Three years ago, firms adopted document imaging, document management, Web content management, and records management as point solutions for departments or business units. Today, the centralization of IT, the drive to lower costs through single sourcing, the need to manage multiple content types, and a focus on compliance have created demand for enterprise content management (ECM) suites. Yet implementing ECM is difficult because divergent requirements still exist, and no ECM suite vendor can currently meet the needs of all stakeholders. Before investing, develop an ECM strategy for your organization, giving preference to suites, but recognizing that point products, multivendor approaches, and content integration software may be necessary in the interim.
A good question. I see a big uptake in the market of organsiation investigating, implementing new solutions or expanding their current platforms. My guess is that a lot of solutions in this market are rapidly commoditising. Although a lot of organsiations start out with great interest for the point solutions, but they change their minds once they see the price. Also these point solutions offer great and very comprehensive functionality which is absolutely required for some people in the organisation, but most certainly not for all users. Gartner Group already ‘manages’ 2 magic Quadrants, one for ECM solution vendors and one for the ‘Enterprise Smart Suite’. What you see is a big reshuffle of the players between these 2.
