How to Choose an Enterprise Content Management Solution: 5 Steps for Selecting the Optimal System

The right enterprise content management solution can work wonders for your business. But in order to find it, you need to know what you’re looking for. 

Many of today’s businesses struggle to handle the massive amount of content they create – and for good reason. Storing, organizing, and accessing content is a big job for any organization, and is often made even more complex by the need to not only manage this content but pull actionable insights out of existing data. 

The good news is that ECM software can do much of the job for you, providing a centralized platform where content can be managed and put to better use. Below, we’re looking at some of the specific benefits of an ECM solution, as well as sharing our best tips for choosing a platform that makes your content operations (and your life) a whole lot easier. 

A quick look at the benefits you get from ECM software

An ECM solution provides you with content management features that take the heavy lifting out of how your business stores and processes its ever-growing content volume. Beyond records management, it can markedly change the utility you get out of your proprietary data. 

Some of the benefits you can get from enterprise content management tools include:

• Boosted productivity across your organization
• Streamlined search and discovery
• More efficient collaboration among and between departments
• Reduced operating costs
• Increased compliance rates
• Heightened data security
• Improved customer service

And that’s not all. Newly developed ECM capabilities rooted in artificial intelligence offer real-time tracking and content optimization, plus automated content management so you can do more while working less. 

How to choose an enterprise content management solution in five steps

You’ve definitely got options when it comes to the ECM platform you choose. So how do you narrow it down? Start here. 

Step 1: Define your organization’s current content challenges

In order to get the most benefits out of an ECM platform, you need to know exactly what you want to achieve. Before researching available options, go to the drawing board with key stakeholders to determine what your current content management challenges are, then look for a platform that offers ECM tools targeted toward those specific pain points. 

Step 2: Evaluate key content management features

Speaking of the tools an ECM offers, it’s important to have a full grasp of available features right from the get-go. Even content management systems that appear similar tend to differ pretty widely in the key features they offer, and you don’t want to make the mistake of investing in and integrating an ECM platform that doesn’t go far enough for your business. 

Some of the features you’ll want to consider:

• Document and records management capabilities
• Search and retrieval tools
• Automatic vs. manual inputs
• Ease of collaboration 
• Data security and access safeguards
• Scalability 

Consider each feature category broadly, but also look deeper to see the specific tools used in their deployment. You may be surprised to see just how much variation exists among the top ECM platforms.

Step 3: Check out the interface

One of the primary goals of an ECM solution is to simplify how you use and manage your content. With that in mind, you’ll want to make sure that the ECM solution you go with has a user-friendly interface that doesn’t make things more complicated than they need to be. Consider both ease of access (with proper security protocols in place, of course) and general ease of use when determining whether an interface is well-suited to your organization and its end users. 

Step 4: Consider vendor reputation and support capabilities

The experience you have with a particular ECM solution is going to be guided in large part by the company that created it. Look for vendors with a proven reputation of success, paying close attention to things like user reviews and published case studies. In addition, be sure they offer support services and will be available on an ongoing basis to answer questions and troubleshoot any issues you might be having. 

Step 5: Sign up for a demo to really understand ECM capabilities

You can’t really know how well a product works for you until you put it to the test. A demo will clue you in to everything a certain ECM platform can and can’t offer your business, and will give stakeholders across different departments a chance to put various capabilities to the test and ensure they meet the mark. 

Systemware’s enterprise content management tools

Systemware understands the unique challenges that businesses face with their content operations. And to help you get ahead of them, we’ve designed an ECM solution that lets you tackle them from a single streamlined platform. As you go through the steps of choosing ECM software, we encourage you to take a look at what we’ve built and what it can do for your organization. Want to know more? Call or email us to learn about our solutions and the ways that Systemware can support your content management needs now and in the future.