Content at Work

It’s not enough to “manage” content. Of course, the ability to access the correct version of a document or record is important, but companies must go further. Content must be managed so that it is used to achieve business goals. Central to this strategy are the tools and technologies of ECM, which manage the complete lifecycle of content, birth to death. To drive understanding of these tools, this article highlights a typical process for a piece of content as well as four primary areas in which content, and ECM, is fundamental to the success of your company: Compliance, Collaboration, Continuity, and Cost.

While there are ECM technologies, more importantly, ECM is an ongoing and evolving strategy for maximizing how your content is to be used. Use the information below as a starting point to review a common content lifecycle. Map a current process to see where you may find overlap and room for improvement for the applications and strategies that your business is developing. The information below only hints at the complexity inherent in any process that deals with managing an organization’s content. As always, you must match up the technology tools to address YOUR businesses needs. Technology can enable streamlined management of content, but the underlying strategy must come first.