eDJ Perspective on AIIM’s State of ECM Report

Migrated from eDJGroupInc.com. Author: Barry Murphy. Published: 2010-10-14 21:57:46  The AIIM State of the ECM Industry 2010 report is out and I read it to see what kinds of insights it might offer about the eDiscovery market.  ECM – or enterprise content management – gives organizations the ability to more efficiently manage unstructured content.  ECM first came on the scene to solve mundane problems like version control, to put workflow around content-driven processes, and to better facilitate knowledge management (giving knowledge workers the tools to be more efficient).  When the FRCP amendments took effect in 2006, the expectation was that ECM could ultimately solve the problem.  At eDJ, we still believe that ECM will play a huge role in identification, collection, and preservation initiatives, it will not be the end-all, be-all for eDiscovery.  That said, eDiscovery is a huge driver for ECM.The AIIM data backs up this notion – almost 25% of survey respondents name eDiscovery as one of the top 3 most important ECM issues or current projects underway.  It’s interesting to note that two eDiscovery-related projects – implementing records management and managing email as a record – were the numbers 1 and 2 most important ECM issues for respondents.  Looks like lowering eDiscovery costs and risks ranks high for organizations.  It’s related to compliance, as well; litigation was the overwhelming compliance driver when respondents think of the potential benefits of ECM and records management.Another interesting tidbit is that SaaS or cloud-based solutions are finally starting to hit some growth curves.  While only a small percentage of the various categories of tools are planned for outsourcing (having a vendor host the software), there is anticipated growth for certain applications.  For example, SaaS email management is posed to go from 4% of respondents utilizing it to 10% in the next 18 months.The AIIM data is a reminder, however, that the eDiscovery market still has a long way to go and that corporations are still not a mature buying group.  More than 35% of respondents still don’t manage email…at all.  And 41% are either not confident or only slightly confident in being able to demonstrate electronic information is accurate, accessible, and trustworthy.eDiscovery is still a market unto itself, but as the data shows, the ECM and eDiscovery segments continue to overlap greatly.  Events like IBM’s acquisition of PSS Systems will make the lines continue to blur, but it’s still early days and its important to think about requirements for today in addition to long-term ECM needs.