Enterprise Content Management is a concept, set of practices, standards, technologies, processes and disciplines all intertwined to do one thing: productively manage and leverage the information your business generates and uses daily.
If you're new to ECM or need a high level overview of what ECM is this blog series may be useful to you. Why? There is so much information on this topic it can be a bit overwhelming, so we've created this series of blog posts entitled: ECM 101.
This six part series introduces you to AIIM’s (Association for Information and Image Management) ECM process. Ideal for professionals new to ECM these posts provide a brief overview of each stage of the ECM process with non-technical examples and analogies.
We hope this series helps you and your peers better understand the ECM process:
1) Introduction to the ECM Process
2) Phase One: Capture - What is Capture and Where Should We Start?
3) Phase Two: Manage - The Three Key Things to Managing Content
4) Phase Three: Store - Storing Content as Part of the ECM Process
5) Phase Four: Preserve - When Preserving Think of the Mona Lisa
6) Phase Five: Deliver - Delivery, the Last Phase of the ECM Process
We hope this series provides you with useful information and can help you as you plan your ECM strategy. If you have questions you can contact us through our website or give us a call at (905) 267-3949
Victor Bensusan is CEO of Yakidoo. He has 20 years experience in Finance and Information Technology primarily in the area of process automation, information management and business performance improvement.
Alfredo De Vanna is CTO of Yakidoo. He has over 10 years of international experience deploying over 80 critical information technology and enterprise content management systems. He is fluent in English and Spanish.
This is the last post in our ECM process series. As a quick recap, there are five phases in the ECM process: Capture, Manage, Store, Preserve and Deliver.
Deliver, simply put, is the output of your enterprise content management endeavor. It is the presentation of content from the Manage, Store and Preserve Phase of the ECM process.
This output is presented in many formats, transmits across wired and wireless networks, on various media type and devices and via a range of interfaces. It can consist of data from various lines of business applications (like your accounting system), scanned documents (invoices) and correspondence (emails) brought together to provide a consolidated view of a specific customer for example.
The challenge is ensuring that the content is delivered in the best, useful and usable way possible; while protecting it from unauthorized access and use.
The components for delivery are transformation, security and distribution. These components use technologies to convert and publish the content that exists within your ECM system.
Transformation is simply the act of converting content so it can be captured, managed, stored, preserved and made presentable.
Consider the content that goes into the typical newspaper.
Image Source: Stephen Taylor
The raw materials that make up the paper are images, drawings and text. These images and text are supplied in various formats from photographers, advertisers and journalists. This input of content has to be transformed or converted so it can be presented in newspaper form. The content also needs to be archived and accessible for future use.
In ECM, transformation technologies convert your content so it can be captured, managed, stored, preserved and presented.
The photos and articles you read in your newspaper in many cases are copyright. Internally, newspaper publishers use technologies to protect digital assets from being stolen or misused. Digital Asset Management and Information Rights Management systems are used to protect this content.
Other technologies include those that can capture signatures and digital watermarking.
Security technologies in the Deliver phase make it possible to protect your content and track who accesses it. The content can be images, video, legal documents, case files, contracts, financial reports and intellectual property, such as patents, processes and customer intelligence.
Your newspaper is available in print, on your computer and your smart phone. Archived copies are available for editors, librarians and archivists as well, in formats that make it easy to store, ship, protect and share. This component of the Delivery phase, simply put, is the final product of the ECM process. It enables you to:
This wraps up our ECM 101 Series. Both Alfredo and I hope you've found this blog post series informative and of value. If you have thoughts you’d like to share regarding this post and the ECM process please leave a comment below or contact me directly via Linkedin or our contact us form.
Victor Bensusan is CEO of Yakidoo. He has 20 years experience in Finance and Information Technology primarily in the area of process automation, information management and business performance improvement.
In our last post “Storing Content as Part of the Enterprise Content Management Process” I covered the store part of the ECM process. In this post I’m going to cover the fourth phase of the ECM process: “preserve”.
Preservation of data, information and content (a post is planned to explain how these are different) is nothing new for organizations. Many organizations preserve their paper documents by putting them in files, storing them in filing cabinets, banker’s boxes and eventually offsite.
As more companies digitize their documents and better manage electronic information they need to consider what content needs to be preserved and what doesn’t.
There’s no disputing that the amount of electronic information flowing in and out of an organization continues to grow. Making sure that critical information and content is captured, managed and stored means nothing if it isn’t properly preserved.
As we did in the manage and store phases we’ve broken the preserve phase into three buckets: Selection, Accessibility/Usability and Technologies.
When it comes to content preservation, the key is to decide what content should be preserved. This is what I mean by selection. What content needs to last and why?
If you consider the Mona Lisa for example, the original must be preserved because of its value, history and ability to draw millions of visitors to the Louvre each year.
Image Source: Wikipedia
I’m oversimplifying this a bit but the concept is sound. This beautiful piece of art is content that must be preserved because of its historical and financial value and significance.
So, when deciding what data, information and content to select for long term preservation ask yourself what value it represents to your organization.
Here are few areas where preservation may make sense:
Also, consider the fact that you may be required to preserve various file types including text, images, audio, video, CAD files, court filings, claims etc.
The key is to select the content that has the most value to your organization and/or poses the largest risk to you if it is lost or misplaced. That’s the content you should capture, manage, store and preserve. Just imagine what would happen if no one preserved the Mona Lisa!
The next key bucket in the preserve phase is accessibility and usability. Content that is preserved has no use to you if you can’t access and use it.
Over 6 million people visit the Louvre every year to view the Mona Lisa. She is heavily protected by hi-tech security, barriers and guards, but she is accessible and usable.
What I mean is you are able to enter the Louvre where you can see the Mona Lisa. She remains protected and preserved but can be accessed, seen and photographed.
So, let’s turn to the content you should preserve. We’ve covered access in the manage phase so I won’t rehash it here, but it bears repeating that being able to access and use content, regardless of its age, could be critical and of value to your company.
This means that you must be able to find it, view it and use it. Preserved content does you no good if it degrades over time or is stored on older storage media that no one can access and use (e.g. floppy disks).
Storing and preserving content are very similar. The technologies you use to store your content short or long term rely on a blend of software, media and hardware devices.
Since digital content degrades over time it’s important to have in place backup processes and policies. This combined with keeping your technology updated and current will help ensure your content remains preserved.
Image Source for iPad: GlennFleishman
The “preserve” phase of the ECM process involves selecting the most valuable content that must be preserved, can be accessed and is usable from up to date systems and hardware that protect it from degradation.
I hope this post and our ECM 101 series provides you a good overview of what ECM is all about. If you have thoughts you’d like to share regarding this post and the preserve process please leave a comment below or contact me directly via Linkedin or our contact us form.
Alfredo De Vanna is CTO of Yakidoo. He has over 10 years of international experience deploying over 80 critical information technology and enterprise content management systems. He is fluent in English and Spanish.
In our last post entitled: “The Three Key Things to Managing Content” Victor covered the “manage” phase of the Electronic Content Management process. As a quick recap, in our earlier posts we wrote about a simple way to define ECM and the capture phase of ECM process. In this post I’m going to cover the third phase of the ECM process: “store”.
Up till now we’ve been describing what one might call the front end of the ECM process. It’s pretty much the information that you receive and send in the form of documents and electronically on a day to day basis.
From an ECM perspective this content is captured and managed using processes and technologies in the form of scanning machines and software that categorizes the content so that it can be easily accessed by those who need it.
Storing this content is critical so it can be easily saved and accessed in order to improve productivity in key areas of your business including accounts payable, your mailroom and perhaps for compliance purposes.
As is the case with the manage phase, the store phase also has three key buckets and they are: Repositories, Library Services and Technologies.
A repository is simply a container where information and content is stored. It can be a file folder on your computer, a database with accounting information in it, an ecommerce system etc.
So where’s the iPod fit in? When the latest album by Lady Gaga comes out, Apple makes it available through iTunes for purchase. The song files for that album are stored in a database that you access and purchase using Apple’s online ordering system. The songs are then downloaded and filed under “Albums” on you iPod. Apple’s music database, their ordering system and your “Albums” folder are all repositories.
You’ll hear terms like data warehouse, data stores, document and information warehouses and names for various systems that act as containers where content and information is managed and stored. These are just terms for various types of things that contain and help organize and access your information and content.
The next bucket in store process is “library services”. Library services acts as the bridge or interface from the front end of the ECM process where content is being captured and managed to the back end of the process where it is being stored, archived and retrieved.
Apple’s iTunes is a form of library service because it provides you with an interface where you can access content for sale, content you’ve purchased, and content you’ve captured yourself. It acts as the digital switchboard that connects you, the user, to the content that is stored in various repositories.
The iTunes system knows what you’ve purchased including songs, albums, T.V. episodes, audiobooks and feature films. It also knows what you’ve captured such as photos & videos (taken from your iPhone for example). And finally, it provides you with direct access to Apple’s library of content.
It also enables you to sync and store your content on your computer, iPod, iPhone and iPad. And of course, iTunes ensures you comply with any digital rights and licensing restrictions that are in place for a particular piece of content.
There’s more to Library Services than this simple comparison to iTunes, but hopefully it gives you a frame of reference that is useful.
The best way to describe technologies is to think in terms of the computer or device you are using right now to read this post.The hard disk in your computer is a type of storage technology. The content you save is stored locally on your hard drive. You may back it up to another storage device which could be another computer or a server etc.
What you see in the picture montage above are various technologies including (in clockwise rotation) an optical hard disk drive, an EMC network attached storage system, a data center and the new Apple iPad (iPad picture source). All can be used to store content.
The “storage” phase of the ECM process includes repositories which are containers of content, library services which acts as an interface to/for content and technologies which include the hardware and software required to save and keep your content.
I hope this post and our ECM 101 series provides you a good overview of what ECM is all about. If you have thoughts you’d like to share regarding this post and the store process please leave a comment below or contact me directly via Linkedin or our contact usform.
Alfredo De Vanna is CTO of Yakidoo. He has over 10 years of international experience deploying over 80 critical information technology and enterprise content management systems. He is fluent in English and Spanish.
In Alfredo’s earlier post entitled: "What Is Capture and Where Should We Start” he provides a high level overview of the first phase in the Enterprise Content Management process. In this post I’m going to cover the second phase “manage”.
You’ll hear a wide range of terms like metadata, taxonomy, folksonomy, classification and various types of standards that may make your head spin when trying to sort out how electronic content should be managed.
In addition there are other things that factor into the management piece of the ECM equation in the areas of process, workflow,automation and compliance. Controlling who has access to what content is a critical component as well.
I would argue that manage is the most complex and potentially daunting piece of the ECM puzzle. But, like anything else, it’s important to put this into perspective and don’t let the gobbly gook get to you. Let us worry about that!
We don’t want to downplay the importance of detailed requirements needed in an ECM system in order for content to be managed properly and productively. But for the purpose of this post we’ve boiled down the manage phase into three important buckets: Organize, Access and Find.
Once your content has been captured it has to be classified or labeled in an organized fashioned. If you take a trip to your local grocery store you’ll see an example of this. Yes, I know this may seem like an odd ball example but take a look at how the products are organized.
Most groceries stores organize the products they sell using a classification system based on aisles, shelves, stocking units and SKUs. We all grocery shop so we know why stores do this. It makes it easier for them to stock product and for us to find it. All the cereal can be found in one area, the baby products in another etc.
In content management we take a similar approach using things like metadata and taxonomies as our aisle numbers and shelves so to speak.
Not all content is created equal. Some of it should be readily available to all employees and some of it should not. Defining who has access to the content and how, is a key element to the manage phase of the ECM process.
The “who” is really about what content people need access to in order to do their jobs based on their role and position in the company and what they need to accomplish. A purchasing agent for example would need access to all content that has been captured that is pertinent to a specific transaction. They don’t need access to job performance reviews though.
The “how” is the way in which they access the content. Once captured, the content will reside in an ECM system that can not only restrict access but also how the content can be consumed. A purchasing agent may be able to view a digitized paper purchase order but not be able to change it or print it for example.
Finding key content is the final key element in the manage phase of Enterprise Content Management.
The information that exists in your organization is useless if you can’t find it. It’s even worse if you have to recreate it. In fact the cost of finding and recreating content is one of the key ROI arguments for deploying Enterprise Content Management.
I hope this post has been helpful in providing a simple and clear overview of the “manage” process for ECM. The key is to aim for the red circle in the graphic above where Organize, Access and Find meet in the middle.
If you have thoughts you’d like to share regarding this post and the manage process please leave a comment below or contact me directly via Linkedin or our contact us form.
Victor Bensusan is CEO of Yakidoo. He has 20 years experience in Finance and Information Technology primarily in the area of process automation, information management and business performance improvement.
In Victor's earlier post entitled: Is There A Simple Way to Define Enterprise Document Management, “Capture” is identified as the first phase in the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) process.
Content is simply any information being produced and received by an organization on a day to day basis.
In the ROI of Enterprise Content Management, I noted that “unstructured” content is growing at roughly 200% annually. This flood of content includes invoices, purchase orders, waybills, emails, spreadsheets, videos, contracts, agreements etc.
This free form content lives in various places including file folders, some one’s brief case, filing cabinets, banker boxes, various file server folders, your employees hard drives and email inboxes – among other places.
According to statistics from PricewaterhouseCoopers, companies on average spend $20 in labor costs to file a document and as much as $120 in labor to find a misfiled document. Companies typically lose one out of every 20 documents and spend 25 hours reproducing it at an average cost of $220 per document.
As a result, many of our capture projects focus on the digitization of paper documents in order to cut costs and improve productivity. There are other driving factors such as compliance and automation as well.
It’s more than just digitizing a document. It’s about extracting the data from that document and placing it into other systems that are integral to your business processes. The diagram below helps illustrate this point.
Forms and documents are scanned and key pieces of information are captured, indexed and imported into key systems. Those that are used to operate your business and manage information productively, particularly in the areas:
To start, you need to decide what you should and what you shouldn’t capture. Capture information that is critical to the success and health of your business. There are generally a core group of documents that house this information. They may be waybills, government forms, purchase orders, forms filled out and signed by your customers. These are the documents that you should consider capturing.
Virtually any content can be captured so that the information can be better used, stored, accessed and managed. What forms or documents piling up on your desk should be captured?
Alfredo De Vanna is CTO of Yakidoo. He has over 10 years of international experience deploying over 80 critical information technology and enterprise content management systems. He is fluent in English and Spanish.
Enterprise Content Management (ECM) can be confusing for the best of us, although this one minute video is pretty good.
When I describe what ECM is to someone there’s a good chance I’ll get a glazed over look. I may get that smile that says “I’m listening and being polite but shouldn’t this ECM thing be a lot simpler to understand?”
Well, maybe talking about ECM during a hockey game or a barbecue isn’t the best time or place, but even when sitting in front of a business leader it’s a big concept to wrap one’s head around.
As you can see above, Wikipedia flags the article with the following issues:
So, while ECM is not the easiest thing to explain, let alone implement, organizations like AIIM and others in the industry are stepping up by offering free research, establishing standards like CMIS, sharing information and expertise through discussion forums, social networks and on blogs. And we must continue to do this!
Our blog and our ECM 101 series is one place, we hope, you can turn to get answers and ask questions. So let’s take a high level look at the ECM process.
There are two diagrams that we use to explain how ECM works. The first is AIIM’s “What in the World is ECM?” It’s a definition and graphic that helps outline the ECM process.
AIIM defines ECM as “Strategies, methods and tools used to capture, manage, store, preserve and deliver content and documents related to key organizational processes
This chevron diagram breaks down the ECM process into these five simple to remember phases. In upcoming posts we’ll cover each one. Next, let's see ECM in action. Here’s a simple scenario of how it would work.
This diagram shows you how content flows through your business when an ECM system is in place.
Unstructured data includes:
Do you have a simple and effective way to define what ECM is? Feel free to add a comment or question below.
Victor Bensusan is CEO of Yakidoo. He has 20 years experience in Finance and Information Technology primarily in the area of process automation, information management and business performance improvement.
