In today’s day and age, you hear a lot of technology buzz words floating around. Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Electronic Content Management (ECM,) and the list goes on. In the world of organizing and managing your electronic information, ECM is more than just a buzz word. It’s a way of ensuring anything that was once in paper form is captured, stored, and easily distributed with the proper security measures in place.
What is Electronic Content Management?
Many people use the terms Document Management System (DMS) and Enterprise Content Management (ECM) interchangeably. However, they are two separate things that share similar features.
Think of Document Management as a “lite version” of ECM. Below is a simplified-visual-representation of the added capabilities you get with an ECM system vs. a DMS.
When you look at the graph, the actions that are listed is what is happening to your CONTENT.
Content can be in the form of:
- Documents
- Data
- Information
- Files
- Images
- Audio
- Video Files
- And more
Another key component to ECM is “Process Automation”. From the image above, we already know that your content can be Stored, Tracked, Captured, Managed, and Delivered with an ECM system but understanding who executes these actions and how they are performed is critical. The great news is, information can be done automatically and a majority of the time there is no manual intervention required.
ECM is intended to be a centralized data repository, as well as a process automation tool. Being able to manage your day to day operations and store, retrieve, track, and distribute your mission critical information is a huge win if it can be done electronically.
Want to learn more? Join us at our free virtual workshop! We’re hosting a live, online class discussing how ECM can integreate information within your paperless roadmap. Reserve your free spot here!