How many times have you faced similar situations within your organization when it comes to ECM Enterprise Content Management issues?
- I cannot find a document, someone erased it.
- I need to find documentation to prepare a presentation for my boss, I have a hard time searching on the file server for similar documents that serve as example or model.
- Someone has modified a document and I cannot retrieve an earlier version.
- I cannot work from home because I can’t access the file server due to our VPN being very slow.
Content management for many organizations is carried out using file servers and shared folders to store their content. In many cases this develops headaches, both for the end users and those responsible for managing such file servers.
The content management software market offers endless possibilities but companies and organizations has different business needs. Choosing the right enterprise content mangement software involves in-depth analysis. Not only for their business requirements, but features, suppliers, user adoption and ease-of-use are all aspects that need to be considered during the selection process.
Document Management Programs by Sector
Each occupational sector works with a series of essential characteristics that are defined by the industry. For example, in the case of document management in the legal sector, it is essential to consider the immense amount of documentation generated daily, mainly on paper. Having the help of a powerful scanner with which to digitize the documents and later store them in an efficient and fast document manager is vital in this sector.
There are many other peculiarities that make the sectors a specialization in the market of document and content management programs. The acquisition of a system that meets all the requirements for your industry will drive ROI not only in terms of money, but also in time and efficiency.
Document Management and Content Programs According to the Type of Company
Even in cases where a specific solution is acquired for a sector, companies have individual particularities. Given the size, mobility, simplicity or even the operating system, companies can look for specific and essential aspects. This is the case, for example, for companies with large numbers of workers outside the office. These types of companies will look for a solution that favors mobility.
Special Documents and Software
The general tendency of document and content management programs is to work with documents of the most popular formats known by most workers. However, there are many formats that, even to a lesser extent, are the basis of work for some companies. In the process of selecting a documentary manager, the company must know in depth what kind of documents or files it handles and make a consistent choice with that aspect. Not only it is important to know what formats they support, but to what extent they do. There are, for example, programs that allow the visualization of many formats, but do not allow the modification or creation of these within the parameters of the documentary manager.
Document and Content Management Programs by Popularity
The market for business management programs is very broad, but not all are equally well-known. Large brands with large market shares tend to appear more frequently in the later stages of decision making. However, there are many tools that do not have the diffusion of the big brands but that offer powerful and effective solutions for many companies. During the process of selecting a documentary manager, the company should rely on analyzing all possible options. Only in this way will they be able to acquire the best program for their organization.
What Functions Should Your Document Manager Have?
Functions
Document management and content programs can also be selected in relation to the functions they offer. Most document managers present many common characteristics that can be understood as basic, however, may not be sufficient for some companies. For example, the scanning of physical documents for digitization is the first phase of the work process. This function is offered by all the programs on the market, however, not all are complemented by optical character recognition. This aspect allows the company to work the text from a document scanned in the predetermined word processor. The list of functions that a document management program can offer is broad.
Comparison of ECM tools
Here are the top 6 content and document management systems that are available today:
- FileNet
- SharePoint
- OpenText
- Documentum
- Alfresco
- Nuxeo
ECM Platform Comparison Chart
Some Insights:
- Nuxeo obtains the Best Practice (complete circle) for the competitiveness in the costs. It is a rather interesting achievement, and more in the present times of economic uncertainty, and may be due to using the most open productive model of all the contenders.
- SharePoint’s main objectives are to allow for a collaborative work environment and to share information quickly and safely. Microsoft SharePoint can be contracted as a service (SharePoint Online), installed as a server in the local infrastructure and also allows hybrid environments. The new trend of Microsoft SharePoint is based on the growth of companies that decide to start using and working in the cloud, so its development has considered the usability of previous versions of the system and emerging trends. Among them stands completely aligned with Microsoft’s strategy: mobile-first, that is, the tendency to support the development of enterprise intranets in the mobile world. Microsoft SharePoint is a Document Management Solution that encourages the idea of sharing content and collaborating on it from anywhere and from any device.
- Integration – Both Alfresco and Nuxeo are below OpenText and SharePoint, something also surprising given the efforts of both document management companies. Open source platforms are making great efforts in integrating standard CMIS (Content Management Interoperability Services) integrations with WCM (Web Content Management) tools such as Drupal integrating with Alfresco and integrations with collaborative tools like Nuxeo’s integration with Open Social.
To conclude, in many of these cases, enterprise content and document management over a file server ends up becoming more efficient and cost effective across the board. The use of SharePoint as a document management system allows for a giant leap in this area, greatly improving the collaborative work environment and the day-to-day work efficiencies for the end user.
What ECM tool does your organization use?
What do you like most about it?
Where would you like to see improvement?
Please comment below, we love feedback and want to learn more about the pros and cons of ECM tools.
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