ECM Report

The trend towards the single source content provider has triggered many recent acquisitions within the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) space. Thus far, the convergence has been about bringing under a single umbrella established technologies that have been around for a long time. Everyone has scrambled to acquire and/or build the requisite components that make up the generally accepted definition of ECM. So what’s next?

The single source model certainly has benefits to the consumer. In theory, the integration of the technologies should lead to quicker deployment times, better integration with legacy systems, and a lower total cost of ownership. Those things are all great, but at the end of the day, where are we? It is way too early to tell for certain, but that won’t stop me from making some predictions about the future of ECM.

Once the dust settles and offerings are in less flux, one has to recognize the potential for a lack of differentiation amongst the new industry players. We are going to end up with a handful of companies doing pretty much the same thing. Do you have document management? Check. Workflow? Check. Web content management? Check. This all looks nice as a press release but when it gets down to deployment and use cases, customers will ultimately want and need more. As certain technologies become commoditized, vendors need to find new ways to differentiate themselves.

Unfortunately, in the technology sector, sometimes the lack of something makes you more conspicuous than the strengths that set you apart. If you can’t italicize a word, you have no business calling yourself a word processor. That mentality has helped fuel the recent convergence in the ECM space. “You mean you don’t have records management? Bye-bye.” But one or two years from now, what is going to differentiate one mega vendor from the next? Looking ahead, what are some of the new things that need to happen for a vendor to separate themselves from the pack? Where should ECM go next? Ever hear of Expertise Management or Place-based Presence? Read on…

The Players

The convergence that has defined the ECM space has seen a blending of web content management, document management, imaging, workflow, records management and collaboration tools.

The consolidation has come from a variety of different directions… some WCM providers have swallowed smaller ECM players (i.e. Interwoven/iManage, Stellent/Optika, Vignette/Tower, IBM/Green Pasture). And some ECM vendors have swallowed smaller WCM providers (i.e. OpenText/Gauss/ IXOS). And, of course, there has been the lone “mega” deal (EMC/Documentum/Legato) that brought an outsider completely into the crosshairs of the other industry players. Add FileNet and Hummingbird to this list and you have a pretty good starting point for who the players are until the next set of acquisitions take place.

Notably absent are some of the other heavy industry hitters that either have incomplete offerings or have nothing at all. I would include Oracle, Microsoft, SAP and Peoplesoft in this list. Don’t be surprised to see one or more of these vendors step up to the plate by making the next “mega” deal. I wouldn’t even be surprised to see someone like IBM try to buy more market share. In any event, here is my updated watch list of the ECM market up to and including the announced Vignette acquisition of Tower Technology.

Leaders	Strong Contenders	Watch
EMC (EMC) FileNet (FILE) IBM (IBM) Open Text (OTEX)	Hummingbird (HUMC) Intewoven (IWOV) Stellent (STEL) Vignette (VIGN)	Hyland Identitech Microsoft (MSFT) Percussion Mobius (MOBI)

The Product Stack

The definition of ECM from a product perspective is in flux every day. Not everyone offers exactly the same things. That would be really boring. Nevertheless, the convergence taking place is making the definition of ECM much more clear. In my estimation, the product stack, as it currently sits, looks something like this:

Tier-1 Functionality (Must have it)	Tier-2 Functionality (Good Stuff)
Web Content Management Document Management Document Imaging Records Management Business Process Management (workflow)	Collaboration Knowledge Management Digital Asset Management Report Management Forms Management

The Future

The consolidation taking place has begun to highlight and validate the symbiotic relationship between these product types. However, the current trend simply has various industry players checking off a menu of functionality through acquisitions or development. Again, I believe the gap between functionality offered by the various vendors is shrinking the further we go along. Thus far, there has been a lot of reaction to industry forces, but very little innovation, creativity or pro-activity. What follows is what I believe needs to happen in the ECM space for the solutions to grow and, ultimately, for the solutions to differentiate themselves with added value to the consumer.
 

Better Integration with Line of Business Applications

One realizes early on that in the complete life cycle of a piece of information, seldom does it exist within a vacuum. There are always other pieces of information that are relevant and useful. Frequently, those other pieces of information are additional documents, pieces of paper, emails, etc. This issue pretty much describes what traditional ECM addresses. But more often than not, that content is also relevant within the context of data that exists in other locations such as an accounting application, supply chain management application, or other relevant line of business database. Portals exist to address this need of information aggregation. For the content to be truly maximized, it must be able to be viewed in this context.

Look for three things to happen that will address this need. First, there will be more and better integration with portal technology. Generic portal vendors and ECM vendors need to talk about how to address the presentation needs of the general public. Second, some ECM vendors either already have their own portal products or have their hand in content delivery and presentation. Making the ECM platform the backbone of other content aggregation efforts is certainly one interesting story to be told. And finally, look for some of the big line of business application vendors like Oracle, SAP, Peoplesoft, Siebel, etc. to be the next set of acquirers. Forget generic portals, they’ll just offer native ECM capabilities tightly integrated with their core application offerings.
 

Business Process Management

I, like many others, frequently confuse “workflow” with business process management. According to BPM vendors, workflow is a subset of BPM, and, at least at a functional level, I would agree. Workflow tools, as they exist in the current ECM stack, tend to concentrate on how and when to route around a set of documents, images or other content. BPM does this as well, but it does workflow one better. In addition to the routing around of content, BPM tools also act as an integration point to external, line of business, legacy applications. For example, a loan officer may be delivered a packet of documents in which to take action. The action required may be to collect a bunch of information off of the forms and get it into their loan software. A BPM tool would not only deliver the content, but it would also provide the necessary integrated access to the loan database.

In many instances, BPM tools act as the glue to disparate systems. And, regardless of the number of things it integrates, it is still able to manage the complete process and gather performance metrics along the way. Very useful stuff indeed. BPM is certainly many evolutions ahead of workflow. However, I believe it still belongs in the ECM stack acting as the glue between unstructured content and structured data. Look for ECM vendors to embrace the more comprehensive BPM model and significantly enhance their existing workflow engines through upgrades or acquisitions.
 

Records Management and Email Management

We are already starting to see a lot of activity regarding “Records Management.” RM describes functionality that allows organizations to manage physical and electronic files, their archive and retention schedules and audit their activity. Email management, which is a bit earlier in its life than RM, has many of the same requirements. Given the recent accounting related scandals and the subsequent Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Records and Email Management solutions are hotter than ever. Those two technologies need to blend together with the rest of the ECM offering to provide seamless records retention and management schedules across all content types.
 

Knowledge Management

There are a few ECM providers that do Knowledge Management (KM) today, but they all should. KM is an invaluable technology that really belongs in the ECM stack. KM tools allow you to do a couple of important things. First, they allow you to create very structured and all-encompassing taxonomies for organizing otherwise unstructured corporate information. Think of the Yahoo! directory structure with your corporate information at the end of the hierarchy.

The second major function of KM is the aggregation of the information presented in that structure. Again, think of Yahoo! and how it crawls external websites to create its directory. It builds its own massive database of information from places it either knows about or can figure out. Whereas a portal lets you view data from multiple places, KM tools actually grab the information and bring it to a central location. Think of it as a central repository where all corporate information ends up at some point in its life cycle. Once there, it is categorized and subject to all other ECM rules and capabilities. It is retained, archived, routed, actioned, audited, searched on and utilized. Oh, and it’s all automatic. OK, this isn’t meant to be an advertisement for KM, but I feel very strongly that KM tools are extremely complementary of the rest of the traditional ECM offering.
 

Expertise Management

There is a very interesting class of tools out there that have flourished under the radar screen of many organizations. These tools go by several names, including Expertise Location and Management (ELM), Expertise Management, and sometimes even Knowledge Management. It is a natural evolution to KM so sometimes the two terms are used interchangeably. For purposes of this article we will simply refer to it as Expertise Management or EM.

The goal of EM is to classify and quantify the expertise of knowledge workers. That’s right, actual people. Knowing who the experts are can be extremely useful when trying to access information of a very specific, sometimes complicated subject matter. Say for example, you need to create some sort of contract. You may start this process by looking for similar documents or other content within the ECM system. You may do a search for keywords or navigate the corporate taxonomy looking for something similar to what you need. But whether you find it or not, knowing who within the organization can best assist you is premium information.

In large organizations, knowing who knows is sometimes a skill in and of itself. Using EM tools, however, this is not an unknown. We know who the subject matter experts are and this information is readily available. How does it know who the experts are? Your previous contributions are calculated and quantified leading to judgments about what it believes you are an expert in. In addition, coworkers are able to submit rankings and metrics that assist in quantifying your individual skill with certain core subject matters. Based on all of this data, you may be ranked a four-star expert in one subject and five in another. In any case, this information helps peers locate those most able and available to assist with their task.

I believe we will see a major productivity increase when a knowledge worker has the ability to move in one motion from locating explicitly captured data and documentation directly to the tacit knowledge contained within the collective brainpower of the organization.
 

Collaboration

Prior to the recent wholesale convergence, there was a significant trend with respect to collaboration tools and their effects on ECM. It is a message that Open Text had pioneered many moons ago and remains the primary force in its marketing efforts. Others later followed their lead in the belief that collaboration is the backbone to successful ECM initiatives. The concept is compelling and so simple that it seems like it should be blatantly obvious. And yet, it’s a fundamental message that is lost on many organizations. The idea is that content and collaboration are symbiotic in nature. Content is generated as an offshoot of some collaborative process. Once the content is captured it can be easily re-purposed, leading to additional collaborative efforts.

The cycle’s basic premise is that more content leads to better collaboration, which leads to more content and corporate knowledge. A simple concept to be sure, and one that was not lost on the ECM vendors of a year or so ago. To fulfill this vision, Documentum snapped up eRoom, iManage was in the process of transforming their product set to one based entirely around collaboration when they were swallowed by Interwoven, Vignette grabbed Intraspect, Microsoft made a significant investment in Groove Networks, and of course, the Grandpappy of “collaborative content” Open Text continued to deliver.

Collaboration-related acquisitions actually were the talk of the ECM industry until six months or so ago. And, as pointed out, it made sense. The symbiotic relationship between collaborative efforts and the corporate knowledge that they foster is a bona fide, quantifiable money saver. I for one believe that if collaboration again becomes a key focus it will likely be the foundation from which all other ECM functionality gains value. It is a compelling message, it is easily understood as an efficiency enhancer, and it has real and proven benefits to an organization
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Real Time Collaboration

Web Meetings

Traditionally, collaboration is thought of in a shared team room concept where documents, tasks, and other salient items can be aggregated and utilized at any time by the members of a team. As an obvious extension, online meetings a la WebEx and Microsoft LiveMeeting (formerly Placeware), provide additional avenues of collaboration and content sharing. Being able to extricate project content from the team room, mark it up during a real-time meeting then commit the changes and the entire meeting itself back to the official record further enhances the effort and fosters additional collaboration and content contributions. This appears to me to be a natural and obvious extension of traditional collaborative tools.

I suspect most vendors will opt to partner with the established service providers rather than write or acquire their own technology. Real-time meeting technology is much better as an outsourced, ASP-based solution than in an in-house solution offering. In addition, the subscription nature of the established pricing models could help ECM vendors generate an additional source of recurring revenue.
 

Instant Messaging

Instant Messaging (IM) is another shift in paradigm that many organizations are struggling with. IM in the corporate world has not really caught on in a huge way, which, by the way, completely baffles me. In any case, IMing really is just a much easier to perform and more dynamic email thread. However, IM presents an interesting paradox to many organizations. It is a quick and direct way of communicating with someone that doesn’t require any sort of storage and has no long-term archival needs. On the other hand, because IM is real time, it isn’t saved, tracked, audited, or stored for future posterity.

IM is very much like a digital version of a telephone conversation. Once it is over, it is subject to interpretation. But this isn’t entirely correct. After all, an instant message is a piece of data and can and some would say should be stored. Given Sarbanes-Oxley and other records and email management requirements, this is a logical next step for corporate instant messaging tools. An instant message conversation should be considered a type of content and should be subject to all the capabilities and requirements of any other piece of stored content.

I foresee two different ways ECM vendors might tackle this. First, you may see some attempt to integrate with standard tools like Yahoo, AIM, MSN, etc. However, these tools are mostly the domain of casual, dorm-room level, instant communications. They might not be ideally suited for building an inclusive corporate IM solution as described. A second approach might be one where a complete solution is built from the ground up using a forthcoming IM standard protocol. If technical issues are resolved and standards are developed, a whole new generation of tools could appear that corporations will rush to adopt.
 

Place-based Presence

An emerging capability that could be the “killer” application of IM for corporate users is the concept of “place-based presence”. Presence in this context refers to knowing who is online and available for discussion at any given point in time. Presence, as it is implemented today, however, is completely user-centric. That is, each person has their own, personal list of “buddies” from which presence is determined. In the corporate world, however, more often than not, you may not know who you want to talk to. You may want to speak to a team member, but you may not know all of the team. In addition, you may lead or participate in many teams. In the current, user-centric world, you would have to add EVERY buddy to your list before being able to determine presence and instantiate a conversation. This lack of context has obvious flaws in scenarios where you have large groups and/or there are unknown people you may wish to speak to. Place-based presence is the solution.

Place-based presence gives you the ability to view content in context while simultaneously viewing the presence of all of the contributors, team-members, or other appropriate knowledge workers. In this scenario, the context of the content dictates the buddy list and relevant subject matter experts are instantly available. Not coincidentally, this also ties in quite nicely with “Expertise Management,” which I described earlier.

It is my belief that the ECM space is the perfect early adopter and long term home for corporate Instant Messaging and other real-time collaboration tools.
 

And Finally…

Report Management (aka ERM and COLD) is a mature and important piece of today’s ECM picture. However, I believe it will undergo a subtle redefinition as crawlers mature, portals expand, and the capacity of storage devices increase. Don’t be surprised to see report management converge with crawlers and/or other integrated input technologies. Forms Management (FM), in my opinion, is a highly utilized stand-alone application that is likely to be consumed by the ECM stack. FM is a logical subset of traditional document management combined with BPM and it’s routing, tracking, and integration capabilities.
 

Who Can Get Us There?

All of this culminates in the million dollar question. My vision is obviously heavy on new collaboration and KM features. A few organizations with Open Text leading the way, have been articulating a similar message for a long time. However, vision and message don’t necessarily imply an ability to execute, superior technology, or happy customers. Those are the challenges that all of the ECM players face. I like Open Text’s vision; let’s see where it takes them. I like the outlook of Vignette, Stellent and Interwoven’s recent acquisitions and market positioning. FileNet is a steady performer and never count out the big guns like IBM and Microsoft. Mix in a couple of dark horses and a few we haven’t even heard of yet and you’ve set the stage for an extremely competitive market moving forward.

There is no limb walking here for obvious reasons. What I have discussed represents what I believe should be the strategy for a fifteen round heavyweight title fight. The recent convergence represents the weigh-in and the first round is just getting started. No doubt, much will happen over the course of the fight. Some will get knocked down and get back up again. Some will go down for the count. Some will do the kicking around, but may lose in a split decision. Anything can happen and that is what is so intriguing. Who will win, you ask? Well, obviously, it will be whoever actually does all of this stuff.

Note : This document is a high level overview of an extremely broad range of topics that I find interesting. I have spent a good deal of time and effort organizing my thoughts in a way that might interest others. The intellectual capital represented here is not trivial, but neither is it a wholistic and complete vision. I do have to keep some things close to the vest. Nevertheless, I do believe it is a great deal more information than you might typically get without entering into an official engagement with an analyst or consultant. As such, I would be very appeciative if you would respond with your thoughts on the subject matter. You can leave comments attached to the article itself, send me an email, or drop me a line. Anything will suffice so as long as I know that I have made you think. Even if what I made you think about is throwing something at me.

Rick Taylor