Thoughts for any organization beginning the contemplate or already have a ECM solution.......

The largest challenge faced by the Electronic Document Management (EDM) or Enterprise Content Management (ECM) or any other term selected by vendors and organizations is related to determining which technology best meets the needs of the organization.  Users should consider the direction being taken by many standards committees related to establishing a foundation related to terms and acronyms. The goal is to establish a clearly understood and agreed-upon terms for the core technologies, the easier it will be for end-user organizations.

The recently published update to AIIM ARP 1 - 2009 provides detailed information on all ECM related project phases and provided some organizational guidance on deciphering ECM terms and acronyms as noted quoted below:

"Terms and acronyms associated with various aspects of EDMS technologies commonly change over time, as technology developers and vendors update product lines and solutions to address customer requirements. In most cases the new terms and acronyms reflect updates and changes to how these technologies are utilized, typically by incorporating additional levels of functionality and very rarely resulting in an entirely new core technology. This is important to note as the core EDMS technologies are constantly maturing and solution providers are identifying not only new approaches to addressing organizational issues and requirements, but also expanding the use of these technologies into areas previously unconsidered. For purposes of discussion, the terms “document management” and “content management” can be considered to be synonymous. As the Electronic Content Management industry (previously referred to as the document management industry) has matured over the years the ability to store electronic information has greatly expanded from hardcopy document scanning into digital images in the early 1980's to the management of any digital or electronic document that today is referred to as electronically stored information.

It is important to note that as the various technologies associated with storing and managing electronically stored information continue to mature and change, terms and acronyms will continue to change and, at times, be used to denote something different than previously used in the past. As such, organizations are constantly challenged to keep pace with how an updated technology is currently being referenced, especially when the same core technology is referenced differently between vendors, and at times various groups of suppliers. The first portion of this document provides detailed information describing each of these technologies, how they operate, and inter-operate. The second portion of this document provides detailed information associated with currently available industry standards and technical reports."

ARP 1 - 2009 further defines the underlying technology components of ECM providing ".. detailed guidance to organizations considering the use of any of those technologies that comprise EDMS (document imaging, document/library services, routing/BPM/workflow, Records Management Applications, Forms management, Enterprise Report Management, etc.). It should be noted and acknowledged that a complete records management program is critical to any organization and is integral to any complete and thorough management plan associated with electronic information regardless of whether it is referred to as a "document", "record", "audio", "video", etc. internally by the organization."