News Feature | September 8, 2015

ECM Success Driven By User Needs

Katie Wike

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

Choosing The Right Field Service Software

According to experts, user-friendly systems are prominent because, when it comes to content management software, users are calling the shots.

When it comes to content management, MIT Press director of technology Bill Trippe suggests you make sure your staff is on board. This is, according to TechTarget, because users are more than a little picky when it comes to the software they use.

“The challenges for all technology teams are to invest wisely in core systems and applications, recognizing that needs are broader than what anyone or three systems can reasonably do,” explains Trippe. “More significantly, users will do what they want to do.”

Greg Lock, ECM solutions architect at Itec, agrees with Trippe in IT Web article, writing, “Developers will develop software that they think is easy to use, but the true test lies in ensuring that your end-user, who is often not as well versed with the software, is able to understand and use the software effectively.

“In the past, enterprise content management (ECM) solutions were limited in their ability to balance end-user needs and business processes, which means it was complex and not necessarily well-structured.”

Lock writes that in the past documents were scanned or imported straight into storage, whereas today ECM solutions are designed to work with users and their workflows. “With the evolution of enterprise content management solutions and the improvement of technologies such as optical character recognition, there is a lot more user functionality available than ever before,” he writes. “This includes enhanced searching capabilities, security, configuration, confidentiality processes to lock down information that should not be broadly available, and automatic workflows to simplify the way in which documents and business processes are managed.”

Mobility is also in high demand from end users; backups and recoveries are more important than ever before. ECM software should be able to retrieve any information due to downtime.