A Guide to Enterprise Content Management Strategy

It’s the information age, and businesses that leverage their information data effectively can gain a formidable competitive advantage. A strong ECM or enterprise content management strategy can help organizations use content workflows effectively and securely in their day-to-day operations.

Enterprise content management oversees the governance of information in an organization, regardless of how it exists (for example, physical or digital documents). A formalized strategy paired with the right tools is critical, particularly for businesses producing large amounts of content daily.

This article will focus on the importance of enterprise content management for modern businesses and discuss the role of different tools – such as MST’s HTML5 eViewer – in implementing a foolproof ECM strategy.

What Is Enterprise Content Management?

Enterprise content management, or ECM, refers to system applications and tools that help an organization capture, organize, store, and deliver information to its employees, customers, or other stakeholders.

It’s also interchangeable with record or document management, as business content often comprises records and files. As companies today deal with diverse forms of content, the approach to enterprise content management has significantly evolved.

Generally speaking, enterprise content management solutions provide central control over how information and data is stored and processed, aligning with business needs and goals. They define how information, such as documents, is shared with different stakeholders and how it can be used.

Content has a lifecycle, from when it’s first created or acquired, to when it’s disposed of. Therefore, there are different components in enterprise content management relating to the content lifecycle.

Enterprise content management strategies and tools can vary depending on the business’s niche. For instance, an organization managing web content would typically use a web content management system. So, there’s no universal one-size-fits-all enterprise content management platform.

Importance of an Enterprise Content Management Strategy

As businesses expand, the complexity of sharing, accessing, and storing content increases. Then, there’s the ever-increasing threat of security breaches, which can compromise critical information (customer records, financial statements, patents, etc.). So, effective enterprise content management is essential for an organization’s survival.

Here are all the benefits of enterprise content management that make it so crucial for modern businesses:

• More Control and Organization: The primary goal of having an enterprise content management system is to organize information data, and control how it’s used and shared. It is a centralized approach to managing content, which, in turn, makes it easier to implement information and security policies. As a result, workflows are more streamlined with defined processes for teams and workers.
• Easy Access and Versioning: Employees depend on information availability to complete their tasks. Whether the content consists of documents, images, spreadsheets, videos, or audio recordings, it has to be accessible to the right employees. Similarly, in scenarios where content is regularly changing, you need a versioning system that makes it easier to know which documents are the most current, and track and review changes. A comprehensive enterprise content management strategy will account for access and version controls.
• Cost Savings: Enterprise content management software can help you save on operational costs. For starters, it can eliminate the need for paper-based documents via digitization. Also, it can save money by maximizing storage utilization efficiency (no duplicate or unnecessary content). Lastly, it can prevent productivity loss by saving employees time to locate content due to advanced search capabilities.
• Maintaining Security: Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems maintain data security through a combination of robust features and practices designed to protect sensitive information. These systems implement advanced encryption protocols both for data at rest and in transit, ensuring that unauthorized access is prevented. Access control mechanisms, such as role-based access and authentication processes, are used to restrict data visibility and actions to authorized users only. The best ECM systems also often include audit trails and logging capabilities, which track and record all user activities, helping in monitoring for suspicious behavior and facilitating compliance with regulations. By integrating these various security measures, ECM systems help organizations safeguard their critical information against potential threats and breaches. The right ECM tool will enable better controls for access and retrieval that complement the overall security strategy. With ECM, companies can address internal threats by defining and implementing access policies.
• Increase in Productivity: Employees don’t have to spend much time looking for files or code repositories. ECM systems enhance productivity by streamlining the organization, storage, retrieval, and management of documents and data across an enterprise. They automate routine processes, such as document capture, classification, and routing, reducing the time employees spend on manual tasks. By providing a centralized repository, ECM systems improve collaboration among teams, allowing multiple users to work on documents simultaneously while ensuring version control. Integration with other enterprise applications ensures seamless data flow across different departments, minimizing duplication of efforts. Additionally, workflow automation tools within ECM systems help standardize processes, reduce errors, and ensure tasks are completed promptly, all contributing to a more efficient and productive work environment.
• Compliance and Risk Management: Many organizations must comply with data handling and privacy regulations. For example, healthcare and insurance companies must comply with HIPAA regulations that protect patient information. A content management strategy that prioritizes security ensures that information doesn’t end up in the wrong hands, helping with compliance.

Components of an Effective Enterprise Content Management

The Association for Intelligent Information Management (AIIM) identifies five core components that form the foundation of effective content management. These components work together to ensure that information is captured, organized, readily available, protected, and delivered to those who need it.

Capture

The capture component focuses on bringing information into a manageable electronic format. This can involve:

• Scanning physical documents like invoices, contracts, or research reports to create digital copies.
• Importing electronic files from multiple sources into a central system.
• Form data collection: Capturing information directly from electronic forms used for applications, surveys, or internal processes.

MST eViewer offers diverse document capture features, ranging from optical character recognition to file format conversion. It can help businesses turn physical documents into searchable digital files.

Manage

Once information is captured, it must be organized for easy access and use. The management component utilizes tools such as:

• Document management systems (DMS): Centralized repositories for storing, organizing, and retrieving digital documents.
• Collaborative software: Platforms that enable teams to work together on documents and projects in real-time.
• Web content management (WCM): Systems for creating, editing, and publishing content on websites, such as blogs.
• Records management: The practice of classifying, storing, archiving, and disposing of information according to set guidelines.

Store

Storing information involves keeping it readily accessible for current use. This component uses:

• On-prem storage: Having dedicated servers, managed on site to store all of the organization’s files. This enables the organization to have full control of the documents as well as managing backups.
• Cloud-based storage: Cloud-based storage for documents and files, such as Google Drive and Box are readily available, scalable, and accessible from anywhere. Or companies can set up their own cloud storage on AWS and Microsoft Azure.

Preserve

Preserving information ensures its long-term accessibility and compliance with regulations. This component focuses on:

• Archiving systems: Solutions for storing information securely over extended periods, often used for records management.
• Data backup: Regularly creating copies of information stored elsewhere for disaster recovery purposes.

Delivery

The final component ensures information reaches those who need and have the privileges for it. This involves:

• Search functionalities: Allowing users to find specific information within the system quickly and efficiently.
• Access controls: Setting permissions to regulate who can view, edit, or share information.
• Display: Displaying the content correctly in any format, and on any device.
• Reporting tools: Generating reports and summaries based on the stored information.

By effectively managing these five core components, organizations can ensure their information is well-organized, secure, and readily available to support informed decision-making and efficient operations.

Steps to Develop an ECM Strategy

Business content management requires a solid strategy paired with reliable tools. Let’s explore ECM strategy development step-by-step:

Conducting a Content Audit

Begin by understanding your content needs and use. An audit of content structures and operations inside and outside the organization can achieve this. Learn how workers collect, store, share, and dispose of data.

Of course, the kind of content depends on the organization’s industry, niche, and goals. It may also vary from one department to another. For example, a development company would deal with content consisting of requirements documentation, whitepapers, code, technical documentation, and even web content if it has a website or blog.

With the audit, answer the following:

• Data architecture: How is information stored?
• Categorization: What type of content is produced and shared across teams?
• Naming schemes: Is there any particular naming scheme utilized for content organization?
• Policies: Are there any policies regarding access and use of content?

Defining Goals and Objectives

The very purpose of having a strategy is to achieve a specific goal. So, your ECM strategy wouldn’t be complete without well-defined objectives.

It’s best to revisit your business goals and tie your content strategy objectives to them.

For example, a company’s business goal is to reduce the time it takes to resolve customer queries. That goal can translate into several objectives within its ECM strategy. These objectives may include quick access to customer information by support staff or the availability of customer-facing content (blogs, tutorials, FAQs, etc.) to help solve issues.

Involving Key Stakeholders

Include important stakeholders in creating the ECM strategy. These may include employees who use content daily. If you’re a B2C company with content shared with consumers directly, it may help to get feedback from them.

As these stakeholders are the ones utilizing the content, they can be immensely helpful in identifying issues in current content management practices.

Selecting Appropriate ECM Tools and Technologies

ECM is an umbrella term for several technologies that help companies manage their content. While there are full-fledged ECM solutions for large enterprises, most organizations may benefit from implementing multiple solutions per their needs using a best-of-breed approach.

For example, a web content management system (WCMS) can manage and present web content (blogs or media). Similarly, a document management system (DMS) can enable the secure storage, organization, and sharing of documents.

Some of the most notable ECM solutions include Alfresco, IBM FileNet, Microsoft SharePoint/Office 365, and OpenText – all of which MST’s solutions integrate via exposed API functionality.
Pay attention to the enterprise content management features a solution offers and what problems they help solve.

Creating a Roadmap and Timeline

A well-defined roadmap and timeline are crucial for a successful ECM strategy. This initial phase involves outlining the specific goals you want to achieve with your ECM system, identifying the content you will migrate or capture, and prioritizing tasks based on importance and urgency.

Your timeline should be realistic and factor in resource availability, budget constraints, and potential dependencies between different implementation stages. Defining clear milestones throughout the roadmap will keep the project on track and ensure measurable progress.

What to Consider When Implementing an ECM in Your Organization

To ensure that an enterprise content management system offers success, here’s what you should do:

• Follow Best Practices for Implementation — Ensure you take a comprehensive approach to ECM, involving key stakeholders, identifying business goals, and prioritizing document security management at every point.
• Training and Support for Users — Provide adequate training to employees to use whatever ECM tools you implement and ensure they’re taking advantage of them and not making errors.
• Continuous Improvement and Updates — Assess the effectiveness of your strategy and the tools you’ve invested in to improve content management procedures and policies continuously.
• Measuring Success with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) — Set KPIs to measure the success of your efforts, such as adoption rate, latency, document retrieval time, number of non-compliance incidents, or customer satisfaction (whichever is relevant to your business).
• Addressing Challenges and Troubleshooting — Pivot your strategy and ECM solutions to address common challenges like information silos, security vulnerabilities, and non-compliance.

How MST’s Solutions Factor into Your Enterprise Content Management Strategy

MST’s document viewing solutions can be integrated with any ECM platform either by their in-house developed connectors or via APIs – this is why it is so popular. The eViewer and Batch Converter tools can complement ECM functionalities and realize ECM strategy goals such as secure sharing or standardized format.

Integrating eViewer or Batch Converter with your existing ECM solution allows your users to securely access all your documents and files, including sensitive files, digitally signing forms, annotating them for workflows, or converting files into a specific format, from virtually anywhere.

Here’s how you can leverage MST’s features for your ECM solution:

• Document Viewing and Management — High-fidelity document viewing across various platforms, supporting multiple file formats including audio and video files.
• Security and Compliance — Secure AI-based redaction to permanently remove sensitive information from documents without compromising the original.
• Collaboration – Enable your users to view existing annotations and create new annotations, including custom stamps.
• Digital Signatures — Secure and verifiable document signing, essential for legal and regulatory compliance. Take a look at our guide ‘Understanding Digital Signatures’ to find out more.
• Bulk Conversion — Time-saving, automatic, and simultaneous conversion of many documents from various formats to a specific format.

Conclusion

Enterprise content management is incredibly important for large organizations dealing with huge amounts of content in various capacities. A centralized system with clearly defined policies can streamline workflows and allow the content to better serve its purpose.

Among the benefits of ECM are increased usability, security, and content reliability, whether it’s documents, media, or code.

Empowered with a strong enterprise content management strategy and efficient tools, you can optimize how content is used across teams and operations.

MST eViewer and Batch Converter are designed to complement ECM systems, blending in seamlessly to increase their functionality, usability, and longevity of the system.

Learn what MST can do for you!