Why go for ECM instead of point solutions?

I meet a lot of people who are implementing EDMS, ERMS or WCM in one division or department without any enterprise strategy or instruments such as a corporate metadata model, security model, controlled vocabulary and/or business classification scheme. People want to see quick ROIs and a proof of concept, and they forget the long term implications of solving problems ad-hoc without any corporate directions or guidelines.

For example; how did large corporations buy computers and servers in the early and mid 90s? Many departments could buy whatever they wanted, even Macs, as long as they could support it locally. One of my customers at that time was the largest hospital on the west coast of Norway and the local “IT manager” at many departments was a surgeon or doctor with an interest in IT. They supported the local department, but at a high costs and poor continuity. Many organizations are now implementing document, records and process management solutions the same way, and a bank in London informed me last year that they currently have 23 different document management systems…

A corporate strategy and consolidation makes sense to reduce support costs and license fees, but first of all to improve content collaboration, compliance and continuity across the organization. A first step may be to establish an Information Governance Framework that is responsible for developing and maintaining corporate instruments and tools, and try to standardize on only a few solution providers.