ECM is a Team Sport

In order for ECM to be successful in your organization, you must accept the fact that it will impact every member of your organization, internal and external. ECM should be approached from the top down with customers and partners as the focus. How do you make their experience better and deliver the best quality and highest levels of service in order to grow your business?

Look at the business processes that support these customers and understand the underlying activities to make these processes work. What do your employees do in order to meet the needs of your customers? Before you add technology, it may even be possible to adjust these processes and enhance your business for immediate results. The key is to document the processes and activities, understand how your business works and identify areas of opportunity to make changes that will have positive impact for your customer.

You must also know what documents and data you are dealing with as part of your overall business structure. What information is gathered and when? How is it shared and with whom? Where is it stored and for how long? Who touches it and what do they do with it? How does it move throughout the organization?

Finally you must look at the foundation supporting it all and that is your IT infrastructure. Systems, networks, desktop or delivery vehicles are all vital to making your organization a well oiled machine, not only for today but in the future.

ECM is a team sport that includes every level of your organization from customer to customer service representative; from purchaser to accountant; from legal counsel to IT administrators. They all have a vital role in making your ECM implementation project a success.

Written by Bob Larrivee