ECM in 2008: A Look Back

By James Thumma, VP of Sales and Marketing, Optical Image Technology

(This article originally appeared in a December 2008 publication of ECM Connection)

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We’ve seen a lot of changes in 2008. For most of the year, rising gas prices affected businesses, employees, and even food prices. Unemployment was on the rise, and the housing market suffered a serious blow. Bill Gates bid farewell to an empire, and a young swimmer from Baltimore set an Olympic record with eight gold medals. A riveting presidential election energized much of the nation, while at the same time an economic bailout generated controversy. And I’m sure that Paris Hilton was up to something, but I don’t really care what.

A review of the past year wouldn’t be complete without acknowledging one disturbing trend. As Bill Clinton was fond of saying, “It’s the economy, stupid!” And this year, in spite of the historic presidential race, it’s still the economy that continues to dominate the business world. Anyone who is purposely avoiding a look at his or her 401K account can probably attest to that.

In times of a tight economy, one of the first things people do is identify areas where they can cut fat. Similarly, businesses need to look for ways to gain efficiencies. During the first half of the year, many businesses started projects and searched for ECM solutions (this scenario occurs regularly almost every year). But in the second half of the year, as the economy struggled, a number of these businesses panicked and stalled projects. Others—seeing the need for ECM technology growth as times got tough—forged ahead.

Organizations that didn’t find a way to compete were usually either bought up or put out of business. Those that were unaffected by mergers and acquisitions were usually able to stay in business because they either have no competitors (which is rare) or they have found a better mouse trap than the competition. And enterprise content management (ECM) is a better mouse trap compared to paper and manual processes.

Businesses with the foresight to implement ECM were successful in releasing information that was previously locked within their unstructured documents. ECM enabled them to get that information to the right people with greater efficiency. Indeed, to thrive in the 2008 corporate environment, efficiency and lean processing were essential.

Records management: Addressing disaster recovery concerns while minimizing risk

In 2008, records management strategies started to achieve equal status with business process management initiatives. And ECM performed a pivotal role in organizations’ efforts to capture, identify, classify, and process records before enabling them to manage their records with automated retention, disposition, and long-term storage. It also provided organizations with disaster recovery options that are unavailable in a paper-based system. At a time when regulatory issues are at the forefront of our agendas, ECM solutions are leading the way toward compliance.

Legal and regulatory demands were more stringent than ever before, and penalties for noncompliance were more severe. And in the contemporary business climate, smaller organizations were not absolved from these regulations. 2008 saw increased usage of ECM to ensure that records were not accidentally destroyed prior to—or held beyond— their mandated retention times. ECM was the tool that enabled businesses to automatically migrate records to cost-effective storage media after they had exceeded the active stages of the document lifecycle. Records migration ensures that retrieval of active records is not hindered by a lack of storage space in the document repository. After an initial configuration, ECM systems with hierarchical storage capabilities make all of these benefits possible without human intervention.

2008 was no stranger to natural disasters, threats of sabotage, and abnormal weather episodes. More organizations turned to their ECM systems to enact disaster recovery measures and to establish audit trails as part of their records management efforts. ECM enabled them to copy documents to off-site storage or to multiple servers at multiple sites. At the same time, it removed the potential for human error.

Doing more with less by linking IT to business processes initiatives

Businesses are constantly looking for ways to process their work faster, with fewer staff. The global financial crisis of 2008 provided incentive for organizations to pursue this objective in earnest. And in the past year, more organizations used ECM to support enterprise-wide business process management (BPM) initiatives. In the past, it was tempting to use ECM systems solely for storage and retrieval. But budget cuts and economic downturns have empowered businesses to think beyond the electronic filing cabinet mentality.

More businesses discovered the benefits associated with automated workflow, and used it to electronically route documents for routine processing while moving difficult work to the forefront (and to the experts). This leveled the playing field for smaller organizations that traditionally had difficulty competing with industry giants. Workflow also helped companies to demonstrate who accessed which documents, which assisted their compliance efforts.

When organizations were able to couple workflow with electronic forms and barcodes, processing was optimized even further. Customers were able to submit forms over the web. In cases where forms processing did not require human intervention, customers could receive immediate feedback regarding their submissions. 2008 also marked a time when more organizations barcoded outgoing mail. This expedited processing by allowing mail to be immediately launched into a workflow upon its return.

2008 was also a time when businesses faced increasing pressure to be able to produce information on demand. In the new world order, clients, employees, and partners alike have become more self-reliant than ever before and expect selfservice options. BPM allows businesses to automate many straightforward processes and allow highly trained staff to focus on the exceptions. This provides better, faster, and more efficient service to customers and in many cases offers selfservice options.

BPM metrics also helped businesses out-perform their competitors last year. They provide a dashboard through which administrators were able to monitor their entire systems — including application status, database operation, network functions, and business process status—all from a single screen. As a result, organizations could identify bottlenecks and slowdowns preemptively. Metrics also helped organizations make better business decisions and identify potential problems before they became serious.

Taking advantage of ECM expertise

Even within the same industry, organizations’ needs are often vastly different from one another. A major trend of the past year was an increase in the use of consultants and service professionals to optimize and personalize ECM systems. And as organizations discovered, an investment in a professional consultation often meant the difference between the success and failure of a new ECM implementation.

Professionals with decades of ECM expertise were able to provide insight as to how to better leverage new or past investments in ECM technology. Business process analysts worked closely with organizations to understand not only everyday business needs from a user perspective, but the cultural and environmental needs of an organization. After they developed a clear understanding of the objectives of existing routine processes, they were able to make recommendations for successful automation projects.

Even organizations with established ECM systems sought input from industry professionals. Whether their objectives were email management, integration with legacy systems and other software, straight through processing, or overall increases in efficiency, businesses that invested in professional consultant services found that their return on investment was significant.

Looking ahead to 2009

As we forge ahead to 2009, the economy looks dismal. Joblessness is on the rise, there is talk of recession, and the effects of the plummeting stock market are reverberating around the world. Time will tell whether our President-elect’s appointment of a Chief Technology Officer will have an impact on our business processes.

Meanwhile, in spite of the fact that stores are closing and layoffs are becoming commonplace, some organizations are prospering. They are not worried about economic uncertainty, because business is booming. How are they thriving in a sagging economy? Successful organizations have explored and implemented the benefits that ECM has to offer. They have improved turnaround by optimizing their processing abilities. They have tackled their inefficiencies to become more streamlined and responsive to customer inquiries. Isn’t it time that you did the same?

Optical Image Technology offers an integrated suite of imaging, document management, and workflow software, including document archiving, lifecycle management, electronic forms, and email management products. To learn more about our products and services, visit our website at www.docfinity.com, or call us at 800-678-3241.

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