As the volume of content creation within organizations continues to grow, ECM solutions are emerging as a game changer in the world of managing content lifecycle. In this era of digital transformation, enterprise content management trends are making it easier than ever for businesses to manage content, streamline workflows, and improve collaboration. In this article, we will share some predictions about how ECM market will emerge in the near future.
Some of the enterprise content management trends include artificial intelligence integrated ECM, cloud deployment, vertical customized solutions, enhanced security and data privacy, and lastly integration with other business applications.
To maximize ECM benefits, organizations require a suitable strategy for smooth implementation, adherence to best practices, and follow up with latest emerging predictions.
As per globenewswire, the global enterprise content management market size is projected to reach USD 29.64 billion in 2028, at a CAGR of 14.3% during the forecast period. This should be a clear indicator that this technology is essential for business in any industry that are serious to effectively manage the complete lifecycle of their content and documents.
For more surprising ECM statistics, refer to our previously published article.
Let’s get started reviewing the top ECM trends.
What are the top Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Trends?
Our list of trends is based on how we anticipate the advancement of technology in the near future to positively impact the way we manage information, automate document-centric processes, and process documents.
Organizations who are serious about managing enterprise content and overcome related challenges should continuously check these developments and attempt to plan ahead their roadmap in order to take use of these offerings to the fullest extent possible.
The future trends for ECM are:
1- AI integrated ECM
Historically, ECM systems have been developed to combat information chaos and help organization store their documents and other digital files in a central repository. However, as new advanced technologies have been integrated with these vendors, they now can be used to more than just storage and managing content to automate document centric processes and document annotation and collaboration.
Having intelligent automation capabilities, organizations can now automatically route documents, trigger actions based on predefined business rules, and facilitate seamless collaboration among team members. For example, team members can annotate and redline documents digitally in realtime which reduces manual efforts and accelerates business operation.
Currently, AI is being used in many areas around ECM including:
- Processing document intelligently enabling automatic document classification, data extraction, and so on.
- Intelligent search
2- Cloud deployment
Have a cloud environment for managing content is one of the top trends related to ECM. During COVID19 pandemic, organizations have learned the hard way the need to have business documents and other digital files available for their employees to access, share, and collaborate on whenever they need them.
Embracing a cloud-ready application offers significant cost savings for your business by reducing expenses associated with hardware, software, and updates. Furthermore, modern vendors provide the flexibility to select and pay for specific capabilities that your organization requires, rather than investing in the entire on-premises solution. This ensures cost optimization and maximizes the value derived from the chosen cloud services.
3- Vertical customized solutions
Having a tailored ECM solution for each business, such as construction, finance, and healthcare deployment, is another emerging trend in enterprise content management that we are seeing many vendors adopt.
For instance, certain concepts must be present in the construction business when managing documents between a construction company and its affiliated clients and subcontractors. The formal transmission of a document between two parties that must adhere to certain rules and is legally binding is one of them, and it is represented by transmittals.
To increase the reachability of ECM, these vendors are creating a customized version on top of their software and adding these capabilities to help businesses manage their custom flow of documents.
4- Enhanced security and data privacy
In this digital world, the focus is increasing on securing business data and making sure to decrease the number of data breaches that can expose your sensitive information to the public. ECM vendors are adopting now a stronger encryption methodology, access controls, and audit trails to secure your information.
This is one of the most important enterprise content management trends that you need to keep an eye on as technology will continue to evolve, ECM will have to keep on evolving to help organization secure their data including confidential documents, customer information, financial records, and intellectual property.
Many content platforms include automation tools to assist businesses in adhering to their retention requirements. They can, for instance, spot unneeded sensitive material and mark it for deletion, lowering the chance of a compliance infringement.
5- Integration with business applications
Every application that we used in our business need to be able to communicate with other related tools in order to exchange data or continue a specific process.
ECM is no exception, it needs to be integrated with ERP, CRM, and other productivity apps to facilitate streamlined information sharing, automated processes, and improved productivity.
