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Design of ECM Systems

Challenges

Implementing an Enterprise Content Management System has some provoking challenges which are depicted in the figure below. Handling of these challenges in an implementation project and further-on in the roll-out, stabilization, evolution and operation phases of the ECM system is crucial as these challenges appear again and again with different strength.

ECM Implementation Challenges
ECM Implementation Challenges

netea supports your enterprise in tackling these challenges. Not only the technical implementation details need to be handled, the management aspects have to be addressed as well. This includes change management during roll-out, operation procedures, and a well defined release and deployment management for system updates and configuration changes.

Phases

The implementation of an Enterprise Content Management System is graduated in six phases  ranging from the first vision to the structured operation and evolution of the system (we silently omitted the tear-down phase).

ECM Implementation Phases
ECM Implementation Phases

When looking at the phases, ECM implementation seems to be yet another business software implementation. But there is an outstanding difference: the ECM system will affect every business employee in your enterprise from administration to sales, engineering, and production. Every single employee deals with business-critical documents and is the owner of information which is of high value for the enterprise. While this information was handled very restrictive in the past and access to it was difficult and expensive, a modern organization has recognized the value and is basing decisions on facts derived from broad information rather than relying on gut instinct.

An ECM system is not just impacting every employee, it will become the one and only home for all the enterprises documents: it will be the keeper of all business knowledge and the archivist for business facts. It will provide evidence for audits, fulfill regulatory requirements, will be a key element for data protection, store information from human relations to accounting and production orders. It is, in other words, the destination and source of every piece of valuable information in the enterprise.

An ECM system is disruptive: it will impact most business workflows and will definitely be a game changer to information archival. Every business email, fax and written communications, orders and contracts, memos and minutes will be stored in the central ECM system. An ECM system should be regarded as a central infrastructure for information preservation and flow. Being an infrastructure component, it is often only indirectly used by users which access the ECM system merely via integrations into other systems like ERP systems or specific access portals.

Keeping these properties of ECM in mind the necessity of a thorough planning and a structured implementation to avoid meanders in the labyrinth of large scale business systems implementation becomes obvious.

Please contact netea for further Information and see how we can help with our expertise.