An Introduction to Enterprise Content Management

Enterprise Content Management

 

Enterprise Content Management basically involves efficiently managing the entire life cycle of content an organization deals with on a regular basis. These set of strategies and procedures enable an organization to keep their critical information stored in a much more effective manner.

 

Conventionally, Enterprise Content Management was considered as a random or an unstructured process to be dealt with particularly back office. However, with the fourth digital revolution in the age of unprecedented technology content is floating everywhere. 

 

With the evolution of new and latest forms of content at an exponential rate, Enterprise Content Management has gained immense prominence, making businesses more interactive and effective. 

 

The content created by a company in its life cycle contains vital customer information and company knowledge. Enterprise Content Management is simply a set of solutions and strategies that efficiently store and automate business content, rapidly increasing the value of data.

 

As compared to the traditional business environments where this content was unstructured and unavailable, Enterprise Content Management has developed the ability of the same data to be of use in engaging customers, automating business processes and enhancing collaborations for boosting brand awareness. 

 

It is a broad spectrum of methods, tools, technologies and strategies that focus on capturing, storing, activating, analyzing and automating business content. Effectively handling Enterprise Content Management can enable an organization to provide critical information to its employees, business stakeholders and customers as and when required.

 

Earlier business content meant tons and tons of papers in the form of invoices, resumes, memos and contracts. But with the latest advancements in technology, content has taken new types and forms of content like audio, video, social media creatives, email, web content and much more.

 

Artificial intelligence, Machine learning, cloud computing and mobile computing have broadened the concept of Enterprise Content Management. ECM encompasses both types of content, whether structured ( in the form of databases or code repositories) or unstructured ( in the form of emails and documents like word files, Excel spreadsheets or PDFs.

 

 

Types of Enterprise Content Management 

 

As mentioned above, Enterprise Content Management is an umbrella term that covers a broad spectrum of content related services. The three most common types of Enterprise Content Management that can be utilised by an organization to provide critical support to their content management services are :

 

1. Web Content Management (WCM)

 

Web Content Management covers regulating the entire framework of the website for an organization. It includes modifying, updating and publishing content to be utilised by the websites.

 

Companies that spend tremendous amounts of time and resources for establishing online brand presence by the means of a successful website, largely need to ensure active and consistent web content management. 

 

2. Collaborative Content Management (CCM)

 

This form of Enterprise Content Management allows for a number of individuals to work on a single project. It is the go to solution for organisations that focus on teams working together on projects and documents. 

 

This enables all the individuals of a team to remain on the same page while editing and finalizing the document. Managing team projects becomes rather easy while working with collaborative content management as all the stakeholders can keep track of all the updates simultaneously.

 

3. Transactional Content Management (TCM)

 

Transactional Content Management is the perfect strategy for businesses with a myriad of content, like official records, paper documents and digital files stored on a multitude of storage platforms. 

 

TCM works closely with content capturing content from a large variety of sources for the effortless classification and effective storage of relevant content. With TCM, organizations can stay assured about the timely delivery of content precisely as and when required to the customers. 

 

The automatic deletion of content files that are no longer required helps in ensuring an automated workflow. It syncs data and all the forms of content from the various sources so that content can be accessible to all the prominent users and stakeholders at all points of time.

 

(Must read: Content Marketing and Big Data)

 

Importance of Enterprise Content Management for organizations

 

The new normal has left a profound impact on the way companies used to work and more specifically the way professionals used to communicate. All the documents, emails, spreadsheets, presentations and other forms of content need to be managed efficiently at a low cost at the same time.

 

If handled appropriately, everyone is able to get unprecedented access to all the content as and when required for making quick and well-informed decisions and keep up with the progress and latest updates.

 

It has led to the extinction of large volumes of paper content that organizations had to deal with before the evolution of ECM strategies and platforms. All the invoices, resumes, memos, files, reports and contracts can be digitized and stored with utmost safety in content repositories.  

 

Right from capturing information, publishing and archiving it to the deletion of useless files hogging up large amounts of space after a particular period, ECM takes care of it all.

 

All the time and resources spent on searching for the right content to be delivered at the right time to the required end point can be allocated elsewhere as and when required. This allows for the effortless reading, editing and printing a copy at the required place and time. 

 

Earlier it was used to reduce and regulate the amounts of paper but now ECM has enabled the effective management of important documents throughout their life cycles, making sure that the entire procedure is pocket-friendly as well. (Source)

 

ECM has made deleting useless and irrelevant files a lot easier, less time-consuming and less complicated. The amount of resources usually spent by an organization on keeping the storage facilities updated at all points of time, has been drastically reduced by making use of Enterprise Content Management strategies and solutions.

 

Enterprise Content Management has also led to effectively reducing the risks of poor communication. As efficient and clear communication can only sustain an organization's growth. 

 

By taking extreme care in managing and monitoring content, Enterprise Content Management enables protection against harmful data breaches and financial cyber attacks.

 

(Similar reading: An Introduction to Content Analysis)

 

 

Ending Note 

 

This blog ends here. It can be concluded that ECM plays a pivotal role in ensuring the timely delivery of content precisely to the right users. We can clearly see how ECM has revolutionized the way organizations used to handle all their content.

 

A good and perfectly curated ECM solution not only helps in handling content properly but also increases productivity at an exponential rate by making all the required content easily accessible. 

 

Moving between the ECM platforms and other enterprise systems enables an organization to identify and easily locate how a particular content piece is being utilized within the ECM platform.