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2016’s Top 5 Enterprise Content Management Market Trends

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The enterprise content management market has been subject to several influencing forces over the past few years. You got cloud computing changing delivery, and opening up a world of possibilities. Organizations scramble to protect precious content from a whole slew of funky ransomware currently threatening the sanctity of our peaceful digital realities. As a result, organizations need to keep up with the trends in 2016 before blindly jumping into the process of ECM solution selection. By keeping abreast of market trends we can gain insight about the latest greatest technology to corral our content and streamline business operations. Here are a few trends from busy 2016 that will offer us some insight.

Regulatory Compliance

Important: Compliance. Bend the knee to auditory compliance standards by having a proper ECM solution bear some of the burden. By tracking and managing documents, an enterprise content management system reduces the chore of complying with these regulations. So much, the rules, *sigh*. You’ve got HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, Freedom of Information Act, or internal policies to adhere to. With all of these regulation controlling your files, compliance can be challenging. If you’re looking for a quick fix to enforce and monitor your information governance policies, enterprise content management software will help.

Remote Access/Endpoints

Recent IDC research shows that more and more employees are working from remote locations:

“According to a new forecast from International Data Corporation (IDC), the U.S. mobile worker population will grow at a steady rate over the next five years, increasing from 96.2 million in 2015 to 105.4 million mobile workers in 2020. By the end of the forecast period, IDC expects mobile workers will account for nearly three quarters (72.3%) of the total U.S. workforce.”

Current ECM solutions will offer easy-to-use mobile apps for smartphones and tablets that will allow access on the go, or in areas of limited connectivity.

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ECM on Cloud 

With most organizations moving from on-premises IT infrastructure to the cloud, moving to a cloud based ECM solution seems almost a no brainer. A cloud based ECM solution is a cost effective alternative and enables lower overhead, elastic capacity management and lower CAPEX requirement. It also leads to better information management, responsiveness and scalability. Forrester Inc. expect the investment in cloud technologies to increase over the next three to five years as enterprises look forward to next-generation capabilities.

“Major vendors such as Microsoft, with Office 365 and SharePoint Online, are providing compelling reasons for clients to look at cloud for content services. IBM is moving key ECM applications to its SoftLayer cloud, and EMC looks to its Pivotal team to supply infrastructure for its next generation of content services. The accelerating move to cloud to create, store, and share business content has compelled vendors to make investments in newer architectures.”

For companies with a more distributed or mobile workforce ECM on the cloud is the ideal option as information can be accessed anytime, anywhere.    

Redundant Storage Systems, Because Ransomware, and Other Scary Things..

Backup frequency and storage methods are critical elements of disaster recovery and information reliability. Local tape backups provide a good safeguard, but restoring large volumes of information stored on tape can take days, weeks or even months. A better practice for vendors and companies that implement ECM in-house is to use multiple, fully redundant storage systems and mirror all data (including backup files) synchronously. Accidents, and ransomeware happen everyday. Make sure you’re aware of how frequently company information is backed up and of the amount of time needed to recover your data and restore information.

Create, Collaborate, Repeat

When content plays a role within a business process, it often requires collaboration among employees. A truly comprehensive solution offers a suite of collaboration capabilities, and most ECM solutions are feeling the pressure to accommodate an increasingly collaborative workplace. As you research ECM products, discover what tools the ECM uses to facilitate sharing information– if the solution offers wikis, blogs and collaborative workspaces. It is a next-gen necessity that an ECM offer features that enable document collaboration to help workers make informed decisions. More ECM providers are integrating innovative features into products, realizing a trend that won’t be going out-of-style any time soon, as users now demand document sharing capabilities within a user-friendly environment.

Conclusion

Planning  new enterprise content management solution implementation is a complicated process that requires a little insight into the enterprise tech market as a whole. To ensure a successful ECM program, keep a steady eye on these trends and all of the great innovations emerging within the industry as a result.


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