OverviewSMEs: Dare to use more ECM
It’s a bit of a paradox. Medium-sized companies have been focusing on digital transformation for years and are implementing ambitious projects with increasing commitment. At the same time, they are paying remarkably little attention to one area: the handling of content. At least that was the case in the past, as the 2017 study “ECM in SMEs” by the digital association Bitkom shows. According to the study, only 32.7% of the companies surveyed with 20 to 499 employees have an enterprise content management (ECM ) solution in place. Among companies with more than 500 employees, the figure is 90.1%.
There are two possible reasons for this reluctance. Firstly, the topic of ECM is initially rather unsexy. Mainly because everyone is talking about apps with an incredible user experience or drones on the store floor. And secondly, the benefits of systematic digital handling of content are not necessarily obvious. After all, a lot of things are already done on computers – from the creation and storage of Office files to communication via email and the processing of data in ERP, CRM and other systems. What is still available on paper can easily be organized in conventional file folders. It all works well.
However, these reasons are only plausible if ECM is equated with the digitization and archiving of documents. However, this falls far too short. Content encompasses much more than just conventional documents. It is also about a company’s processes. These are organized, automated, executed and monitored via the content – end-to-end.
Digitalization, collaboration and compliance
This was already the case to some extent in the past. However, content-based process control is becoming increasingly important because the framework conditions are changing. And they are changing considerably. In our view, there are three areas that are particularly relevant and interrelated.
1. digitalization of business processesFormany companies – including SMEs – it is an important goal to digitalize their business processes. And preferably end-to-end. In this way, they not only want to increase their efficiency and flexibility, but also the quality of their products and services and their interaction with customers. They primarily rely on ERP solutions for this. These often come from SAP. The problem with this is that the business processes can usually be mapped end-to-end. However, the systems do not cover all process steps. As a result, countless emails, Word and Excel files or handwritten notes are created during a process and stored somewhere – but not in a central location and certainly not in the context of the overall process. As a result, business processes repeatedly come to a standstill because information is not transferred correctly or quickly. To put it simply: In reality, the analog process needs a digital twin.2 Collaboration in teams
Of course, working together in teams on a project is nothing new. In recent years, however, cooperation has increased enormously. It is not only employees from the various specialist departments of a company who belong to a team, but often also partners, suppliers or customers. This is another reason why the members are rarely together in one place for the entire duration of the project. It is therefore crucial to ensure that all participants always have access to the relevant information during collaboration . This is not possible with paper-based documents. And emailing files back and forth is not a satisfactory solution either.
3. increasing compliance requirements
A whole series of initiatives at various political levels have led to companies having to comply with more and stricter rules when handling documents. Data protection is at the heart of this. This also applies to the EU’s GDPR, which came into force in spring 2018 and relates to personal data. Among other things, companies must ensure that only authorized persons have access to content and that documents are destroyed in a timely manner.
Much more than archiving
With an ECM solution, considerable effects can be achieved in all three areas – at least if the functional scope of the software is right. It should not only allow the various content types to be merged into electronic files and archived in an audit-proof manner. It should also allow workflows to be established, controlled and monitored. The prerequisite for both is that the business objects, data and functions of the ERP system can be integrated into the ECM solution. A detailed authorization concept and routines for the timely deletion of content are also important. If all this is in place, information can be transferred along an end-to-end process without media discontinuity, team members can access all documents, data and processes from anywhere and at any time and legal requirements can be easily met. What’s more, when companies use an ECM solution and dispense with paper-based documents, this reduces the administrative workload for many reasons – for example, because all content can be found with just a few clicks. At the same time, costs are reduced as paper, printers and space for archiving physical files are hardly needed.
Three rules for implementation
The realization that the use of an enterprise content management solution is an essential part of digitization and brings tangible added value is now apparently gaining ground in SMEs. This is because the proportion of companies that already use an ECM solution is currently only one third – as described above. However, the Bitkom study cited above also shows that 17 percent of the SMEs surveyed are planning to procure an ECM solution for the first time. This means that at least half of the participants would be using such software.
An ECM solution can usually be introduced relatively quickly and with little effort. However, companies should pay attention to a few points to ensure that it unfolds its full potential after the go-live:
1. recording and designing business processes
Documents are created along business processes. It is therefore highly advisable to describe the individual processes step by step and assign content to each of them before introducing the technology. This ensures that everything is reliably covered later on. If business processes are documented in this way, it often becomes clear where they can be optimized. This is a side effect. But it is worth taking it with you. It makes sense not to tackle all processes at once. Instead, experience should be gathered in one specialist area and then gradually transferred.
2. define governance requirements and make them transparent
In large companies, employees are usually used to adhering to clearly defined business processes and the workflows derived from them. In medium-sized companies, on the other hand, this is often handled much more loosely. If an ECM solution is to bring the desired benefits, this must change. Governance requirements must be defined and made transparent. It must also be clearly communicated that compliance is mandatory. Employees should be involved at an early stage to ensure that they participate in this change. This also means that they can get involved. Their knowledge is particularly helpful when it comes to optimizing processes.
3. integration instead of connection via interfaces
In most companies, the ERP system plays a central role in the handling of business processes. An ECM solution should therefore interact with it as smoothly as possible. The connection via an interface is much less suitable for this than the seamless integration of the ECM solution into the ERP system. This is because with integration, the ECM solution directly accesses all content elements and functions in the ERP system. With a connection, the information is merely retrieved and stored separately – if that is possible at all.
