How much time and effort do the employees of your organization spend every year looking for key documents, missing reports, e-mail authorizing an action, or data files with important information for verifying some corporate action or making business decisions? Implementing an ECM system or digital initiative that makes your business processes be more efficient can be a major opportunity for your organization.

The purpose of ECM is to manage the inefficiency of paper-based workflows, the unnecessary time wasted on data security and time-consuming processes of searching relevant information. The main goal of ECM is to digitize, manage and exploit the value of your organization-related content and information. Your business structure will increase significantly in efficiency and your employees will improve their knowledge about assessing data immediately.

Each business, from start-ups to enterprises, generates and consumes volumes of digital content and document. The primary opportunity is organizing and storing the data and making it available for simpler searching and analysis. Your organization needs help to store, collaborate, manage, protect, and perform business actions on your information. This is where a robust ECM solution comes in.

Common ECM Pitfalls

There are numerous common pitfalls that are leading organizations to consider new ECM solutions. Many organizations have given little thought on how they govern their content. This is the reason why many content deployments are facing failures.

Specifically, the biggest pitfall for an organization in terms of content management is a lack of devoting sufficient attention and resources to their business processes before moving to a new project. In order to succeed in an era where digital content is key for so many services and industries, it is crucial to plan, optimize and manage business processes. And, to make it even worse, many organizations are unwilling to invest in external assistance from an ECM consulting firm that brings years of best practices, while freeing internal resources to handle other important tasks.

Solutions

There is no reason for your organization to continue wasting time and other resources with an outdated and inefficient enterprise content management system. Admitting that your organization has a problem and discovering where your trouble areas are, is the first step to start off. With a better perception of the challenges and issues your organization is facing in terms of content management, it is simpler to get team members and leaders to see that investing in a modern ECM system and updating the processes and tools will be a huge benefit at the end.

An experienced external ECM consulting team can assist your organization to implement a modern system and optimize processes to obtain knowledge, information and data resources. These are just some of the services your organization can benefit from, as you go adopt a modern ECM system:

• Information Governance and Strategy
• Cloud Strategy
• Digitization and Document Management
• Business Process optimization
• Records Management
• Change Management
• Operations and Maintenance Support

Your organization may not need a new ECM system – the current system may have the capabilities to meet your requirements however your organization lacks the expertise to maximize the value of your IT investment. An ECM Assessment can be done providing the following services:

• Work closely with your team and understand the complexities of your organization’s challenges and document concerns.
• Evaluate the performance of your current ECM system and what strategies are currently in place.
• Acquire a greater knowledge and understanding of the gaps in your current system abilities and what is desired for the new ECM system.
• Establish business case containing calculated cost and benefits for each phase of your ECM journey.
• Advocate and align recommended solution outcomes with the goals of your organization.

There are still many organizations struggling to move past the paper-based filing systems, so no matter how far your organization needs to go to achieve more efficiency, Armedia can help! Since 2002, we have supported over 100 ECM initiatives across a wide range of public and private enterprises.

Once hired, we would perform the following services if they have not been done to govern the organizations’ digital transformation:

1. Functional practices and gaps. Here, we evaluate gaps in the organization’s current practices, followed by consulting services like content governance plan, gap analysis, and roadmap.
2. Technical requirements. Here, we assess the viability of your current ECM tools and technologies and assist the organization in making an informed selection.

These services would culminate in Armedia presenting a composite ECM transition roadmap and recommendations for prioritizing enterprise content management opportunity initiatives.

Key Takeaways

Working with an external team like Armedia can accelerate your organizations’ digital transformation and avoid some of the pitfalls of selecting a product and expecting everything to work out by giving your team a few weeks of product training.  If you are considering a digital initiative, let’s have a conversation.