Many companies adopt enterprise content management (ECM) tools, but fail to fully integrate the technology with their existing systems, tools and workflows. As a result, they miss out on much of the technology’s full value.
A fully integrated ECM platform delivers important benefits for your organization, your employees and your bottom line.
Here are three aspects of ECM integration that improve efficiency and productivity:
- Integrating ECM into line-of-business applications: Whether it’s an accounting package, a CRM or an ERP system, your personnel probably do much of their work within these traditional line-of-business applications. Periodically, these users have to leave an application and go hunting for digital or paper files stored elsewhere, disrupting the workflow.
By integrating ECM, you don’t have to leave the application or switch windows to track down a related document. Advanced ECM solutions allow you to place a button within your applications and the documents related to the content on your screen pop up automatically when clicking that button. - Integrating ECM with your email system: This integration spans all departments and serves two purposes: instant retrieval and automated archiving.
Imagine you’re reading in Outlook or another mail client and want to quickly check a document that’s related to that email before responding. Instead of going to a physical file cabinet or searching through your digital files, integrating ECM with your email system allows you to instantly search and retrieve any document in your system, without leaving your inbox.
Automated archiving is a second benefit of this integration. Email is a notorious data silo for most organizations: Once information goes into an employee’s account, it’s not searchable or useable by others in the organization. ECM makes it easy to archive any incoming or outgoing email and file it in your central document repository. - Enabling mobile access: Here, the goal is to integrate your ECM with all of your company’s existing mobile devices so that users have access to important business documents from their laptops, tablets, smartphones and other devices. This anywhere, anytime access helps employees to maximize efficiency and employee productivity instead of having to wait until they return to the office to find a document. This enables users to work smarter and more efficiently.
In terms of human resources, ECM integration helps drive user adoption and greater employee productivity. From a technology perspective, it improves your data integrity and accuracy, while also helping you get more use from your existing IT assets and hardware investments.
By connecting your business systems and your personnel through a fully integrated ECM system, you begin to unlock their true potential.
To learn more about using ECM to improve efficiency and productivity, download our FREE tip sheet, “5 Steps For Integrating ECM Into Your Organization”.
