Don't Have One without The Other
To have or have not a system to manage digital documents and content is a question that all business stakeholders will ask or be asked at some point this year if not already. The rise of ECM (Electronic Content Management Systems) has meant that there is an alternative to filing cabinets and lengthy searches for information and documents that wasn't always real or a choice. The adage of people, technology and processes being a necessary trinity to allow a justifiable and efficient flow of information in either medium or indeed a hybrid business world is true. Having one without the other is loss making and counterproductive. For example imagine having people and technology but no process. You would be like a rabbit caught in the headlights - aware but incapable.
Imagine too the scenario of people and processes but no technology. I remember trying to get a date before mobiles and walking miles just to find a payphone and then discovering I'd lost the number! This is still a portrait of many businesses in Ireland and the UK and reflects lack of leadership and vision because there is a better way. not only to get a date but also to manage business critical information.
Having people using smart technology that can accommodate good process workflow is only part of what should be a quartet though. There is no point in any system. ECM, ERM, EDM or otherwise unless the content is within reach. Giving users the tools but not the information is key to buy-in, adoption, productivity and expansion to a better way of working across all areas of an organisation or business. This ability to access any information immediately from a central hub or archive is a game changer but the information needs to be present in order to be found. Let me caveat that last statement: Information needs to be searchable and classified, structured and unstructured. If you want it to be found it needs to be done in a way and to a methodology that adopts best practice and outputs relevant and meaningful content to a taxonomy or file plan that is both familiar and accurate.
Bear in mind also that the shadow of GDPR looms and next year will arrive faster than the summer ends. The replacement of two outdated pieces of legislation with one with bigger teeth! Protect your customer and your own data that makes up your business' information archive and make it accessible. Don't leave it in the filing cabinet or somewhere you can't find it when you need it. Make it work for you.
There is more than one way to gut a rabbit. Talk to people like Kefron who understand the pitfalls of badly managed migration, capture and integration.
Look around you and ask would you be better of with the paper at your feet, in a cabinet, in a file locked away in a box or the right stuff available immediately in an agile application from your mobile, desktop or tablet?
Putting people together with information is technology's job and making it work for the business is down to processes but it needs to be there to start with. Let ECM be the glove but the hand is information. Without the latter technology is just another piece of the furniture.