ECM Returns To Its Roots

2001 was a year of reckoning for the technology industry. Tough times forced many companies to reevaluate their businesses. This is especially true in enterprise content management (see definition below*). With its origins in document management and imaging, enterprise content management (ECM) has branched out over the years in many directions. Some of these extensions include knowledge management (KM), portals, Web content management (WCM), and even offshoots as obscure as e-business. But the slower adoption of these technologies has led the industry in 2002 to return to the document management and imaging roots of ECM - while keeping an eye on new applications.

Channel Stays Focused On Core Technology
Some VARs, like David DeSantis, founder of Systems Imaging (Pittsburgh), never left their origins and continued to capture accounts like FedEx (see Business Solutions' June 2001 issue). DeSantis contends that there's plenty of market potential for traditional document management and imaging applications and the channel should focus on what it does best. KeyMark, Inc., a VAR featured in this issue, has found similar results (p. 30). This Greenville, SC company has maintained growth rates of 50% or higher for five years by focusing on traditional applications like forms processing and workflow.

VARs aren't the only ones who've realized the potential of old-line ECM applications. Vendor SER Solutions (Herndon, VA) recently announced the SERknowledge Partner Program to encourage more VAR and OEM partnerships for its document capture, document management, and workflow applications. According to Mike Ball, SER's vice president of marketing, the company would like to produce 50% of its sales through channel partners.

ECM Education: From The Top Down
Even at the highest levels, the industry is returning to its roots. I recently visited John Mancini, president, and Brian Randall, vice president of global sales and industry relations, of AIIM International. The pair lead the largest international association and trade show for ECM. Like the rest of the industry, AIIM wandered over the last few years toward different offshoots like e-business. However, Mancini and Randall are now working to steer the organization back to its beginnings. AIIM sees huge potential in educating end users about the business value of ECM. Says Randall: "It's hard to believe, but there are plenty of businesses that know nothing about document management and imaging." The association has restructured its membership to open its educational archives and resources to end users at a low-cost fee, and analysts would definitely argue that there's ample demand. Meta claims that 75% to 80% of all content is unstructured (documents, memos, e-mails, Web pages, etc.). With ECM's ability to capture and manage this data, it's no surprise that Meta predicts this market to expand to $10 billion by 2004. If I were a VAR, I reckon I'd be interested in this opportunity.

*ECM is defined as the technologies used to create, capture, customize, deliver, and manage unstructured content related to business processes.