Has the Term Enterprise Content Management Become Outdated?

An information management trend (perhaps even megatrend, to borrow an old term!) which has been sweeping the world for a few years is finally making its way into the housing and real estate industry.  If you aren’t familiar with enterprise content management, it’s time to become familiar.  Let’s start with the basics.  We found a nice definition of the term “ECM” here.

Enterprise content management (ECM) systems help companies organize, manage, and distribute unstructured content such as documents, images, health or accounting records, surveys, product information, emails, and web pages. Companies utilize this software to store, track, edit, and collaborate on content creation and other information-related projects, while maintaining predefined and appropriate security levels. Employees at every level of the organization can access and exchange information using ECM software based on user privileges assigned by a system administrator, which streamlines the lifecycle of information and automates various business processes using embedded workflow.

If you are brand-new to the concept, or not an operations-type, keep in mind that the term “content” includes documents, records, reports, policies…you name it.  Almost any form of information or data necessary to be stored, accessed, shared, etc. within your business can be content.  ECM is an evolving means of centralizing that information while making it quickly and easily accessible to those authorized to tap into it.  In other words, the days of salespeople keeping prospect lists locally on their laptops are long gone.

Of course, while our industry has just been waking up to the possibilities of ECM, it has been evolving elsewhere (to our benefit).  So much so that many are altogether rethinking the concept. Late in 2016, there was some research on the evolution of ECM, and what was discovered was fascinating. Let’s start with this statement from that research:

“The term “enterprise content management” no longer reflects market dynamics or the organizational needs for content in digital business. For applications leaders in charge of content management projects, this means casting aside previous notions and rethinking their technology approaches…”

A fairly big statement there!  “…no longer reflects market dynamics or organizational needs.” If it’s not ECM, what is it then? What’s this about, and how does it impact you?  Check back with us shortly and we’ll share!