Mobility, social content, and cloud underpin changes for ECM market in 2014

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA: The enterprise content management (ECM) market is rapidly changing as platform vendors transform themselves into providers of solutions that address specific issues faced by organizations, according to global analyst firm Ovum.

For the ECM vendors, this means a change of emphasis from the core, now largely standardized, features, such as document management, to other areas, such as capture and scanning and business process management (BPM) as the enablers of content-centric processes.

However, the greatest changes are taking place in the delivery models and channels as users demand access to content anytime, anywhere, obliging the vendors to make ECM available to a wider range of organizations by delivering their solutions via the cloud.

In the new 2014 Trends to Watch report on Enterprise Content Management, the independent technology analyst firm identifies five key trends that will impact ECM in 2014. They are:

* Social, as employees include business-related content in their social networking activities.

* User demand for access to content anytime, anywhere.

* New opportunities offered by the cloud for organizations looking to extend ECM deployments.

* Compliance and the complexities faced by organizations in controlling and retaining mobile and social content.

* Use of file sync and share products for document collaboration.

Sue Clarke, a senior analyst of Information Management and author of the report, says: "Enlightened organizations now have highly developed and sophisticated social media strategies that involve sales, marketing, and customer service initiatives. Most vendors providing ECM technologies, particularly those in the web content management (WCM) space, include support for social content."

Organizations must now be able to deliver content securely to a range of mobile devices. Clarke adds: "Users are now demanding access to content anytime, anywhere, and organizations need to be prepared for this. Therefore, all ECM-related products should now provide extensive support for mobile devices, particularly rendering content in the appropriate format for the device on which it is being viewed. The capabilities should also ensure the same policies for managing access to content are applied regardless of the device being used."

Another trend to watch in 2014 is file sync and share products replacing email as the de facto method for document sharing. File sync and share is the latest technology to be added to ECM products with several now providing facilities for sharing content via the cloud.

According to Clarke, the cloud offers new opportunities for organizations looking to extend ECM deployments. "Ovum believes organizations should consider the new deployment opportunities offered by the cloud. Large enterprises are reluctant to trust sensitive content to the cloud. However, midsized organizations, without the budget or resources for an on-premise deployment, can use public clouds to cost-effectively implement ECM."

Organizations have to adhere to an increasing number of regulations and pieces of legislation; many of these are industry specific, but some are country and region based. Ovum believes, though, that ECM technologies can help organizations with future compliance issues.

"The benefits of technologies such as RM, archiving, search, and e-discovery are well-established, but other products including case management and capture and scanning also have an important role to play in helping organizations to comply with increasing regulations and legislation," concludes Clarke.