What Is ECM?

In today’s dynamic business environment, organizations must do more than manage their information. They must leverage it to gain competitive advantage.

Enterprise content management, or ECM, helps companies make the most of their information throughout its lifecycle, from creation through archiving and/or disposal. With an effective ECM solution in place, companies can increase efficiency, reduce costs and improve control over their information.

The industry organization AIIM defines ECM as “the strategies, methods and tools used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to organizational processes. ECM tools and strategies allow the management of an organization’s unstructured information, wherever that information exists.”

ECM empowers employees within an organization to access the information they need in seconds, rather than searching through multiple desktop applications or sorting through piles of paper.

ECM encompasses a number of functionalities and disciplines, including image capture, document management, online content management, collaboration, search, records management, digital asset management and workflow management.