And The Winners Are…

By Vicki Amendola, editor, ECM Connection magazine

Well, it seems like it was just yesterday that we opened the floodgates for ACE Award nominations, yet here we are, ready to celebrate the finalists and winners in this magazine issue. So many great nominations came in that it was difficult — almost overwhelmingly so — to narrow the field to just a handful of finalists and one winner in each category. In the end, nearly all of the nominations that were received held some degree of ACE-worthiness, but just like a hard-fought tennis match, eventually somebody has got to win.

ECM Solutions Continue To make Big Impacts In Every Industry
With all the nominations received this year, one thing remains certain: ECM and all its related technologies continue to make vast improvements in the daily operations of users in every market and, in many cases, vendors are playing a key role. We've read nominations that highlighted implementations done to simplify document submission for truckers visiting truck stops across the nation, to manufacturers struggling with AP, to county governments needing to gain efficiency across the board, and nearly everything in between. And, it's not just the breadth of the markets that continues to expand; it's the capabilities of the solutions as well. It's really not that long ago that we were simply talking about "scanning," when just capturing a digital image was progress. Now, we are increasingly talking about advancing technologies such as unstructured data capture, and it is being implemented in more than just large, enterprise environments. All in all, ECM remains an exciting and vibrant industry despite the doldrums with which it is sometimes labeled, and the outpouring of nominations simply adds validity to that argument.

Within the pages of this edition, beginning on page 11, you will find stories highlighting the solutions forged between this year's ACE Award-winning vendors and their end users. Read them. We hope that each will offer some insight on which solutions may best fit your needs, and perhaps which qualities you should look for the next time you are in the market for a new technology vendor.