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Develop an Enterprise Content Management Strategy and Roadmap

Organize your documents and files to make your content findable.

Organizations face several content management challenges:

  • Understanding and adhering to the right laws for your jurisdiction and industry.
  • Optimizing contract processing workflows.
  • Changing the culture from email and paper processing.
  • Ensuring you have a records and information management and workflow foundation in place.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • ECM is critical to organizational survival. ECM underpins effective information management, which is vital to surviving and thriving in the Digital Revolution.
  • Engage many hands to make light work. Changing your ECM capabilities is about changing organizational behavior; take an all-hands-on-deck approach to make the most of information gathering, create a vested interest, and secure buy-in.
  • ECM is a living, breathing thing. World-class ECM capabilities are not built overnight; be realistic about what you can achieve in this iteration based on your maturity.
  • ECM is a business strategy, not an IT service. Modern content management is designed to be business driven and managed. Engage business users early and often in the ECM strategy and apply design thinking to the solution.

Impact and Result

  • Establish a starting point and determine what is in scope for your ECM strategy to get the most value from your project.
  • Conduct an operational assessment to find out what your people need.
  • Create a roadmap that will bring your future-state ECM capability visions to life.
  • Kick-start project execution with a comprehensive ECM roadmap execution toolkit.
  • Empower your content managers and users with an understanding of best practices for being active information stewards.

Develop an Enterprise Content Management Strategy and Roadmap Research & Tools

1. Kick off the ECM strategy project

Define the scope of your ECM strategy, outline strategic objectives, assign roles and responsibilities, and gain project approval.

2. Understand the current ECM operations and determine the future ECM capability

Conduct an ECM operational assessment, identify improvement opportunities, and determine future-state visions for your ECM capability.

3. Develop, socialize, and execute the ECM roadmap

Select and scope work initiatives to build and execute your ECM strategy roadmap.


Member Testimonials

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.

8.3/10


Overall Impact

$79,580


Average $ Saved

25


Average Days Saved

Client

Experience

Impact

$ Saved

Days Saved

Connecticut Water Company

Workshop

6/10

$13,700

10

Best: tools provided were very detailed, breaks allotted, knowledgeable expert. Worst: time taken away from work duties, alignment with our expect... Read More

Waimakariri District Council

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

2

County of Inyo

Guided Implementation

8/10

$68,500

5

McLean County, IL

Guided Implementation

7/10

$13,700

50

The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited

Guided Implementation

8/10

$19,865

10

More time was needed to complete some of the discussion. Need more coordination with the NGC team to focus the discussion for each session so that ... Read More

TransAlta Corporation

Guided Implementation

9/10

$10,000

20

Worst: At the beginning the conversation was too high level Best: After we got aligned with the topic; the analyst provided excellent content.

Heritage Co-op 1997 Ltd.

Guided Implementation

10/10

$50,000

50

Jennison Associates

Guided Implementation

7/10

N/A

N/A

I was disappointed that they don't have anything on Microsoft Purview, since MSFT is a big player in this space.

The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited

Workshop

9/10

$548K

90

The best part of the experience was the expert facilitation provided by the very experienced and knowledgeable Info-Tech Research Group consultant ... Read More

University of Maribor

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

N/A

Clear communication, a prompt follow-up as promised.

Central Bank of Barbados

Workshop

9/10

$51,375

29

The best part was understanding the components of an ECM operational model. This was a bit daunting since we have quite a bit more implementation w... Read More

Town of Normal

Guided Implementation

6/10

$2,393

2

Andrea was very knowledgeable in the subject. However, her delivery style could not keep people interested for long. She sounded very academic. S... Read More

CAF - Corporacion Andina de Fomento

Guided Implementation

10/10

$18,269

9

Fidelity Investments Canada ULC

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

10

The conversation with Andrea was one of the best analyst calls we had with InfoTech, insightful, informative, and with exact actionable items for u... Read More

LION

Workshop

8/10

$31,499

50

Best part of the experience--better understanding of ECM activities and interdependencies; assistance in defining in/out of scope for immediate pro... Read More

CAF - Corporacion Andina de Fomento

Guided Implementation

10/10

$12,399

20

The call exceeded my expectations, we cover best practices, frameworks and above all real world examples!

Knights of Columbus

Workshop

9/10

N/A

14

informative, and a very collaborative team-day 1 should have included some type of ice breaker , since not all participants knew each other , very ... Read More

Trinidad / Benham Corporation

Guided Implementation

9/10

$58,899

10

ActivEdge Technologies Limited

Guided Implementation

8/10

$12,399

20

The presentation was detailed, interactive and contextually delivered to address the project requirements; with rich set of supportive tools and te... Read More

Mohawk Council of Kahnawake

Guided Implementation

9/10

$25,000

20

Good first contact and discussion. Team was engaged and mostly likely will continue to participate in future meetings.

Westoba Credit Union Limited

Workshop

8/10

$50,000

47

Best: Having structured templates and processes to follow. Worst: 4 days of a Teams session!

Dark Fibre Africa

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

N/A

Cross Country Mortgage, Inc.

Guided Implementation

10/10

$61,979

20

Very helpful. Many thanks.

Long Beach Transit

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

N/A

Igor's insights were valuable to me personally, as my knowledge of SharePoint is very little. Igor has shed lights on different approaches we'll be... Read More

ArcBest Technologies

Workshop

8/10

N/A

N/A

College of the Ozarks

Guided Implementation

10/10

$6,000

14

Very informative and clear explanations.

Orange County Sanitation Districts

Guided Implementation

8/10

$12,776

10

In the above metrics I'm not sure of the time or financial impact but I know that the information provided was valuable. Igor is very knowledgeabl... Read More

Cross Country Mortgage, Inc.

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

N/A

Arizona Western College

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

N/A

The reason I chose NA for the amount of time saved is that we will actually end up putting more time and effort into the project, but it will be ti... Read More

City of Leduc

Guided Implementation

9/10

$27,500

20

I was very impressed with the research that Andrea did on our behalf and the clarity that she brought to the scoping questions we had for this proj... Read More


Workshop: Develop an Enterprise Content Management Strategy and Roadmap

Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.

Module 1: Establish Business Context and Value

The Purpose

Understand the business opportunities and use cases.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Pinpoint the business opportunities for and scope of the ECM solution.
  • Understand scenarios and stakeholders in key ECM use cases to inform decisions about the solution.

Activities

Outputs

1.1

Conduct use case analysis.

  • ECM use cases
1.2

Conduct business capability mapping.

  • Key business areas in scope
1.3

Identify the ECM vision and mission.

  • ECM vision and mission statements

Module 2: Understand Current ECM Capabilities and Plot Target-State Levels

The Purpose

  • Understand ECM operations.
  • Understand current ECM capabilities and maturity: governance, information architecture, processes/workflows, systems architecture.
  • Identify target-state ECM capabilities.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Define the flow of documents and information landscape. to identify opportunities
  • Provide clear guidelines to users about appropriate use of technology.
  • Create a map to plan and check integrations.

Activities

Outputs

2.1

Review and analyze the information management landscape.

  • System landscape
2.2

Define where the files will originate and what the flow is (lifecycle).

  • Guidelines about the location and flow of information.
2.3

Define the scope of the ECM strategy and project.

  • ECM project charter with scope and RACI

Module 3: Plan ECM Work Initiatives

The Purpose

  • Define work initiatives to achieve target state.
  • Set metrics to measure success.
  • Define governance and operating models.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Focus on and invest in most important capabilities for the most impact and ROI.
  • Clear direction and metrics for success.

Activities

Outputs

3.1

Evaluate and prioritize performance gaps and opportunities.

  • Target-state ECM initiatives
3.2

Develop and consolidate ECM target-state initiatives.

  • Target-state ECM governance framework
3.3

Develop target-state ECM operating model.

  • Target-state ECM operating model

Module 4: Formulate a Plan to Get to Your Target State

The Purpose

  • Build initiatives into a plan with responsibilities and timing.
  • Define immediate next steps.

Key Benefits Achieved

  • Detailed action plan to execute ECM strategy.
  • Valuable resources identified to assist in strategy execution.

Activities

Outputs

4.1

Identify and prioritize next steps.

  • Initialized ECM strategy project roadmap
4.2

Define roles and responsibilities and complete a high-level RACI.

  • Initialized RACI
4.3

Wrap up and discuss next steps and post-workshop support.

  • Options for continued Info-Tech support

Develop an Enterprise Content Management Strategy and Roadmap

Organize your documents and files to make your content findable.

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Analyst Perspective

Good content management empowers digital transformation

Unstructured data – content – makes up over 80% of all our business data. It includes contracts, invoices, resumes, financial agreements, student transcripts, architectural and engineering drawings, recordings, emails, and marketing images. It’s a wide assortment of information types and value. There’s an ever-growing volume with more places in the information landscape for it to live and move.

Remote work has made digital formats like videoconference recordings and online chats a core part of the information deposit. Chats and recordings, along with email, are subject to audit, record retention laws and eDiscovery. Critical records are no longer contained in a central controlled chamber. It’s imperative we understand our increasingly complex information environment and manage it.

That content also holds rich insights and valuable assets – if recognized and made accessible.

Every business process generates and revolves around information. With the arrival of digital transformation, business partners and customers expect answers to their questions instantly and from anywhere. It means untethering our information from individual applications or business units and treating it like the valuable corporate asset it is.

Andrea Malick
Director, Research & Advisory, Data & Analytics Practice
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

  • Content is a key part of internal workflows and external touchpoints.
  • An enterprise content management (ECM) capability manages the quality, findability, delivery, and risk of your content across organizational processes.
  • The need for an ECM strategy, either on its own or as part of broader information management, is increasingly apparent in organizations everywhere.

Common Obstacles

  • The volume of organizational content continues to grow exponentially.
  • The Digital Revolution is accelerating market disruption and forcing organizations to transform or die.
  • The lack of an ECM body of knowledge for developing ECM strategies and capabilities makes defining a roadmap a challenging, if not impossible, endeavor for non-experts.

Info-Tech’s Approach

  • Set the scope for your ECM strategy. Understand the four major forces (ECM use cases, content-centric processes, external parties, and compliance and risk) that define ECM operating models. Identify the current priorities within each. Tackle manageable slices of your ECM solution – build foundations while fixing real pains.
  • Understand the root causes behind your ECM improvement opportunities. Systematically review the in-scope elements of your ECM operating model to generate a comprehensive list of potential improvements. Transform this insight into a future-state vision for your ECM capability.
  • Build an ECM roadmap collaboratively. Leverage the input of stakeholders from across the organization to determine the work required to cross the chasm from your current to future state.
  • Invest in change management. Current content management capabilities are powerful and customizable for a positive user experience. But those capabilities mean a shift in how we relate to our information and do things (e.g. using metadata instead of folders and subfolders). Ensure users and stakeholders are consulted and informed early and often.

Info-Tech Insights

  • ECM is critical to organizational survival. ECM underpins effective information management, which is vital to surviving and thriving in the Digital Revolution.
  • Engage many hands to make light work. Changing your ECM capabilities is about changing organizational behavior; take an all-hands-on-deck approach to make the most of information gathering, create a vested interest, and secure buy-in.
  • ECM is a living, breathing thing, and world-class ECM capabilities are not built overnight. Be realistic about what you can achieve in this iteration based on your organization’s maturity.

Frame the problem

This research is for:

  • CIOs charged with mandates for innovation or digital transformations.
  • Information, records, and content managers charged with optimizing information management practices.

This research will help you:

  • Systematically scope out the focus of your ECM strategy.
  • Engage with stakeholders to understand your current ECM operation.
  • Develop a vision for your ECM capability.
  • Build and gain buy-in for your ECM roadmap.
  • Coordinate the execution of your ECM roadmap.

This research will also assist:

  • CEOs looking to get the most out of ECM investments.
  • Heads of lines of business (LOBs) looking to drive higher quality and risk management from their content operation.
  • Process owners looking to increase efficiency through improved access to and delivery of content assets.

This research will help them:

  • Understand the importance of an ECM capability to long-term organizational success.
  • Prepare for and make the most out of information-gathering sessions required to assess current operations.
  • Contextualize their role in the ECM roadmap.
  • Bring to life and sustain an effective and strategically aligned ECM capability.

The data journey

Effective data management requires a cross-functional approach that engages both the business and IT.

This image contains a screenshot of the Data Journey to effective data management. it includes the following steps: Data Strategy; Data Management; Data Governance; Data Architecture; Data Warehouse and big data; Enterprise Content Management; MDM & Metadata Management; Data Quality & integration; and BI&AI.

What is content management?

Content is everywhere in the business

ECM can look very different for different organizations and use cases. It can be focused on storing documents for reference and findability. Or it can be managing complex information sets through workflows for regulatory compliance, from when files are scanned and digitized to when they are archived.

ECM is a comprehensive set of capabilities and tools. Your job is to find the right mix of these ingredients to make a solution – both tactical and strategic.

Definition: Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

“Enterprise content management is the systematic collection and organization of information that is to be used by a designated audience – business executives, customers, etc. Neither a single technology nor a methodology nor a process, it is a dynamic combination of strategies, methods, and tools used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver information supporting key organizational processes through its entire lifecycle.”

Definition: Content

“Content is information produced through editorial process and ultimately intended for human consumption via publication.”
(Source: Barker, 2021)

This description of content is important because we are designing ECM experiences for different groups: the content author (or manager) and the consumer.

“Content is information produced through editorial process and ultimately intended for human consumption via publication.”
(Source: Barker, 2021)

This description of content is important because we are designing ECM experiences for different groups: the content author (or manager) and the consumer.

Different types of content

ECM includes documents, records, digital assets, and web content.
Each of these types of content requires different practices and technology solutions.

This image depicts examples of content from Microsoft SharePoint, and from Microsoft Teams.

Information management model

Drivers

Governance

Information Architecture

Process

Policy

Systems Architecture

Regulatory, legal

  • Establish a decision-making committee
  • Define and formalize roles (RACI, charter)
  • Develop policies
  • Create a business data glossary
  • Decide who approves documents in workflow
  • Determine operating models
  • Information categories (taxonomy)
  • Classifications and retention periods
  • Metadata (for findability and as tags in automated workflows)
  • Review and approval process (e.g. who approves what)
  • Process for admins to oversee performance of information management service
  • Process for capturing and classifying incoming documents
  • Audit trails and reporting process
  • Centralized index of data and records to be tracked and managed throughout their lifecycles
  • Data retention policy
  • E-signature policy
  • Email policy
  • Information management policies
  • Access/privacy rules
  • Understand the flow of content through multiple systems (e.g. email, repositories)
  • Define business and technical requirements to select a new content management platform or service
  • Improve integrations
  • Right-size solutions for use case (e.g. digital asset management)

Efficiency, cost effectiveness

Customer service

User experience

  • Communication/change management
  • Data literacy

Case Study

INDUSTRY - Municipal Government
SOURCE - Info-Tech Research Group

An ECM roadmap allowed the City to obtain buy-in from senior management for an upgrade of its ECM capability

The City of Cambridge

The City of Cambridge, located in Ontario, is one of three cities making up Canada’s Technology Triangle. Canada’s 38th largest city, Cambridge is home to 130,000 residents. The City worked with Info-Tech to develop an ECM vision, system requirements, roadmap, and execution toolkit.

ECM Initiative

Faced with increasing volumes of content to manage and pain points with legacy content management processes, the City decided to develop an enterprise-wide strategy. Having used an ECM system to manage records, the City was considering how it could use technology to improve other content management operations across the organization. However, the need to represent perspectives of seven departments with over 75 unique divisions and services would require a well-thought-out plan.

Results

Working collaboratively, the City’s IT and records management divisions assembled a project team and conducted operational assessments with key stakeholders from other departments. With stakeholder input, they defined a future-state vision, built a roadmap, and assembled an execution toolkit. The ECM project team was able to present a confident plan to executives to secure project and budget approval.

This image contains a screenshot of the ECM Roadmap Development Approach. The involved steps are: Set Scope of ECM Strategy; Understand ECM Operations; Define Future ECM Vision; Build ECM Roadmap and Execution Toolkit

The Digital Revolution is (finally) upon us

The advancement of organizational process and technology from analog to digital has been underway since the 1980s. Today we have reached the tipping point.

Three mega-innovations drive organizations toward digital transformation:

Digital Revolution

  • Powerhouse Computing
    • Scalar CPUs
    • In-Memory Databases/SSD
    • Neural Networks
    • Massive Computer Arrays
    • Quantum Computing
  • Seamless Connectivity
    • 5G Network
    • Global Internet
    • Four Billion Connected Users
    • One Trillion Devices
    • Zero Distance
  • Extreme Automation
    • Robotics & Autos
    • 3D Printing
    • Digital User Experience
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Machine-to-Machine (Internet of Things)

Info-Tech Insight

As the innovations of today diffuse more generally into the global economy, Info-Tech sees two massive impacts:

Accelerated Large-Scale Disruption

We will see a rapid emergence of newer, faster, and more direct models of design, production, and delivery. Pioneering businesses will displace legacy organizations (think Netflix and Blockbuster) and industries (think Uber and the taxi industry). Leaner workforces will produce exponentially more output, leveraging intuitive cognitive systems and outsourced or subscription-based services. Higher-order skill sets will be demanded as automation takes over in physical, clerical, analytical, professional, and creative labor markets.

Cultural Transformation Is Required to Survive

Since 2000, 52% of Fortune 500 companies have disappeared from the market (Capgemini, 2015). Surviving the Digital Revolution requires organizations to go beyond localized process automation to enable a culture of innovation at every level and in every facet. Highly consumerized next-gen software- and platform-as-a-service (SaaS and PaaS) offerings will put process automation (and even application development capabilities) directly in the hands of users, and the traditional role of IT will be increasingly a shared organizational responsibility.

IT departments can no longer just lead digital innovation, they must actively enable it at every level of the organization

IT departments play a critical role in shepherding organizations through their transformation and in empowering organizations to thrive in the long term.

Democratizing innovation requires rethinking the traditional departmental role of IT.

Companies that are best positioned to weather, survive, and thrive in the Digital Revolution are those that understand the potential crowdsourcing has for innovation discovery and that proactively enable an “IT mindset” for as many end users as possible. Info-Tech identifies three functions IT departments can adopt to democratize innovation in their organizations.

This is the Triangle of IT Empowerment. the three points of the triangle are: Teach- Teach the organization the fundamentals; Lead- Lead the organization’s innovation mandate; and Connect- Connect the organization to the right insights to aid decision making.

Managing content effectively is a prerequisite of a successful enterprise information management operation

Enterprise content management (ECM) is an important building block in establishing potent enterprise information management (EIM), and strong EIM is a steppingstone to unlocking higher-order information capabilities that power innovation.

Info-Tech’s Hierarchy of Organizational Information Capabilities

This is Info-Tech’s Hierarchy of Organizational Information Capabilities. The hierarchy includes the following: Information Management- Provides Quality Assurance for All Information Assets; Knowledge Management- Enables Intelligent Decision Making, Planning, and Operations; Cognitive Operations- Automates Intelligent Decision Making, Planning, and Operations.

Info-Tech Insight

This blueprint provides a methodology to build out your ECM capability. For guidance on other information management capabilities, including enterprise data management, please see Info-Tech’s EIM resources:

An effective ECM capability enables content quality, findability, delivery, and risk management across the information lifecycle

As a concept, ECM is the strategies, methods, and technology used to manage electronic and physical documents and files to support organizational processes.

Info-Tech’s ECM Information Lifecycle Model:

This is Info-tech's ECM Information Lifecycle Model, the four main steps are: Generate Content; Capture Content; Deliver and Use Content; Manage and Retire Content

Info-Tech Insight

As organizations shift from analog to digital, content operations must transform from paper to paperless. Very few organizations have actually adopted the paperless workplace. While remote work has decreased printing and scanning significantly, 56% of workers are still printing and 50% are still scanning even while working from home (O’Reilly, 2021) As your organization shifts to paperless processes, behaviors will fundamentally change (e.g. manual to automatic, carbon-based to silicon-based), affecting decisions and actions at every stage of the information lifecycle.

Effective ECM capabilities are built on and supported by well-informed ECM system architecture

ECM technology is mature, blending together many functions across the information lifecycle.
ECM system offerings include:

  • Version control
  • Document & records management
  • Automated workflows
  • Access controls
  • Metadata management
  • Mobile
  • Search
  • Capture channels
  • File conversion
  • eDiscovery audit trail
  • Co-authoring

Info-Tech Insight

Refer to Info-Tech’s SoftwareReviews categories for ECM software and document management systems for the latest vendor scorecards based on user experience.

This is the ECM Content Repository

From an organization’s perspective, there are two broad categories of ECM use cases that must be addressed

Effective ECM capabilities are built on a strong understanding of the organizational use cases they support.

Mission-Critical ECM

Operational ECM

Description

Mission-critical content initiates, drives, and supports front-office, customer-facing processes and functions. Mission-critical ECM is primarily concerned with delivering on the core mandate of an organization.

Operational content lives in back-office processes and administration functions. Operational ECM is primarily concerned with internal day-to-day organizational operations.

Sample Goals

  • Customer relationship and service management
  • Partner ecosystem management
  • Supply chain and service fulfillment
  • Web experience
  • Marketing and sales
  • Regulatory and internal compliance
  • Internal communications and finances
  • Knowledge management
  • Intranets
  • Learning organization
  • Long-term archiving/ preservation(1)

Related Content Types

  • Service applications and verification (fax, email, correspondence, etc.)
  • Forms/eForms processing
  • Payments/contracts
  • Just-in-time content delivery
  • System-generated reports
  • Service delivery
  • Web and social content
  • Office documents
  • Reports and presentations
  • Corporate records
  • Internal email and communications
  • Content/media production/ publishing
  • HR (onboarding, training, employee files, etc.)
  • Finance/accounting (expense reports, receipts, payroll, etc.)

Tech. Focus

  • Portals
  • Forms/eForms
  • OCR/ICR
  • Workflow and process
  • Content analytics
  • Indexing and search
  • Intranets
  • Collaboration
  • Digitization
  • Media conversion
  • Document and records management

(1) Depending on organizational needs, preservation ECM may be viewed as a third ECM use case.

Info-Tech Insight

Harnessing your content has never been more vital. Exponential data growth isn’t expected to plateau anytime soon; yearly data creation reached 64.2 zettabytes in 2020 (IDC, 2021). Remaining still in the face of this growth is a recipe for disaster, and in the Digital Revolution, taking a casual approach to ECM is ill-advised. Organizations must truly understand their specific ECM use cases to develop optimal ECM information architecture, flexible information governance, and informed system definition and selection.

Effectively address your ECM use cases with an integrated, programmatic ECM capability

Master the six subdisciplines of ECM to unlock true content management excellence in support of mission-critical and operational use cases.

Info-Tech’s ECM Capability Conceptual Framework:

This is Info-Tech's ECM Capability Conceptual Framework

Info-Tech defines an organization’s ECM capability as six interrelated concepts working together to enable superior content access and delivery for an organization:

  • Information architecture, which enables content findability within ECM operations.
  • Information governance, which enables content management quality assurance, security, and risk management.
  • Process management, which enables content to move through processes and workflows.
  • System architecture, which enables automation of content management.
  • Change management, which introduces new ECM capabilities to users.
  • Capability governance, which sustains and provides continuous improvement to the entire ECM operation.

Info-Tech Insight

Get with the program – start building out an effective ECM capability as soon as possible. Focus on your current business needs and prioritization, such as digitizing legacy content or focusing on incoming content first. In an AIIM survey, 43% of respondents said they were figuring out what to do with the content they already had and 57% were figuring out what to do with new content coming into the organization (AIIM, 2020).

ECM success can be measured by process efficiency, resource efficiency, and risk mitigation

In its own right, ECM plays an important role in running an intelligent, efficient, and lean organization.

ECM Process Efficiency

ECM Resource Efficiency

ECM Risk Mitigation

“More than 50% of office pros spend more time searching for files than on work.”

TechRepublic, 2021

“Nearly 1 in 5 ... office professionals surveyed ranked ‘digging for files they need’ as the No. 1 problem to support the future of remote work.”

TechRepublic, 2021

“If a medical file is stored incorrectly, an organization can incur fines starting at
$100 per record, maxing out at $1.5 million per year.”

Iron Mountain

Pains:

  • Unable to find content; recreating content
  • Manually indexing content
  • Manually routing content through workflows
  • Inaccurately stored content
  • Print → Sign → Scan processes

Pains:

  • IT time spent managing storage environments
  • Redundant, outdated, and trivial content stored in repositories

Pains:

  • Noncompliance fees
  • Storing content beyond retention periods; litigation exposure
  • Litigation discovery time and cost
  • Off-brand content

Gains

  • Automated content indexing
  • Faster content retrieval
  • Automated content routing
  • Digital workflows
  • Just-in-time content delivery
  • Faster collaboration/creation

Gains

  • Reduced network demand
  • Reduced storage consumption
  • Optimal storage and archival media
  • Resources reallocated to more innovative pursuits

Gains

  • Standard designs, naming conventions, and terminology
  • Reduced litigation risk
  • Automated and defensible content disposal
  • eDiscovery

What you can achieve with an ECM strategy largely depends on your current maturity

The transformational journey to unlock ECM excellence is a very hard one. Set realistic executive expectations with a roadmap aimed at achieving “innovator” status through gradual advances in your ECM capability maturity.

Info-Tech’s ECM Capability Maturity Model

Information Architecture Information Governance Process Management System Architecture Change Management Capability Governance
  • Content organizational structure supports process and service delivery.
  • Actively monitoring and enforcing all policies.
  • Tech introduced to automate process.
  • End users are empowered to automate their own ECM processes.
  • ECM technology automates activities across information lifecycle.
  • Users play QA role.
  • Robust training programs in multiple formats.
  • Predictable release schedule is followed.
  • Center of excellence established.
  • Routine review and revision of all ECM subdisciplines.
  • Content quality and organizational structure standards are enforced.
  • Planning is centralized.
  • Compliance and litigation policies manually enforced.
  • Internal codes and best-practice policies developed.
  • ECM process improvement planning is centralized and formalized.
  • Highly integrated ECM platform (part of EIM).
  • System selection focuses on optimization.
  • Training and communication planning is centralized; resources are shared.
  • Roles and committee functions created for all ECM subdisciplines.
  • Content quality and organizational structure best practices are communicated.
  • Planning is siloed.
  • External compliance policies manually enforced.
  • Litigation risk mitigation policies developed.
  • ECM process improvement planning occurs in ad hoc, siloed fashion (project specific).
  • Formal, centralized ECM system planning.
  • Consolidated/rationalized ECM platform implemented and operational.
  • Training and communication materials are shared across siloes.
  • Roles and committee functions created for information governance and architecture.
  • Multiple content siloes (repositories).
  • Ad hoc organizational structures.
  • Policies developed to address external compliance.
  • Manual activities route content assets across processes and workflows.
  • Ad hoc, siloed ECM system planning.
  • Multiple point solutions in ECM operation.
  • Training and communications are developed in ad hoc, siloed fashion.
  • Not formally considered as part of ECM, but need is recognized.
  • Lacking awareness of content types and organizational structure.
  • Unaware of external regulations.
  • At risk of noncompliance; paying noncompliance fees.
  • Not formally considered as part of ECM.
  • Basic file-shares and personal drives.
  • Email routing and notifications.
  • Basic productivity suites
  • Not formally considered as part of ECM.
  • Not formally considered as part of ECM.

You need a systematic approach to connect ECM roadmap work initiatives to your organization’s objectives

Info-Tech’s three-phase ECM strategy development methodology enables a systematic and comprehensive model to assess ECM operations and identify, evaluate, and prioritize roadmap work initiatives in accordance with organizational need

1. Scope

2. Understand

3. Build

ECM Strategy
Scoping Framework

ECM Operational Assessment

ECM Roadmap Development Framework

Any number of forces may impact your ECM operations. Use Info-Tech’s ECM strategy scoping framework to identify and prioritize the most important and urgent elements. Building a well-informed roadmap means understanding your current complexity and improvement opportunities. Use Info-Tech’s ECM operational assessment to elicit these insights. Realizing your ECM vision requires a coordinated project plan. Use Info-Tech’s ECM roadmap development framework to build a comprehensive, detailed action plan in an à la carte fashion.
In this project phase, Info-Tech walks through the process of defining your ECM operating model. In this project phase, Info-Tech introduces two operational assessments to help you define a clear future vision for your ECM capability. In this project phase, Info-Tech provides decision-making models to select and scope ECM work initiatives to realize your ECM vision.

Info-Tech Insight

Ensure your organization is among the six in ten whose ECM projects succeed. Roughly 35 to 40% of ECM projects fail (Moore, 2021), which is explained by failure to involve stakeholders and lack of a strategic plan. Ensure you are on the winning side of history; take a systematic approach to building out your ECM capability, leveraging Info-Tech’s ECM strategy development methodology and tools.

Develop a highly detailed roadmap to coordinate the work to build and maintain your ECM capability with Info-Tech

Info-Tech’s ECM Roadmap Creation Tool provides three levels of project planning insight, enabling easy creation, communication, and coordination of tasks that will bring your ECM vision to life.

Level 1

Level 2 Level 3

ECM Project Phases

ECM Work Initiatives

ECM Action Plans

This is an image of Info-Tech's ECM Project Phases This is an image of Info-Tech's ECM Work Initiatives This is an image of Info-Tech's ECM Action Plans

Displays timing for major project phases.

Displays ordering and timing for specific work initiatives.

Displays work initiative activities, stakeholder resourcing, inputs, outputs, risks, mitigations, success factors, and related Info-Tech resources.

Developing the roadmap is only half the battle; motivate and mobilize project stakeholders with a roadmap execution toolkit

Don’t let your ECM project plan sit on the shelf. Minimize the friction and effort required and secure executive buy-in by providing well-designed templates and tools to help execute each ECM roadmap work initiative.

ECM Capability Area Info-Tech’s ECM Roadmap Execution Toolkit Items Value to ECM Capability
Information Architecture The information architecture toolkit is a set of simple-to-use tools to help any user in your organization design and conduct content audits, determine content migration plans, and design and communicate taxonomy and access rights plans to integrate these into your ECM system.
Information Governance The information governance toolkit has 11 templates that allow you to comprehensively set up checks and balances to ensure quality and risk mitigation for all content at each stage of the information lifecycle.
Process Management The process mapping toolkit enables a holistic set of best practices, tools, and templates to help identify, prioritize, design, and implement process transformations.
System Architecture The system architecture toolkit provides a one-stop shop for understanding the ECM technology market and executing well-informed ECM system requirements definition, vendor evaluation, and selection.
Change Management The change management toolkit allows you to catalog the impacts your ECM vision will have on the organization and to develop training, communications, and rollout plans to address them in a manner fit for your culture and maturity.
Capability Governance The capability governance toolkit is a framework for planning and executing the governance of your ECM capability at different levels of formality (i.e. from basic responsibilities and roles to more complex governance committees or a center of excellence).

Refer to Info-Tech’s ECM terminology and acronyms table for additional clarification

The following terminology and acronyms are commonly used throughout this document; refer to this slide as needed as you work through each step in developing your ECM strategy and roadmap.

Term Definition
ECM Enterprise content management: the strategies, methods, and technology used to manage electronic and physical documents and files to support organizational operations.
ECM Operation The current state of an organization’s content management practices; how content is managed at this point in time.
ECM Operating Model A four-piece model to help understand the relevant forces at play in any ECM operation.
ECM Capability An organizational function that includes people, processes, and technology that work together to manage content across an organization. Info-Tech defines six subdisciplines within the ECM capability model.
ECM Strategy/ECM Vision The specific vision an organization decides upon for its future ECM capability.
ECM Roadmap A comprehensive plan denoting the work initiatives required to build out an organization’s ECM capability as aligned to its strategy/vision, including activities, timing, roles, and responsibilities.
ECM Roadmap Work Initiative Sometimes abbreviated as WI, work initiatives refer to the different activities that make up the ECM roadmap.

Insight summary

Overarching insight

The modern enterprise content management environment is a business solution, driven by and overseen by the business. Where once ECM communities were highly contained and were administered primarily by IT, they are now designed to be integrated with and responsive to business operations. This is a cultural shift requiring a new way of interacting with technology, with information, and with each other.

Insight 1

To survive and thrive in this tumultuous time, organizations everywhere are moving toward more intelligent ways of unearthing, communicating, and acting upon insights in the formats desired by the people in their organization. At the foundation of strong information management is an effective ECM capability on which process and system automation can be built.

Insight 2

ECM is a huge concept; be realistic and do not bite off more than you can chew.

Consider your organization’s ECM capability maturity, in addition to ECM objectives and resource constraints, to create a realistic vision for what you can achieve with this current iteration and what will have to wait for future releases.

Insight 3

An ECM capability is a living, breathing thing; plan to upgrade it over time with new releases.

The ideal ECM capability is the result of mastering all the capabilities of ECM, such as governance and information architecture. However, mastering all of these simultaneously is extremely difficult for most organizations.

Tactical insight

Tailor your ECM program to meet your organization’s needs, beginning with cataloging content as critical, valuable, regulatory, and other. This will help manage the work and the sense of overwhelm, and it will help apply the right weight of governance to where it’s needed. We can’t and shouldn’t try to govern everything to the same degree. Focus on what really matters for the business and for compliance.

When it comes to rolling out an ECM program, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Don’t try to buy a ready-made information architecture off the shelf. It takes time and expertise up-front and must engage users in the solution –
but the result is transformative.

Blueprint Deliverables

Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:

Key deliverable:

ECM Strategy Roadmap

This is a screenshot of level 1 of the ECM Strategy Roadmap

Business Capability Map

This is a screenshot of Info-Tech's Business Capability Map

ECM Strategy Roadmap Creation Tool

This is an A screenshot of a sample of Info-Tech's ECM Strategy Roadmap

Use the ECM Strategy Roadmap Creation Tool to identify focus areas and work initiatives and drill down to a detailed plan with timelines and assigned responsibilities.

ECM Use Case Framework Template

This is an screenshot of Info-Tech's ECM Use Case Framework Template

This template takes you through a business needs-gathering activity to highlight and create relevant use cases around the organization’s information-related problems and opportunities.

ECM Strategy Development Project Charter

This is a screenshot of Info-Tech's ECM Strategy Development Project Charter

Use this template to document the scope and key roles and responsibilities of the ECM strategy development project.

ECM Information Flow and System Architecture Template

This is a screenshot of Info-Tech's ECM Information Flow and System Architecture Template

Use this template to understand your information landscape with users and build a future state.

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit

“Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”

Guided Implementation

“Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”

Workshop

“We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”

Consulting

“Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Develop an ECM Strategy and Roadmap: Project overview

Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

1. Understand Business Drivers

2. Assess Capabilities and Define Future State

3. Build a Target-State Roadmap and Plan

Phase Steps

1.1 Understand and Align to Business Drivers

1.2 Build High-Value Use Cases

1.3 Define Scope and Vision of Your ECM Strategy Project

2.1 Profile ECM Operations and Opportunities

2.2 Identify Root Causes

2.3 Document Future State

3.1 Evaluate ECM Work Initiatives

3.2 Socialize and Validate ECM Roadmap

3.3 Execute ECM Roadmap

Phase Outcomes

  • Business capabilities and ECM capabilities map
  • ECM Strategy Development Project Charter with objectives and scope defined.
  • ECM strategy project vision statement.
  • Understanding of the core components of an effective ECM program
  • List of ECM improvement opportunities
  • ECM capabilities required to achieve objectives and assessment of current state
  • ECM strategy development roadmap and target-state plan consisting of prioritized initiatives

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3

Call #1: Understand drivers, business context, and scope of ECM at your organization.

Introduce Info-Tech’s approach and resources.

Call #2: Provide a detailed overview of Info-Tech’s approach, framework, stakeholder engagement, and blueprint.

Call #4: Further discuss the organization’s alignment of business capabilities to ECM capabilities and use case framework.

Call #6: Plan target state and corresponding initiatives.

Call #8: Identify and prioritize improvements.

Call #3: Introduce business capabilities. Align them with your ECM capabilities. Begin to develop a use case framework.

Call #5: Understand and assess your current ECM capabilities and data environment. Review your user feedback findings, if applicable.

Call #7: Identify program risks and formulate a roadmap.

Call #9: Summarize results and plan next steps.

A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

A typical GI is between 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

Workshop Overview

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4
Establish Business Context and Value Understand Current ECM Capabilities and Plot Target-State Levels Plan ECM Work Initiatives Formulate a Plan to Get to Your Target State

Activities

  • Introduction to Info-Tech’s ECM framework.
  • Discuss vision and mission for ECM.
  • Understand your business architecture, including your business capability map and value streams.
  • Build use cases aligned to core business capabilities.
  • Identify ECM capabilities to align with business priorities.
  • Understand ECM operations.
  • Understand your current ECM capabilities and maturity: governance, information architecture, processes/workflows, and systems architecture.
  • Identify target-state ECM capabilities.
  • Evaluate and prioritize performance gaps and opportunities.
  • Develop and consolidate ECM target-state initiatives.
  • Identify and prioritize next steps .
  • Define roles and responsibilities and complete a high-level RACI.
  • Wrap up and discuss next steps and post-workshop support.

Deliverables

  • Sample use cases (tied to the business capability map) and a repeatable use case framework
  • Vision and mission for ECM
  • Current state of ECM maturity
  • Definition of target state
  • Scope of ECM project and strategy/ECM project charter
  • Information landscape
  • Target-state ECM initiatives
  • Target-state ECM governance framework
  • Target-state ECM operating model
  • Initialized ECM strategy project roadmap
  • Initialized RACI

Phase 1

Understand Business Context and Drivers for the ECM Project

  • 1.1 Understand and Align to Business Drivers
  • 1.2 Build High-Value Use Cases
  • 1.3 Define the Scope and Vision of Your ECM Strategy Project

Develop an Enterprise Content Management Strategy and Roadmap

“When business users are invited to participate in the conversation around data with data users and IT, it adds a fundamental dimension — business context. Without a real understanding of how data ties back to the business, the value of analysis and insights can get lost.”– Jason Lim, Alation

This phase will guide you through the following activities:

  • Identify your business drivers and business capabilities
  • Align content management capabilities with business goals
  • Define scope of the ECM strategy

This phase involves the following participants:

  • Content management lead/information management lead, CDO, data lead
  • Senior business leaders
  • Business subject matter experts (SMEs)
  • Content owners, records managers, regulatory subject matter experts (e.g. Legal Counsel, Security)

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

MEMBER RATING

8.3/10
Overall Impact

$79,580
Average $ Saved

25
Average Days Saved

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve.

Read what our members are saying

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst

Get the help you need in this 3-phase advisory process. You'll receive 9 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.

Guided Implementation 1: Kick off the ECM strategy project
  • Call 1: Scope ECM operating model and identify priorities and objectives.
  • Call 2: Determine stakeholder perspectives required for information gathering.
  • Call 3: Schedule stakeholder group information gathering sessions.

Guided Implementation 2: Understand the current ECM operations and determine the future ECM capability
  • Call 1: Understand operational assessment activities and elicitation guides.
  • Call 2: Review and understand operational assessment outputs.
  • Call 3: Understand ECM capability areas.

Guided Implementation 3: Develop, socialize, and execute the ECM roadmap
  • Call 1: Review ECM future-state visions.
  • Call 2: Understand ECM roadmap work initiatives.
  • Call 3: Review ECM strategy roadmap.

Authors

Andrea Malick

Ryan Smith

Jessica Jenkins

Contributors

  • Andrew Lin, Technical Product Manager, Tax Analysts
  • Astoria Luzzi, Masters of Information Graduate, University of Toronto
  • Chris Whiting, Solutions Architect, APA Group
  • Dan Elam, Vice President, Contoural
  • Deborah Ochsenreiter, IT Systems Analyst, SDFCU
  • Hemant Prasad, CEO, Crest Business Solutions Pte Ltd.
  • Ilidia Sa Melo, Deputy City Clerk, Manager of Information Management and Archives, City of Cambridge
  • Issam M. Ali, Information Management Consultant, Do IT Right
  • Jack Hakimian, Director, Digital Technology, Sun Life Financial
  • Scott Schieber, Manager, IT Applications Development, Blue Bird Corporation
  • Shajehan Rao, CEO/ECM Consultant, Kheprisoft
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