Enterprise content management makes the most of what you've got: Complex term, simple idea

Computer Technology Review, Feb, 2003 by Christine Taylor Chudnow

Enterprise Content Management, or ECM, is an umbrella term referring to integrating, optimizing and distributing content throughout an organization. The ECM ideal is to present a single integrated technology that would help companies to locate, manage, protect, and reuse many different content types. There are a lot of types out there: scanned and imported bi-tonal and color images; unstructured documents such as Word, WordPerfect, Excel and PowerPoint; PDF files; vector files for engineering drawings and geographic information systems; data streams from EDI and XML; structured data from e-forms and databases; print streams in PCL, AFP, Metacode, DJDE; video, sound files and graphics files; and web pages.

Since it encompasses so many content types and content management applications, ECM is not so much a monolithic technology as a framework encompassing content management policies and technologies. Most workable ECM systems integrate with a number of other applications and application servers and allow users to continue to use familiar interfaces while maintaining data information and customizing its presentation.

Karen Auman, director of product management for Interwoven, said, "ECM is an umbrella term; it's a term a lot of people have jumped on and there's not a lot of clarity around it." She broke ECM into three areas: "Content integration is the ability to pull any information from any repository; content intelligence, which is the ability to put value on the content you have; and content distribution, which is the geographic distribution. This could be e-learning, portals, internet and extranet." These three qualities allow organizations to assign reasonable TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) to ECM initiatives: integration optimizes existing resources and familiar interfaces, intelligence prioritizes content and allows organizations to manage content lifecycles, and distribution extends content value to the widest possible user base.

Content lifecycle management is important since it allows organizations to protect, store and access content according to its priority and degree of usefulness. Content management company Vignette notes that the content management lifecycle consists of collection, production, delivery and analysis.

Components of ECM

ECM encompasses multiple policies and components, but common objectives do exist:

* Reuse content as objects. Treating content as reusable objects saves money and time by cutting down on re-creation, and keeps the company's message consistent. This also applies to streamlined methods of information access, such easily finding the information you need on a portal website or intranet. For example, IBM and Coca-Cola worked together to manage Coca-Cola's extensive and priceless library of marketing images. Coca-Cola understood its value but also understood that it was hard to manage image use across a huge company with many different marketing directives, campaigns and divisions. Using a content management application and equipment from IBM, the soft drink company created a data repository of official, reusable marketing images from decades of print, radio, television, and web advertising.

* Access and retrieve content. If you can't find it -- or don't know it exists in the first place -- you can't use it. Useful content spans all types of applications, but often exists in content silos that are invisible to other users. Organizations can significantly cut down on their operating costs if they can allow users to search and access content across repositories. ECM tools optimize search results, providing efficient tools for searches and avoiding redundant or off-target hits.

* Speeding up time to market. Effective ECM brings content-dependent products to market faster by allowing developers to efficiently create, access, and reuse content. This process is especially helpful for online data, media and publishing industries.

* Managing content lifecycle. A content lifecycle extends from creation through active use and ends with archiving or deletion. ("Deletion" is not a dirty word, but is an important part of an intelligent lifecycle policy.) Some industries are strictly regulated and must retain their written and electronic records for several years in an easily accessible format. Content lifecycle management also impacts non-regulated industries, where it affects content usage and litigation issues.

To accomplish these objectives, ECM consists of several major technologies. Some of its major components include Electronic Records Management, Document Management! Digital Asset Management and Enterprise Information Portals.

Electronic Records Management

The records management industry defines records as business-related content in final and unchangeable form, which must be retained for a specific period of time. Electronic Record Management (ERM) systems manage record lifecycles, which begin with capture and registration, continue through required retention periods (called "trusted record keeping," meaning that they must be immediately available), and end with timely deletion or archiving. Electronic records can consist of multiple content types including email, captured images of paper records, audio and video files. Recent corporate accounting scandals have tightened the atmosphere of record keeping, maintenance and retrieval. Content management company Documentum, for example, recently acquired TrueArc's technology to beef up its ERM technology. They suggest the following as necessary components of ERM applications: