure that information assets are used as effectively as possible, by seeking constantimprovement. The process to improve your business is one that should never end. A yearlyassessment asking the right questions will help keep your business humming and yourinformation assets flowing.




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While ECM can be a costly initiative, what are thecosts of not properly managing your content?

About the AIIM Enterprise ContentManagement (ECM) Program

How well your employee’s adapt to – and adopt – a new technology implementation willdetermine whether that new implementation boosts your effectiveness and bottom line or fails andbecomes a wasted investment. Learn more about how to accurately and effectively manage yourorganization’s content, and adapt to change, with an enterprise content management strategy.

Technology works. You need to ensure your technology will work with your employees; and thatneither work against the other. Learning the ins and outs of implementing an ECM system willhelp you do that.

Be a hero.

World-Class Professional Development and TrainingThe course is designed for anyone who is involved in the assessment and implementation of ECMinitiatives and developed from the best practices of AIIM’s 80,000 strong community of members.A successful ECM implementation requires a strategy and structure for how to capture andmanage information. The Practitioner Course covers these basics and prepares you for theSpecialist Program, which digs deeper and goes further into best practices and implementationpractices revealed in the Practitioner Course.

The ECM Master Training Program combines the elements of the previous two programs inaddition to a case study exercise.

Education Around the Clock . . . Or In Person

Learn at your own pace and at your own convenience by taking the courses online. Available24/7; learn as you have time. Classroom instruction—both public courses and private coursesdelivered to you—is also available.

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About AIIMAIIM (www.aiim.org) has been an advocate and supporter of information professionals for nearly 70years. The association’s mission is to ensure that information professionals understand the current andfuture challenges of managing information assets in an era of social, mobile, cloud, and big data.Founded in 1943, AIIM builds on a strong heritage of research and member service. Today, AIIM is aglobal, non-profit organization that provides independent research, education, and certificationprograms to information professionals. AIIM represents the entire information management community,with programs and content for practitioners, technology suppliers, integrators, and consultants.

About the AuthorBob Larrivee joined AIIM in 2007 as an Industry Advisor and Director of theTraining Center where he works to identify, develop, and deliver specialized trainingin best practices, technology, and methodologies. Bob is an internationallyrecognized thought leader with over thirty years of experience in document imaging,content management, records management, and the application of advancedtechnologies and process improvement. He has also received the Cenadem - BrazilECM Pioneer Award.

Bob is an AIIM Certified Information Professional (CIP), has earned AIIM designations in ECM, ERM,BPM, EMM, E2.0, SharePoint, Capture, IOA, is a CompTIA — Certified Document ImagingArchitech+ (CDIA+), and a State of Florida Certified Instructor. Bob is a published poet, photographer,and musician. Prior to joining AIIM, Bob held positions within the vendor community, as a consultant,and as a reseller. He entered the emerging technologies industry with Wang Laboratories where hefocused on imaging, workflow, digital annotation, and voice recognition systems.

Follow Bob on Twitter; @boblarrivee; or email him: [email protected]

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© 2013 AIIM - The Global Community of Information Professionals - aiim.org/ecmtraining

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enterprise content management in the information age

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