ECM deployment

Alfresco is one of the most well known open source enterprise content management providers. With over 1.4 million downloads of their solution already and a number of marque clients for the Alfresco Enterprise, they should be happy to continue business as usual.But, as usual, they aren't. This week they have announced a partnership with ParaScale, a cloud storage software provider, to offer Alfresco "Content as a Service". The ParaScale PlatformIn enterprise deployments of ECM solutions, the traditional model is separate hardware for front-end and back-end (multiple this model based on usage requirements). It's the model that Alfresco would typically recommend to its clients.

According to a comprehensive survey of banks and credit unions conducted by Cornerstone Advisors, Inc., the first quarter of 2008 shows that credit unions have embraced ECM more fully than banks. Of those institutions surveyed, 77 percent of credit unions responded that they had implemented an ECM solution, as compared to 55 percent of banks. Although success stories and mature vendor offerings are prevalent within the industry, many financial institutions have either yet to adopt an ECM system or have not utilized their system to its fullest potential. According to Cornerstone Advisors' findings, "When asked to rate ‘the level of adoption, acceptance, utilization, integration and mastery' of installed ECM solutions, on a scale of 1 to 5, banks responded with an average score of 3.5 and credit unions 3.7."

It would be interesting to know how many failed ECM projects stemmed from the wrong deployment methodology. I was pondering on this after a discussion with Liz Ure last week in London. Liz is the Head of Information Strategy for the Scottish Government and she discussed with me the inappropriateness of methodologies that emphasis implementation, rather than change. There are any number of methods being touted for ECM, from Agile to Prince2 through any numerous of (AA-style) "step" approaches. I have long argued that any methodology is better than no methodology, and these are all fine in their way. But to Liz's point, they all emphasize successful system deployment, with a focus on "going live." However, ECM is a toolset that brings about profound business change. That change can come gradually, in small steps over a long period of time, but in a continuous fashion. In other words you don't just "get ECM

A simultaneous enterprise-wide deployment of ECM technology isn't a budgetary possibility for most businesses. However, by isolating the biggest paper pain point in your organization and addressing it with a departmental ECM system, you can quickly realize cost savings that will allow you to fund the expansion of the solution to multiple segments of your business. Used with permission from Integrated Solutions magazine

On 17/18 October I will be hosting (along with Theresa) some round table discussions at the London Documation event. It's an interesting event in that rather than a podium and an attentive audience, the format is round table discussions with panels of experts. Its a real chance to interact, learn, and frankly argue a bit! The theme of our discussions will be: Open Source as a viable alternative for ECM? The business case for ECM Large scale ECM deployments - lessons learned I particularly like these kind of events as they give us an opportunity to interact, and be challenged -- it's a two way conversation. All three of the topics we know are hot with ECM Report buyers - if you are going to be there, please do come along and take part, and also say hello. This is one of the better educational ECM events, so we hope you can make it.

A recent post about the ERP space by Phil Windley describes the tension between a department's need for ease of deployment and usage, versus the enterprise's need for interoperability and standards. Of course, that same conflict plagues the enterprise content management community as well. Windley's advice also applies: "...more importantly, organizations need to be able to create strategic plans for their business that don't revolve around a deployment project." Enterprise architecture should not automatically mean centralization on a single ECM suite..."Strategic Planning and Tactical Deployment in the Applistructure"