Understanding enterprise content management (ECM)

What is Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and How Does It Work?

ECM, sometimes referred to as document management or records management, is the process of managing the entire life cycle of an organization’s content, including documents, spreadsheets, contracts, scanned images, photographs, videos, CAD drawings and any other type of document. When choosing an ECM, the goal is to reduce risk and improve productivity, efficiency and customer experience by eliminating paper-based tasks and enhancing process visibility.

What is an ECM solution?

The value of today's ECM solution goes beyond simple scan, store and retrieve capabilities, evolving into comprehensive content management platforms that address broader business challenges and processes with important information contained with documents or other business content.

Traditionally, ECM was primarily focused on static document management, including archival, document storage and collaboration. However, the field has evolved significantly with the introduction of transactional content management (TCM), which integrates closely with business workflows and systems, making ECM more relevant to organizational processes and decision-making.

Modern content solutions are holistic, designed to adapt to changes in technology and work patterns. They help combat information silos by delivering the right information to the right people at the right time, ensuring seamless integration and coordination with business systems across the organization.

Additionally, robust ECM platforms offer centralized repositories that consolidate documents and data from disparate systems. These repositories ensure that all content is stored in a single, secure location, making it easier to manage, search and retrieve information. This centralized approach enhances data governance, improves collaboration and supports compliance with regulatory requirements.

> Read more | Using an electronic document management system (EDMS) as a centralized document repository

Key components of the ECM process

Understanding key components of ECM helps organizations manage their information lifecycle effectively. Here are the key elements of ECM:

• Capture: Modern ECM solutions can capture data from various sources, including physical and digital, while preserving original file types. It uses AI for intelligent processing, automating document sorting and information extraction.


• Management: Entails automating structured business processes, consolidating unstructured information and enhancing case management, without overburdening IT resources.


• Storage: Offers robust storage solutions that secure and protect content while ensuring its appropriate destruction in compliance with legal standards.


• Integration: Seamlessly integrates with existing applications, facilitating efficient workflows and data synchronization without the need for extensive custom coding.


• Accessibility: Provides secure, personalized, integrated and mobile-friendly access to information, ensuring employees and customers can interact with data anytime and anywhere, thereby boosting productivity and enhancing customer service.


• Measurement: Uses real-time analytics and dashboards to provide visibility into processes and system health, allowing for quick decision-making and operational optimization without relying on IT.

The key benefits of effective ECM

Large volumes of incoming and outgoing content can be difficult to track, and it’s no surprise that many organizations struggle to maintain a successful content management strategy.

Here are some ways ECM solutions can benefit an organization.

1. Regulatory compliance

Both internal and external compliance regulations are getting stricter. With the amount of paperwork and documentation that most companies need to keep, it is incredibly difficult to ensure audits are accurately completed in a timely manner when using legacy business processes such as paper or manual work.

An ECM solution facilitates audits and other compliance requirements. It provides structure and security to the entire audit process, allowing teams to exercise greater control over all relevant documents. Armed with this, organizations can create efficiency within their internal processes and subsequently reduce expenses associated with manual operations.

> Read more | View a breakdown of document retention periods and guidelines

2. Control over documents

How would your business succeed if each sales rep worked from a different price list? Or if some were using outdated contracts to finalize sales?

An ECM solution allows for document management and version control. Organizations big and small can centralize all relevant files, provide offline synchronization for remote users and ensure that everyone has access to the latest document versions.

3. Enhanced customer and employee experience

A recent Forrester Consulting study found 78% of content management leaders consider customer experience (CX) a primary objective driving their content management strategy. Unfortunately, paper processes and manual workflows can negatively impact the service provided to customers. Slow response times, lack of one “source of truth” and human-introduced errors can all add up to dissatisfied customers or clients.

An ECM can improve CX with faster turnaround times and better quality control. Additionally, it can help lower costs by freeing up staff from manual tasks and enforcing consistent business practices to ensure accountability and compliance.

Effective ECM solutions also allow for the creation of bespoke user experiences tailored to the specific needs of the organization. Unlike rigid systems that force organizations into predefined workflows and form layouts, modern ECM solutions enable customization, ensuring that user experience and satisfaction remain a priority. This flexibility allows organizations to design and implement user experiences that drive improved interactions and satisfaction for both customers and employees.

4. Useful information management

Effective ECM solutions ensure that the right information reaches the right person, in the right context, at the right time. By centralizing documents and making them easily searchable, ECM systems simplify access to the information employees need for quick and accurate data-driven decision-making.

Employees depend on fast, straightforward methods to find the information necessary to analyze situations and make decisions. Ubiquitous access, efficient search tools and single source to search are all critical when conducting research to make business decisions. Unfortunately, few legacy solutions address these important requirements.

Unlike legacy systems that required everything to be stored within the system’s repository, best-in-class ECM solutions expand their content management services to include other repositories within the enterprise.

These include file shares, content repositories from other ECM systems and content stored within other business systems such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and human resources (HR) systems. By federating results across the enterprise, no major data migration is required to create a single source of the truth.

By seamlessly integrating enterprise repositories, best-in-class systems simplify search and accelerate access to critical information. This virtual “single source of the truth,” allows customers and employees to use one search tool to find information that may be scattered across the enterprise.

5. Streamlined business processes

Efficient business processes are paramount to organizational success and the stability of your bottom line. Whether you’re focused on the big picture or the day-to-day effectiveness of employees, the details of how your information moves through your organization will impact you.

Best-in-class ECM solutions intelligently assemble the right information for decision-making, enhancing employee efficiency and maximizing automation opportunities. By either streamlining employee approvals with relevant data or automating decisions using the right information, these systems improve overall productivity and effectiveness.

Additionally, integrating best-in-class ECM solutions with core applications, such as, enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and human resources (HR) systems ensures that relevant documentation supports business processes.

This seamless integration simplifies decision-making, enabling more informed and faster decisions, ultimately driving better business outcomes.

The right ECM vendor will provide intuitive, native functionality to help your organization get its work done quickly, efficiently and effectively.

> Read more | How to create a business process model

6. Effective digital transformation

Paper documents consume time and space across an organization. Departments like human resources, accounts payable and receivable, and facilities management often experience delays, incomplete information and duplicate work when relying on paper.

Organizations that go paperless often look to ECM solutions because they improve collaboration, drive cost savings and promote better governance over data. They facilitate electronic archival access, ensuring that documents are easily retrievable and securely stored. Moreover, ECM solutions integrate seamlessly with digital processes, enabling organizations to connect and automate business functions.

By embracing digital transformation through ECM solutions, organizations can enhance efficiency, reduce costs and improve overall productivity, paving the way for an agile and responsive business environment.

> Learn more | Digitize and streamline invoice approval process

Choosing the right ECM platform

Selecting the right ECM platform is crucial for optimizing your organization’s content management processes. Here are some key factors to consider:

• Cloud native: Opting for a cloud-based ECM solution offers scalability, flexibility and accessibility, allowing users to access content from anywhere while reducing infrastructure cost and maintenance.


• Deployment flexibility: Pick an ECM platform that supports cloud, on-premises and hybrid deployments, driven by concerns about exposing risks around sensitive intellectual property (IP), personally identifiable information (PII) or industry regulatory requirements.


• Top-notch security: Look for an ECM platform that offers robust security features, including access control, document tracking and compliance with industry regulations.


• Integration capabilities: Your ECM selection should seamlessly integrate with other business applications and systems, allowing for efficient data exchange and workflow interoperability.


• Automation: Select an ECM platform that can leverage robotic process automation (RPA) to streamline repetitive tasks and processes using features like data capture and workflow automation, improving efficiency across the organization.


• AI-powered: Use a modern ECM platform that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to power document capture, separation, classification and data extraction, leading to faster decision-making and improved insights.


• Scalability: Ensure your ECM platform can grow with your organization, the growing volume of content and the evolving remote work environment without compromising performance.


• Low-code/no-code capabilities: Choose an ECM platform with a user-friendly visual interface that empowers users to create and customize workflows and applications without extensive programming knowledge, lessening the IT team’s workload and speeding up project completion.


• Reputable vendors: Partner with reputable ECM vendors recognized for their industry leadership and innovation as they guarantee ongoing support, updates and maintenance, as well as access to an ecosystem of resources and services.

>Read more | Accelerate modernization with enterprise content services in the cloud

Embracing ECM for future success

Content — and an organization’s ability to use it to drive efficiency and business insights — has never been more integral to the success of an enterprise. With today’s speed of business, technology innovations like cloud computing, AI and intelligent automation will be a deciding factor in how an organization can keep up.

Hyland’s suite of enterprise content management platforms and process automation tools are an easy win for modernizing your technology strategy and innovating for a competitive future. As industry leaders, Hyland services customers across industries and across enterprises, with solutions for any department.

Explore Hyland’s ECM solutions