Beyond The Borders Of Compliance And Records Management:
An Interview With TOWER Software President Jan Rosi
Written by Brian Sherman
With the U.S. ECM community mounting large campaigns to introduce its regulatory compliance solutions, I thought it would be good to see how we are doing compared to other parts of the world. From my discussions with several internationally connected IT executives, I got a sense that United States–based software developers and manufacturers could benefit from looking at how other areas of the world handle compliance.
I recently talked with Jan Rosi, an acknowledged expert in the international ECM community, to get her view of how U.S. compliance initiatives compare to those that have been implemented elsewhere in the world. Jan is the president of TOWER Software North America, a provider of enterprise content management solutions with strong roots in Europe and Australia. She has more than 25 years of global IT, strategic sales, and business leadership experience, having driven successful programs across several continents. Jan was named president of TOWER Software North America in August 2004 and previously served as the head of federal government business with HP in Australia. She also shared her thoughts on the ECM industry itself, and how end users can benefit from implementing this technology.
Brian: Jan, how did records management solutions and standards develop in Australia and internationally?
Jan: Australia developed the standards for information and records management back in the early 1980s with the Freedom of Information act covering the public sector. A similar situation was driving compliance issues in the United Kingdom as well. Records management personnel (not legislators) motivated the European and Australian standards, with a desire to archive information and manage that data enterprise-wide. These people know how to structure information, provide proper vocabulary, and plan filing schemes to share across the organization.
Brian: What role did government play in developing records management solutions?
Jan: The Australian government was a key driver for the solution TOWER Software developed (TRIM). Organizations needed a tool to help them manage information, which was difficult with the volume of paper documents that exist in the public sector. The government was an early adopter of all technology in Australia, and electronic records management was needed in this situation. Our founder was an IT staff member for the national library system, and he realized the benefits of using information management best practices. Computer solutions would help people administer their corporate information or enterprise-wide information (similar to managing financial assets and human resources). He went on to develop document-sustaining solutions and records management for enterprise.
Brian: What is the Australian government's role in technology development?
Jan: The federal public sector is very proactive in Australia. In the first half of the 90's, the federal public sector set up a selection panel of vendors and service providers to develop solutions for managing organizations' key assets, including human resources, financial property, and general information. They saw the three assets together and set about to structure and make accessible the tools across the federal government.
Brian: Could you please explain the origins of ECM and records management in Australia?
Jan: Prior to the advent of pure document management startups, there was very little structure in paper administration. TOWER (and its Australian TRIM product partner IBM) was the dominant player in information management in that geography. Other companies flourished in true records management, in electronic reports, and across the entire enterprise. As the technology grew, the benefits to desktop systems became a priority and applications were rolled out. Because the federal government was the early adopter of ECM, state and local municipalities saw the value and followed closely with their own implementations.
Brian: How have private sector roleouts progressed in Australia?
Jan: During the roleout of state and local government solutions, numerous enterprise-wide deployments were completed. EDRM (electronic document records management) is the cornerstone of ECM today in the private sector, providing a managed and structured information layer across the organization.
Brian: In what ways can the North American ECM market learn from Europe's and Australia's experiences?
Jan: There are some real organizational cultural differences between the U.S. on one hand, and Europe and Australia on the other, which means there are some things that the U.S. can learn from these other countries.
In Europe and Australia, everyone understands information compliance, particularly in the IT/IM (information management) area of organizations. This area is responsible for the dispersion and implementation of tools to enable compliance.
In the U.S., many groups within organizations are responsible for the implementation of compliance, including the risk managers, legal personnel, record managers, and the IT staff. This results in silos of responsibility that limit organizational policy and greatly hinder the implementation of compliance guidelines.
Organizational compliance will never be as successful in the U.S. until it becomes an integral part of the infrastructure, as it is in Europe. This is why IT in the U.S. presents organizations with an electronic solution, not a resolution to a compliance issue.
This is also why you see U.S. products with compliance (records management constructs) ‘bolted on' to an information (document management) infrastructure. American market products are not an integral part of the information management solution, as they are with European and Australian products such as TOWER's TRIM Context.
Brian: How important is the U.S. government to ECM industry development compared with other countries?
Jan: The US government is very important to the ECM industry worldwide for two key reasons. First, the National Archives and Records Association (NARA) and Department of Defense (DoD) are driving persuasive standards across all industries around the world. The DoD JITC (Joint Interoperability Test Command) standard is fundamentally accepted as a standard within both government and private sector organizations worldwide.
Second, the U.S. federal government is essentially the largest enterprise in the world and can verify a solution's extensive scalability and accessibility capabilities.
Brian: Speaking of the U.S., what do you feel are the hot issues emerging in ECM in this market?
Jan: The first issue is the ability to comprehensively manage all electronic content within the same structure. The capability to oversee all of an organization's information with a single system, rather than multiple constructs, is a major industry goal. ECM's has the ability to manage all types of information through its lifecycle, including all forms of electronic information and paper. Managing information means getting all the information authenticated, managed, secured, and delivered to the right people at the right time.
Brian: What would you like to tell prospective customers about choosing the appropriate ECM systems?
Jan: There are four key areas to address when selecting a proper ECM system. First, I would say to drop the ‘s' from systems because you need a single infrastructure that is scalable across your enterprise.
Second, manage each aspect of all information, electronic or otherwise, with the same management tool or system. Different systems give attorneys ‘rat holes' to expose situations of non-compliance and negligence.
Third, if you don't implement a system correctly and you have product gaps or integrations, then you are exposing your organization and senior executives to negligence claims. For instance, if you upgrade your system software and you don't upgrade any integration or customized code, then you are definitely exposed to negligence claims from lawyers.
Fourth, look for a configurable solution that has been proven to be scalable across the enterprise.
The marketplace is changing in that everyone is getting smarter with regards to technology, including lawyers. This can result in higher risks with regards to litigation and exposure. The result of legislation such as Sarbanes-Oxley is people that are more technology savvy, which impacts not only compliance but also operational negligence. That can have far wider impact on the viability of an organization's continued operation.
Click here for additional information on TOWER Software's TRIM Context software solution.
Brian Sherman is chief editor of ECM Connection and Data Storage Connection