In your attempt to digitalize your company’s content you have most probably come across the term enterprise content management or ECM several times and, with no doubt, have always wondered what it means or do.
Why is it of such importance to your business, and what ECM software is best recommended today.
ECM is also sometimes referred to as document management or record management, regardless of which, we are here to explore its aspects and why you need to adopt it as soon as you can
The term ECM does not refer to a certain element but in explanation it targets the technologies, strategies and methods that are set to capture, manage, store, and integrate any content.
Like any technology of any kind, it is essential to look out for the features it possesses that will best suit your business and facilitate in achieving your strategic goals.
A sophisticated document management system is one of the strongest features of an ECM system.
It must be able to store any type of content that is of importance to the internal and external communication of the company with a robust access authorization and a proper filing of the documents.
The whole point of an enterprise content management solutions and document management systems is for your employees to be able to collaborate effectively and with a high level of security.
The flexibility of being able to work on one document by multiple users even from different departments is as important as ever.
Especially with the covid-19 crisis and the gowning call for a work-from-home conditions.
However, security of such collaborations should be guaranteed and not underestimated.
Carrying out a comprehensive search is a core feature that should be present in your enterprise content management solutions.
With all the documents and content, you will be storing on your systems, the reliability and speed of retrieving any document.
Or information you need at any given is imperative to stay on track of enhancing the workflow and internal business processes.
Make sure you provide your teams with a fast and accurate ECM.
You do not need to start over!
If an ECM is not adaptable it should not be considered, integration with your existing systems.
Such as a human resources information systems, is key to building an effective and centralized working environment for your company.
1.An include-it-all management of documents.
Your ECM will act as the unified and focused platform for all your company’s records and documents.
It should include and smartly manage and control all documents from all departments including sales, finance, customer records and so on.
2.Advanced tracking and retrieval of documents.
With collaboration there is more space for different team members and employees to access and edit documents all the time that sometimes the original state of that document could be modified and lost.
It is important for enterprise content management solutions to provide users with a call back option of the modification and edit history to keep track of changes along the way, and in the case of wrong editing, revert documents to their original state.
3.Automatic detection of edits and synchronization.
A feature related to the latter explained above is auto-detection and synchronization of edits.
As mentioned before, multiple users carry out edits on a single document but the preservation of the document in its latest form is important to avoid confusion.
Users don’t want to find many versions and get mixed up and as a result the workflow could be slowed down.
Now that we have discussed some of the main features that should be instilled in an ECM, acknowledging the software that best operates with an ECM is also crucial.
You should know that there is no one ultimate software that wins the prize.
Each software also has its unique features that comply by.
However, according to many, Microsoft is the no.1 platform in enterprise content management solutions software as it includes SharePoint which handles the organizational parts of the system giving it the qualities it is widely known for.
