The evolution of
SharePoint's enterprise content management (ECM) functionality has created a
dilemma for organizations looking to implement an enterprise-wide content
management solution. Trying to answer the question of whether to replace your
ECM solution with SharePoint or simply to integrate it does not have a simple
answer. Why? ECM vendors supplement SharePoint functionality in many different
ways. Most professionals already have a mix of ECM tools, and there are many
options for integrating SharePoint with existing products.
Microsoft SharePoint
2010 has seen rapid adoption for managing enterprise content. In a recent
Forrester survey of 252 ECM decision makers, 63% indicated that they were using
SharePoint to address some or all of their ECM requirements. While in an
earlier study, satisfaction with SharePoint's content management workload ranked
highly, with 68% of IT decision makers claiming they were either satisfied or
very satisfied with the product.
Because of this
success, SharePoint has become a disruptive force when it comes to ECM
strategy. Organizations with existing ECM tools—for document management,
records management and more—find it particularly disruptive in three ways:
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SharePoint packaging and pricing
make overlaps tough to avoid. Microsoft includes SharePoint in
enterprise agreements, which leads to questions like: Why are we paying
maintenance to two or more ECM vendors? Can SharePoint meet our ECM needs? IT
leaders, in their quest to cut costs, foresee potential redundancy between
SharePoint's ECM functionality and the organization's incumbent ECM vendors'
capabilities.
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SharePoint's strengths lead to viral adoption among business
users. SharePoint
makes creation of basic sites easy and provides mature features for business
users to easily share content—the top-ranked business reason for investing in
ECM technologies. Collaboration, sites and intranet site workloads are highly
deployed with high satisfaction rates and receive the lowest dissatisfaction
ratings. This means SharePoint sites often see viral adoption among
workgroups.
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SharePoint 2010 made strides in ECM functionality. SharePoint has emerged as a
credible alternative to traditional ECM vendors in two key areas: foundational
and business content. While this is a positive development, it also means
content and collaboration professionals must begin evaluating the costs
associated with migrating off of previously customized platforms.
Completing
your organization's SharePoint ECM puzzle requires an understanding of your
requirements and an analysis of SharePoint 2010 ECM functionality. ECM vendors
provide multiple ways to put together the SharePoint ECM jigsaw puzzle. Each
puzzle differs based on your organization's ECM requirements. When identifying
the capabilities you need, make sure to:
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Assess your readiness: Don't underestimate people, process and technology change. If
SharePoint ECM functionality will replace all or some of the current ECM
solution and apps, it will be critical to assess your organization's readiness
for that change. Adoption of the SharePoint solution is the main criteria of a
successful implementation.
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Identify your fit: Map your ECM requirements to
Microsoft SharePoint 2010 capabilities. Understanding how much of SharePoint's functionality
meets the needs of your organization will provide the basis for determining
whether a second ECM solution is required.
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Mind
the SharePoint gaps: Determine which ECM vendor best fills the gaps. Many
organizations have discovered that SharePoint can meet most but not all of
their ECM requirements, thus, requiring an additional solution to enable
critical functionality. Identifying the right capabilities will help identify
the best ECM vendor products that can provide an ECM solution that best meets
your users' needs. Several market-leading ECM infrastructure vendors—such as
EMC, HP, IBM and OpenText and Microsoft partners—supplement the SharePoint
offering.
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Complete the ECM puzzle with search, web
part and document menu integrations. Select the integration approach that will supplement
SharePoint functionality, ignoring those that are not needed for your specific
implementation. For example, don't implement the records management integration
if you don't need DoD 5015.2 functionality.
ALAN
WEINTRAUB is a principal analyst
at Forrester Research, where he helps clients define ECM strategies, identify
organizational risks associated with ECM implementations and build ECM
governance programs that ensure information integrity and project success. For
more, visit www.forrester.com/Alan-Weintraub.
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