This strategy must include schemes to integrate front office (customer facing) applications with back office (business and transaction based) processes to customize and deliver relevant information and value to customers, suppliers, employees and business partners via the Net.

An Enterprise Content Management strategy also boosts the need for localizing and internationalizing both internal and external web-based communications and processes between customers, suppliers and employees. The growth of Enterprise Information Portals (EIP's) for personalizing and processing knowledge and corporate information to support critical business decisions, on a global scale, also requires that relevant information is localized to multiple languages and cultures with 24x7 support.

At the heart of this challenge is the need to face up to the exploding volume of unstructured content relating to all aspects of the organization. Unstructured information or "content" is expected to grow at a rate of 200 percent per year in the foreseeable future, according to the Boston based research firm Yankee Group. In AIIM's World-wide Enterprise Application Study, Gartner predicts that by 2004, organizations will maintain 30 times more data than in 1999. In addition, new delivery mechanisms are exploding; IDC, the Massachusetts research firm, estimates the number of mobile devices that will access interactive services is set to reach 95 million by 2004.

What are the key user issues?

An enterprise information and content management strategy needs to address structured and unstructured information. This means tackling such issues as:

• How much content is there and how much will it grow?
• How many types and classifications of information are there?
• Who manages which content and who owns the content?
• What is the content's life cycle? What must be saved, in what form, and for how long?
• How is the risk of litigation managed?
• How does content get re-used and re-purposed? What standards should be used to ensure exchangeability?
• How can content management strategies be optimized across processes so that there is consistency of approach and sharing of information?
• How do information repositories interoperate with applications to provide content?
• How will full records be maintained (with certainty) to capture the context in which a web transaction takes place?
• What electronic content migration strategy should be implemented as technologies become obsolete?
• What about privacy, security, data integrity and governance issues?
• How are applications to be integrated across the organization and with its key partners?
• How will globalization and localization issues be addressed within the content management strategy?

The impact of 'browser'-based access is changing the way organizations manage their information, both inside and outside the enterprise. Intranets, extranets and the Internet are revolutionizing information management. More traditional document management technologies are now increasingly becoming essential middleware to support specific enterprise applications. According to Gartner, in their recent World-wide Enterprise Application Study: "Workflow and content management technologies are becoming increasingly intertwined and interdependent. Workflow enables meaningful use of content, and content gives workflow a reason to exist".

Effective information and content management is now no longer possible without the carefully considered use of metadata. Establishing document and data hierarchies and indexing methodologies are important steps in implementing a content management system. XML technologies are increasingly being adopted as the most effective means of managing and delivering both structured and unstructured information and managing metadata. XML facilitates speed of information capture, conversion and delivery of relevant content, through a common methodology, to multiple applications, platforms or devices.

New challenges demand integration of 'document' technologies

Senior business managers in corporate and government organizations are now facing a tough challenge in migrating their entire operating infrastructures to support their new e-business objectives.

For more than ten years now, there has been considerable investment in departmental or line of business applications for information management. Using scanning, capture, document management and workflow technologies, organizations have transformed performance in paper and data intensive processes.

Led, amongst others, by the financial services market, such administrative tasks as application processes and claims processes among others have been streamlined with compelling payback justification. Which means that one of the key drivers for Enterprise Content Management is in the area of customer service and fulfillment. It's all about knowing who your customers are, what they need and how to electronically process the transactions and communications between customers, suppliers and business partners. These methods are now the norm, not the exception, and are vital for market leaders to compete with each other in their respective businesses.

For government applications, this means making the totality of services and transactions with citizens and agencies available on-line, spurred by the ambitious e-Government targets set by the governments across the EU. It is also about providing access to public information for essential services the results of which will minimize costs associated with traditional document based processes. In industry it means the automated sharing of information with customers and suppliers, driven by the need to improve customer service and reduce costs. In essence we're talking about an "information supply chain" with intranets, extranets and the internet as the delivery vehicle.

The problem is that these issues are highly complex and the much stronger legislative and regulatory environment in many EU countries means that managers are forced to address and understand a much more varied range of issues. Few suppliers are either sufficiently motivated or sufficiently resourced to shoulder this information and learning burden without outside help.

The key end-user issues at enterprise level are Information Storage and Data Protection, E-Process, Web Content Management, XML and Information Security. Users want to make use of the net to make the right information available to the right people, yet are wrestling with high levels of customer expectation, technical complexity and a significant burden of privacy, regulatory and legislative obligations. It is clear that users are reluctant to deploy specific solutions without having a strategic framework that helps ensure they get it right first time.

What technologies does Enterprise Content Management embrace?

Driven by the internet, technologies such as document management, knowledge management, e-process, collaboration tools and web content management are now merging, and no single supplier is realistically capable of offering a total solution. As defined by Gartner, there are four main business areas requiring content management: enterprise-internal content; website content; e-business transactional content and shared content

Among the suppliers of the relevant technologies addressing these areas, three distinct technology groupings have emerged, each of which needs to be integrated to drive e-business functionality right across the organization.

• Content creation—software for creating documents and web graphics (e.g. Microsoft, Adobe and Macromedia)
• Content repository and process management—software linking web sites with back office processes and systems (e.g. IBM, FileNet and Documentum), and
• Content publishing—software for managing, personalizing and delivering content via the web (e.g., Interwoven, BroadVision and Vignette)

Enterprise (Information) and Content Management is therefore much more than the management of web content, although this is an essential component. It is also much more than document management, even though it has its roots in many core document management technologies. Knowledge management is also a critical component for capturing and managing both explicit and tacit knowledge and combining it with information assets. In addition all these disciplines need to be directly linked to overall organizational objectives and processes, which makes it essential to include a level of Enterprise Application Integration.

AIIM International, a world-wide not for profit Association for Enterprise Content Management technologies and solutions, is co-hosting Info@, a two day conference and exhibition in London (November 20–21) which will focus on the these issues. AIIM International's role is to connect both users and suppliers of electronic document, business process and content management technologies and solutions. AIIM is pleased to expand their growing alliance with LISA, who will participate in chairing a panel discussion at Info@ on multilingual Web sites, global content management best practices, world-wide enterprise resource and information management, and multinational customer support—in particular, global enterprise data and resource management solutions, value and requisites of multilingual Web sites, overcoming linguistic/cultural hurdles for international market support and technology's role in managing multiple-language content world-wide. For more information go to http://www.info2001.org.

Deployment of an Enterprise Information and Content Management strategy is about leveraging corporate assets for growth, competitive edge and survival. It's not just about putting an organization on the web, but bringing the web into an organization!

John Symon (jsymon@aiim.org) is Senior Vice President, Europe of AIIM International. John has over 27 years of experience in the document and information management industry with international sales, marketing and management roles for North American and European ICT suppliers with postings in Chicago, Brussels and London. He is the author of several articles covering the above technologies and is a regular speaker at a range of conferences. John has also owned and operated a specialist scanning conversion company in the UK and has extensive knowledge of the Electronic Document Management Market in Europe.