What is Enterprise Content Management?

Enterprise Content Management is a systematic approach to managing content throughout its lifecycle. It enables unstructured information — such as Word documents, PDFs, emails and scanned images — to be securely stored and made accessible to authorized users.

From commercial supply chains to contract management, HR processes to government administration, the driving force behind implementing an ECM solution is to do business more efficiently. By eliminating dependence on paper documents and organizing unstructured information according to business needs, organizations can simplify and streamline work.

Goals for implementing ECM. Customers commonly rely on ECM to:

• Decrease dependence on paper and streamline business processes.
• Drive better customer service and increase productivity.
• Reduce organizational risk.

Here are 5 key elements of an ECM solution:

Top 5 Elements of ECM

1. Capture documents digitally

Managing an organization’s content begins with the capture and importing of information into a secure digital repository. This can be any kind of document that is created, captured, stored, shared or archived, including:

• Invoices from vendors.
• Resumes from job applicants.
• Contracts.
• Correspondence.
• Research reports.

A few methods of capturing these documents include:

• Using electronic forms to make documents digital from the point of creation.
• Scanning paper documents to be filed in a digital repository.
• Managing natively digital content, including Microsoft Office documents, PDFs, photos and video files.
• Automatically filing and categorizing documents from servers, shared devices and network drives.

Traditional methods of capturing documents require a great deal of effort and expense. Capturing documents in a digital repository eliminates many of the obstacles created by paper: labor-intensive duplication, slow distribution, misplaced originals and the inconvenience of retrieving files from offsite storage.

2. Store documents in a digital repository

With robust ECM systems, organizations can easily store any business-critical document in a digital repository, allowing users to:

• Decide who can view, edit and create documents.
• Classify and search for documents based on metadata
• Organize documents within a flexible folder structure.

The benefits of enterprise content management go far beyond document storage. A content management system also reduces the time, cost and complexity associated with managing documents that require retention schedules, throughout their life cycle, assisting in efforts to bolster regulatory compliance. In fact, a recent Nucleus Research study showed content management systems returning $6.12 for every dollar invested.

3. Retrieve documents, regardless of device or location

Once an organization’s records have been securely stored, you can:

• Find any document using full-text search.
• Identify specific words or phrases within document text, metadata, annotations and entry names.
• Use preset search options to search by document creation date, the names of users who checked out documents and other metadata.

Enterprise content management software helps eliminate time spent searching for information, enabling employees to answer information requests from clients, citizens and auditors immediately. More than that, staff have instant access to the information required to make better decisions about issues that can your organization’s bottom line.

4. Automate document-driven processes

Automation helps organizations eliminate manual tasks — such as photocopying or even drag-and-dropping digital documents — to achieve greater results with fewer resources. Some ECM systems have digital automation features that can:

• Automatically route documents to the right people at the right time.
• Alert staff members when documents require their attention.
• Recognize errors before they cause delays or make staff redo work.

Every day, businesses need purchase orders signed, records archived and employee vacation requests approved or denied. Automation moves these critical documents through the necessary steps of review and approval, in the order specified. The end result is processes that are more cost-efficient, streamlined and error-free.

5. Secure documents and reduce organizational risk

With strengthening compliance restrictions in a wide range of industries, organizations are increasingly using ECM systems to optimize records management practices and protect against risk. An enterprise content management system must provide customizable security settings to allow organizations to protect information from unauthorized access or modification. These settings should allow you to:

• Restrict access to folders, documents, fields, annotations and other granular document properties as needed.
• Monitor system login and logout, document creation and destruction, password changes and more.
• Protect sensitive metadata by controlling information access down to individual folders, templates and fields.

Leading ECM solutions enable line of business departments to manage user access independently — which means sensitive HR information stays within the HR department, while private financial information stays within the finance department, even if the information is stored in the same repository.