With the reliance on content ever-growing, organizations need an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system to manage information throughout its lifecycle.
However, selecting the right ECM solution is challenging. There’s lots to consider – requirements, objectives, and how the ECM integrates into the existing tech stack and with monitoring tools like Reveille.
This guide will explore the top ten criteria for selecting an ECM system. It also offers additional tips for choosing the best solution for your business.
Table of Contents
- What is an ECM
- The Top 10 Criteria to Select ECM Software
- Additional Tips for Choosing the Right ECM System
- Monitor Your ECM Operations with Reveille
What is an ECM System?
Enterprise content management allows businesses to securely manage entire content and document lifecycles. These solutions enable users to scan, capture, and store structured and unstructured data, such as PDFs, Word documents, images, emails, databases, and code repositories while controlling user access.
ECM systems leverage automation to help companies achieve efficiency and reduce manual intervention. It also allows for the organization content and documents based on document type, date, and name, among other factors.
Handling high volumes of content and documents manually is time-heavy for enterprises and increases the risk of errors. With agentless monitoring software like Reveille, you can deploy a range of pre-built tests to ensure the system runs optimally and that data is easily accessible to authorized users.
The Top 10 Criteria to Select ECM Software
With so many factors to consider, finding the right system can be challenging.
We’ve handpicked the 10 most important criteria businesses should use when choosing an ECM solution.
1. Business Needs and Goals
Managers and systems administrators must determine what they expect from ECM software – and what inefficiencies and operational problems they want to address.
For example, your organization may need to automate records management to reduce organizational risk. Or, it may be seeking a solution to leverage valuable insights from intelligent information management. Each case may require a different ECM approach.
To assess your objectives for ECM software, you can start with these questions:
- What obstacles should the system solve?
- What type of content do you need to store and manage?
- What does your current infrastructure look like?
- What level of integration do you need?
- How many users will need access to the ECM software?
- What levels of access need to be set?
Reveille has worked with various ECM platforms to help users leverage proactive agentless monitoring. We’ve seen that those with successful ECM operations start by choosing specific software to help them automate different document management tasks.
2. Compliance and Security
ECM systems must follow industry standards and have protocols in place for sensitive information. As organizations rely on these solutions for advanced document and content management, they must have a secure infrastructure.
Besides security, an ECM platform must adhere to industry-specific standards based on your sector. This may include GDPR, CCPA, PIPEDA, POPI, and LGPD. Ignoring these compliance regulations – willfully or not – can expose your business to hefty penalties.
Severe GDPR violations can cost up to 4% of your annual turnover per fiscal year. Less severe violations are also costly at around 2% of your yearly turnover per fiscal year. Data breaches due to poor security can also lead to excessive costs. According to IBM, a data breach can cost an organization an average of $4.45 million.
That’s why an ECM platform that prioritizes security should be non-negotiable for businesses.
3. Scalability
Businesses must invest in ECM software that can scale as they grow. Scalability is paramount to avoid having to change to a different software should they “outgrow” their current system.
Migrating to a new ECM platform is time-consuming and risks data loss. The software you choose must support your business document management as your requirements evolve, and provide all the content management tools you need to achieve efficiency.
To evaluate whether an ECM solution is scalable, consider the following:
- Demos and Trials: Try an ECM software first to understand its functionality. Find out if it offers the necessary features to achieve your goals and address performance inefficiencies.
- Technical Support: Speak to the technical support team to understand the extent of a platform’s capabilities. Enquire about the required features and find out how this system can support your business growth as you grow.
- Integrations: Check the platform’s available integrations. It’s important to determine whether your system can integrate into your current tech stack without causing disruption.
4. Minimal Code
ECM systems that require complex coding and technical expertise can be cumbersome to work with, negatively impacting efficiency and user adoption. A smooth onboarding and configuration experience boosts productivity, so opt for an ECM solution that requires little or no code.
A low-code platform also minimizes technical support issues. Users will find adopting the ECM solution and implementing business processes less challenging; this means less work for your support team and less training is required.
Intuitive ECM platforms have easy-to-navigate interfaces and flexible features, like a drag-and-drop editor. These systems simplify capturing paper documents and allow staff to easily manage, share, find, edit, and store documents.
5. Integration
Organizations must consider how well the ECM software will integrate into their current technology infrastructure.
It’s vital to assess your existing tech stack and identify how to integrate ECM with minimal friction and what is required to achieve this. For instance, you may need to replace separate records management tools and digital asset management tools with one ECM solution encompassing all these capabilities. Your business may also want to integrate an agentless monitoring platform like Reveille to gain complete transparency into the health of your ECM operations.
Another approach is to discuss integrations with the ECM software’s technical team to confirm how this platform can integrate with your infrastructure.
6. Vendor Reputation and Support
Assessing the vendor’s reputation is crucial before choosing ECM software. Many software review sites, like G2.com and Capterra.com, will help you understand user experience and the pros and cons of ECM systems.
Alternatively, you can check the company’s Google and social media reviews. If the platform is well-known, there may also be blog articles reviewing it or providing alternatives to offer businesses more options.
Here are key factors that organizations must consider when evaluating vendor reputation:
- Support: An ECM vendor must offer hands-on support and have a responsive team. It’s critical to understand what support channels the vendor offers and how easy it is to contact them.
- Clear Communication: Your ECM vendor must deliver clear and transparent communications and address any questions or concerns you have. Because vendors may accomplish this pre-sales to push prospects to convert, check online reviews to assess this factor.
- Reviews: Evaluate reviews on software sites, blogs, YouTube, and other social media platforms. The more information you can gather about an ECM vendor, the better.
7. Deployment Options
There are many ways to deploy ECM software, including on-premises, hybrid and cloud-based.
To create a successful ECM environment, you must ensure the software you choose is compatible with your preferred deployment.
- On-Premises: These ECM platforms are more accessible and can be customized to your business requirements. However, the initial cost to configure these infrastructures is high, and a dedicated IT team must maintain on-prem ECM systems.
- Hybrid: While hybrid ECM solutions can be complex to set up and test, they are effective for collaboration. Organizations can also meet industry-specific standards while enabling remote processes.
- Cloud-Based: Cloud-based ECM platforms like Google Cloud are more cost-effective and more accessible to implement. However, this option is not as flexible as the other deployment options, and data delivery depends on your vendor’s connectivity.
8. Usability
Usability is a critical factor in choosing an ECM system. The more complex the software, the more friction it will cause with users – and the more training will be required. Software that is hard to navigate will also create inefficiencies in your workflow and add pressure on your technical support team.
Organizations must consider ECM software that is easy to configure, implement, and navigate. An ideal system should have a seamless and intuitive interface, and the features should be easy to find and use. The whole point of an ECM platform is to make data control and access easy, not hinder it.
Moreover, an EMC vendor must offer an onboarding experience that is straightforward to understand. They should provide ample resources, including tutorials, blog posts, and training materials to simplify the transition.
9. The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
The total cost of ownership (TCO) is the cost of ECM software throughout its entire lifecycle. Organizations must calculate the TCO for ECM systems to identify which solutions provide the best value and align with their budget.
This calculation provides businesses with insights to make informed financial decisions. It’s wise to avoid software you may not be able to afford in the future. This will drive organizations to migrate to a more cost-effective system.
Most ECM platforms offer custom pricing so that businesses can access the capabilities they need within their budgets. At Reveille, we focus on value. Companies can use our ROI calculator to determine how we can tailor our monitoring solutions to fit their budget.
10. Automation
Automation is a fundamental aspect of ECM software – automation reduces human error and makes business processes more efficient.
The solution you choose must have high-level automation functionality. Organizations need to leverage ECM to minimize manual processes and the errors that come with them.
These automation capabilities should support critical features such as:
- Real-time alerts
- Customized reports
- Real-time KPI tracking
- Document scanning and capturing
- Content scheduling
- Remediations
Additional Tips for Choosing the Right ECM System
We’ve covered the top 10 criteria used to find the best enterprise content management system.
There are a few more strategies you can use to narrow your search.
Create a Detailed RFP for ECM Software
Businesses must create a detailed request for proposal (RFP) to ensure an ECM system meets these criteria. An RFP outlines your organization’s process and points, allowing ECM vendors to explain how their solutions can address this.
A well-crafted RFP will allow you to detail how your organization requires this solution and its ECM goals.
End-users must participate in creating an RFP as they will be interacting with the system and, therefore, know what features and functionality are critical.
These critical considerations for crafting an RFPs:
- Focus on your organization’s requirements and what you want to gain from ECM
- Specify what functions you need and how you plan to use the ECM platform
- Provide vendors with a format for how they must craft their proposals
- Request a demonstration of the software
- Include your budget
Use Demos and Trials
Using demos and trials before investing in ECM software is imperative to accurately interpret how the system works and integrates into the existing infrastructure. Sending an RPF allows vendors to outline how to solve your ECM requirements, but this may only be sufficient on paper rather than in practice.
Ensure your organization receives a complete walk-through of the system and how it works. Leverage this opportunity to address any concerns or mention critical questions to determine how you can adopt this software in your tech stack.
For instance, Reveille provides a hands-on demonstration of implementing proactive monitoring for ECM software.
Consider Mobile Access
Having an ECM platform with mobile access is a significant benefit. As users can view and manage documents and content from anywhere, it improves convenience, and therefore operational efficiency.
Although this is not critical for some organizations, it is a factor worth considering, especially with the rise of remote work.
If you opt for an ECM platform with mobile access, you must ensure it offers an intuitive user interface. If the mobile version is not easily accessible, or is complicated to use, this will negate the advantages.
Monitor Your ECM Operations with Reveille
To select the best enterprise content management system, it’s imperative to consider what criteria your organization needs.
- Start by evaluating your business objectives and requirements,
- Then, prioritize compliance and security, scalability, usability, integration, vendor reputation, deployment options, automation, and TCO.
After you’ve invested in an ECM system, it needs to run at optimal health and performance. Reveille’s proactive monitoring tool detects and solves system abnormalities and automates responses to maintain a healthy ECM environment.
Contact our team and request a demo today.