Doculabs White Paper: ECM as a Shared Service: The New ... … · ECM as a Shared Service: The New...

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2007 Doculabs, 200 West Monroe Street, Suite 2050, Chicago, IL 60606, (312) 433-7793, [email protected]. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Doculabs is a registered trademark. All other vendor and product names are assumed to be trade and service marks of their respective companies. Organizations are struggling with the increasing growth of unstructured content: all the word processing files, e-mail, spreadsheets, web content, images, graphics, and other digital assets that are created and used in the course of business processes. In the past, an organization may have deployed a content management solution to meet departmental needs. Now, however, content management is being recognized as an enterprise-wide need – regarded as an essential infrastructure investment rather than a niche application. At the same time, large organizations that have centralized and standardized their IT shops are now looking for new ways to contain costs and improve quality of service to their customers. Many of these IT departments are under pressure to more effectively meet the needs of rapidly growing global operations. The result is that chief executives are coming to the conclusion that it makes sense to deliver enterprise content management (ECM) functionality as a shared service – similar to how services such as networking and e-mail are being supplied today. Such an approach allows an organization to address the explosion of unstructured content while maximizing the economies of scale for its investment in the technology. The good news is 1) the content management problem finally has executive attention, and 2) the technology has now achieved the maturity that is necessary to realize the shared services vision. But the bad news is that among organizations deploying major ECM initiatives, fully 50 percent of these initiatives have failed. What does it take to implement ECM as a shared service? This white paper makes the business case for ECM shared services, then presents the core components of a framework for an ECM shared services program – components that are essential to ensuring the success of ECM as a shared service. Doculabs White Paper: ECM as a Shared Service: The New Frontier

Transcript of Doculabs White Paper: ECM as a Shared Service: The New ... … · ECM as a Shared Service: The New...

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2007 Doculabs, 200 West Monroe Street, Suite 2050, Chicago, IL 60606, (312) 433-7793, [email protected]. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Doculabs is a registered trademark. All other vendor and product names are assumed to be trade and service marks of their respective companies.

Organizations are struggling with the increasing growth of unstructured content: all the word processing files, e-mail, spreadsheets, web content, images, graphics, and other digital assets that are created and used in the course of business processes. In the past, an organization may have deployed a content management solution to meet departmental needs. Now, however, content management is being recognized as an enterprise-wide need – regarded as an essential infrastructure investment rather than a niche application.

At the same time, large organizations that have centralized and standardized their IT shops are now looking for new ways to contain costs and improve quality of service to their customers. Many of these IT departments are under pressure to more effectively meet the needs of rapidly growing global operations.

The result is that chief executives are coming to the conclusion that it makes sense to deliver enterprise content management (ECM) functionality as a shared service – similar to how services such as networking and e-mail are being supplied today. Such an approach allows an organization to address the explosion of unstructured content while maximizing the economies of scale for its investment in the technology.

The good news is 1) the content management problem finally has executive attention, and 2) the technology has now achieved the maturity that is necessary to realize the shared services vision. But the bad news is that among organizations deploying major ECM initiatives, fully 50 percent of these initiatives have failed.

What does it take to implement ECM as a shared service? This white paper makes the business case for ECM shared services, then presents the core components of a framework for an ECM shared services program – components that are essential to ensuring the success of ECM as a shared service.

Doculabs White Paper:

ECM as a Shared Service: The New Frontier

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What’s Inside

Why Shared Services for ECM?

Provides an introduction to shared services, discussing the reasons behind the movement to offering enterprise content management (ECM) functionality as a shared service

The Benefits of Offering ECM as a Shared Service

Discusses the advantages of using a shared-service approach to providing ECM functionality on an enterprise basis

What it Takes to Deploy ECM as a Shared Service

Highlights the importance of strategy and ongoing program management for successful enterprise deployments

A Framework for Deploying ECM as a Shared Service

Provides a framework for deploying ECM as a shared service, including the four key pillars of a shared-services program: Program Organization, Information Organization, Communication and Marketing, and Services and Support Delivery Model

Key Questions to Ask

Lists the key questions to ask as you prepare to make the case for offering ECM shared services in your organization

Final Word

Provides Doculabs’ overall assessment of the value of shared services as an implementation approach for enterprise content management software solutions

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Why Shared Services for ECM?

Management of unstructured content is fast becoming a business priority for organizations today, as they attempt to address the sheer volume of word processing files, e-mail, spreadsheets, web content, images, graphics, and other digital assets that are now being created and used in the course of business processes. Where an organization might previously have deployed one (or more) software products to individual departments to meet their specific content management needs, the prevailing view today is that content management is an enterprise-wide need, and that the business benefits and the economies of scale of the technology can be truly realized only with an enterprise-wide deployment.

But for many organizations, taking content management enterprise-wide has proven to be a struggle – particularly for those large companies that stand to gain the greatest benefit from enterprise-wide management of their unstructured content. For these organizations, truly “enterprise” deployment of enterprise content management (ECM) software solutions – and the associated business benefits and economies of scale – have remained an elusive ideal.

So what’s the problem? Doculabs, Inc. (Doculabs), a consulting firm that focuses on content management and related technologies, has seen first-hand the challenges that such organizations typically face as they seek to deploy ECM solutions to the enterprise:

� Lack of a repeatable implementation approach: IT organizations struggle to create consistent deployment processes because many ECM capabilities are “one part” infrastructure and “one part” application.

� Poor adoption rates: Adoption rates for many ECM deployments are only 40 to 60 percent of original projections – not because of the technology, but because of high complexity and internal dynamics.

� Over-customization: Many IT departments over-customize the systems, increasing the costs of initial development and ongoing maintenance beyond what is acceptable to business users.

� User dissatisfaction with IT: Many internal customers complain that their IT department does not understand their business objectives, processes, or pains. For its part, IT tends to blame the software and technology provider, thereby stagnating future investments.

� Poor problem diagnosis: Both IT and its internal customers have difficulty diagnosing the shortcomings of stalled ECM implementations. Again, the tendency is to blame the supplier, when the real reason may be underinvestment in strategy and planning.

� Lack of metrics and measurement: Organizations do not have effective ways of measuring the ECM system’s impact on business metrics, which makes it difficult for them to cost-justify future enhancements to the technology.

Why chief e xecutives are deploying ECM as a shared service: � To respond to the

increasing growth in the volume of unstructured content, making enterprise-level content management a necessity

� To cost-effectively

meet the content management needs of large (and potentially diverse) user bases

� To roll out ECM using

a repeatable deployment plan, making better use of IT resources and enabling knowledge re-use

� To promote the capture

of all content and reduce “information leakage” that can result in regulatory- and litigation-related consequences

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In the past year, Doculabs has worked with a number of large organizations that are taking a new approach to the deployment of ECM. Increasingly, these organizations are finding that it makes sense to deliver ECM functionality as a shared service, as a way of 1) cost-effectively meeting the content management needs of large (and potentially diverse) user bases, and 2) maximizing the economies of scale for the investment in ECM technology.

The concept of shared services has been around since the introduction of mainframe computing, when centralized IT shops charged back for usage of processing cycles for certain applications. In the 1980s, the shared services model began to be applied more widely, as a way for large organizations to streamline and standardize their business processes across multiple businesses or business units. Under this approach, common activities for related businesses (back-office functions such as finance, accounting, and human resources, for example) were centralized and grouped into shared service centers, thereby reducing the number of redundant operations organization-wide.

Many organizations are now broadening the shared services approach to the technology domains: database, security, and storage, among others. Recently we’ve seen components of the ECM domain being deployed as shared services – for example, e-mail and scanning operations. And now other facets of ECM technology can be deployed in a similar manner. ECM is no longer regarded as a niche application, but rather as a core infrastructure investment – a reality that is reflected in the shared services approach to rolling it out to the enterprise.

What are the reasons behind this trend? Why does it make sense to implement ECM as a shared service? In this white paper, we discuss the benefits of offering ECM as a shared service and what it takes to roll out ECM shared services. We then outline the key questions that you should ask as you prepare to implement your own program for offering ECM as a shared service.

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The Benefits of Offering ECM as a Shared Service

The arguments in favor of shared services have been quite convincing. Cost containment generally leads the list, along with improved quality of service, as shared services allow a company to focus on its core competencies. But there are other benefits associated with providing ECM as a shared service – and reasons that chief executives are beginning to find the ECM shared-service model so attractive.

One reason is the previously mentioned growth in the volume of unstructured content. To date, much of this content has been stored in information “silos,” managed by departmental deployments of content management software solutions that serve only as “point” solutions, meeting the needs of limited numbers of users. If ECM functionality is to be offered to the enterprise, it makes sense to offer it as a shared service, as a way of cost-effectively meeting the content management needs of large user bases, with potentially diverse requirements for various components of ECM functionality.

But the shared-services approach to ECM also allows an organization to make better use of limited IT resources. Take a look at the total project request list for IT in any organization. It’s likely that approximately 10 to 15 percent of the requested projects require one or more components of ECM functionality in order to complete the project. It makes no sense to handle each of these requests as a “one-off” – first, because it costs more, but second, because it only leads to more information silos.

Under a shared services approach, ECM components are “packaged” into tiers of functionality that meet the needs of the various user constituencies within the organization. From an architecture standpoint, this approach reduces operational costs and allows greater technology re-use across deployments. The packaging ensures more rapid time to benefit for the implementation of ECM applications, but it also helps to ensure greater alignment between business unit demand and the delivery of shared services. The result is more rapid rollout, enabling IT to more easily meet the demands of internal customers – a win-win for both IT and the business.

Moreover, the technology consolidation that is the prerequisite for ECM shared services allows for more consistent technology-related decision-making, as well as improved visibility into processes and approaches to business application development. Ultimately, the result is better knowledge transfer and information reuse among implementation staff.

Yet another reason for the attractiveness of the shared-services model for ECM is the compliance argument. Risk management has become top-of-mind within many organizations, and IT is being called upon to provide the tools to address legal discovery issues and potential litigation – principally ECM tools, capable of managing enterprise content throughout the lifecycle. To achieve enterprise-wide compliance, those ECM tools must be made available to users throughout the enterprise – not just to those departments that have been able to deploy point solutions to manage their own content.

Cost containment is usually the chief argument in favor of shared services. From an ECM standpoint, however, shared services can also help meet the needs of compliance and control. The shared-services approach to ECM ensures that all information is captured and is not lost through poor information management.

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But one of the most compelling forces behind ECM shared services is that it allows an organization to make the most of its ECM technology investments. Many organizations purchased enterprise licenses, only to find those licenses going underutilized. As a result, ECM has remained a niche application.

Compare the potential seat costs of ECM (the cost per seat if IT were to deploy the software solution to everyone) versus the actual seat costs (the cost per seat of the number of users to which IT is able to deploy ECM). Potential seat costs are likely to be relatively low. But the reality is that in most organizations, ECM has tended to be rolled out to only a subset of the potential user base, which means that the potential cost per user is actually somewhat higher. These considerations have resulted in prohibitively high actual costs per seat and are characteristic of the way ECM has been deployed in the past.

By comparison, the shared services approach to ECM allows IT to define appropriate levels of functionality for various segments of the potential user base, while also ensuring more rapid deployment – thereby enabling the organization to narrow the gap between potential seat costs and utilized seat costs far more quickly, sometimes within as little as 2 years (see figure below). The bottom line is that the shared services approach is the path to the lowest per-seat cost for ECM – and the best way for an organization to cost-justify an enterprise-wide investment in the technology.

Finally, from a governance perspective, the shared-service approach to ECM allows an organization to identify measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) that can be translated directly into process improvements to ensure better application deployments. Such metrics allow IT, and the business, to better understand the parameters that drive ECM shared-services success. And providing ECM as a shared service also greatly simplifies change management across the organization, which means not only faster time to implementation, but can also lead to greater user acceptance.

ECM Economic Model

Optimization

Both IT and the business stand to benefit from the implementation of ECM as a shared service. IT benefits, because it now has a more consolidated and simplified technology infrastructure to manage and maintain. And the business units benefit, too, because they can share not just the fixed costs and assets, but the technology and the standards and the process innovation enabled by the technology.

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What it Takes to Deploy ECM as a Shared Service

We’ve seen the benefits that ECM shared services can offer. Clearly, it’s an approach that large organizations should consider in order to deploy ECM on an enterprise basis and leverage economies of scale. Yet the implementation of ECM as a shared service presents a number of practical challenges. In fact, more than 50 percent of the implementations attempted for shared services tend to fail – from the budgetary, adoption, or time perspectives.

The key to success in any technology implementation is to allocate sufficient project spending to upfront strategy and ongoing program management. When an organization puts a strong emphasis on strategy and program management (amounting to an estimated 10 percent of the total investment), failure rates are significantly less (see figure below).

Implementing ECM – particularly on an enterprise basis – requires that an organization address both strategic and tactical dimensions, as shown in the figure on the following page.

Strategy – Developing a sound ECM strategy requires upfront analysis, development of a reference architecture and conceptual design of the future-state vision and environment, and creation of a road map that prioritizes the initiatives and tasks required to move to the future state and deliver expected benefits.

Technology – Here, organizations need to establish technology standards and implement technology in a number of categories.

Implementation and Operations – This area involves the implementation design, physical architecture, testing, rollout, migration and content import, administration, maintenance, and support aspects of ECM environments and operations.

Impact of Program Management on ECM

Shared Services Deployments

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Program Management – If ECM is to succeed at an enterprise level, it must be treated as a program that has cross-functional involvement. Most best-in-class organizations create ECM governance bodies or oversight committees that coordinate all ECM-related efforts and establish accountability for key aspects of ECM. This includes oversight of the establishment of ECM-related policies and procedures, standard methods for information organization, and a program for change management (using approaches such as evangelism, communication, training, and ongoing feedback, monitoring, analytics, and reporting to gauge success and drive improvements).

Of the key elements, Program Management seems to be the greatest challenge. Accordingly, in the figure below, the Program Management dimension has been broken out into its constituent components – components that can serve as a framework for implementing an ECM shared-services program. Note the four principal components of Program Management: Program Organization, Information Organization, Communication and Marketing, and Services and Support Delivery Model.

Dimensions of ECM Deployment, Breaking out the Program Management Dimension

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A Framework for Deploying ECM as a Shared Service

Deploying ECM as a shared service is a complex undertaking, requiring the involvement of both IT and the business units.

Basically, a shared services approach to ECM first requires platform standardization and effective application portfolio management to reduce the number of vendors with competing technologies deployed within the organization – sometimes a real challenge within large organizations. Next, IT and the business need to clearly understand the combination of technologies that should constitute a shared service. They then work together to define standard “packages” of ECM components in various tiers of ECM functionality – ranging, for example, from basic store-and-retrieve capabilities, to more advanced revision-control and automated workflow capabilities. A chargeback model is then associated with each of the various tiers. The packages of ECM functionality can then be rolled out to the various business units using a repeatable, “factory” approach.

Successful implementations of ECM as a shared service generally rely on a framework to address both strategic and tactical dimensions, as well as structure and execution. The figure below shows how the Program Management dimension from the previous subsection can serve as a framework for implementing ECM as a shared service, with the four principal components (Program Management: Program Organization, Information Organization, Communication and Marketing, and Services and Support Delivery Model). A closer look at each of the four component areas shows the detailed processes that need to be addressed within each area to ensure consistent implementation of the ECM solution.

Implementing ECM as a shared service requires the involvement of both IT and the business – from planning, through execution, to governance and ongoing maintenance. We recommend using a framework that addresses both strategic and tactical components, as well as structure and execution.

Framework for Implementing ECM as a Shared Service

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Program Organization

Program organization is the foundation of a best-practices approach to rolling out ECM shared services and setting up the strategic structure of the shared-services environment. An organization should define its management structure for the future ECM shared services program, including roles and responsibilities that indicate clear ownership of all components of the shared services deployment process. Another key aspect of Program Organization is forecasting the potential demand for the various ECM services, as a first step toward defining the resources that will be necessary to service that demand.

Many organizations are taking steps to establish an ECM Center of Excellence (see figure below). The prerequisite of this approach is strong business executive-level support for the ECM program. Doculabs has found that such an approach helps to ensure that resources have been dedicated to the ECM program, as well as providing clear responsibilities and reporting directives at all levels.

Defining an ECM Center of

Excellence

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Information Organization

Information organization includes an information taxonomy and policies, procedures, and guidelines for maintaining the taxonomy. It is a critical (and often neglected) aspect of an ECM deployment, and particularly essential to enterprise-wide deployments, to enable future sharing of information on an enterprise-wide basis. Information organization also requires policies, procedures, and guidelines to ease the ongoing maintenance and governance of the taxonomy, to ensure that it continues to meet the needs of the enterprise as it grows and changes.

Doculabs finds that the best practice for diversified organizations is to maintain structure and guidance at the center, but manage locally (see figure below). Companies, departments, or business units report back to the central governance group with feedback for changes to the structure or process. The Corporate Level Oversight function evaluates potential changes or additions to the central taxonomy and reports back to business units with updates to the taxonomy and rules, while also conducting periodic compliance audits.

Corporate Level / Oversight

Accounts Payable

Purchase Order

Accounts Receivable

Invoice

Accounting

Company 2

Guidance,

Audits

Feedback,

Updates

A/P

P.O.

A/R

Invoice

Accounting

Specialization

StoresRepository

ECM / Other Systems

References

A/P

P.O.

A/R

Invoice

Accounting

Specialization

StoresRepository

ECM / Other Systems

References

Guidance,

Audits

Feedback,

Updates

General Strategies for Information Organization

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In many instances, physical storage takes place at the local level, but will depend upon the technical implementation of the taxonomy or ECM solution. If the operational / document management system has the capability to securely partition data within the repository, then documents can co-exist on the same physical repository. In either case, a logical separation remains in place.

Doculabs has worked with a number of organizations that have implemented this practice. For example, in county government, numerous state and local guidelines dictate the kind of documents that must be retained, and for how long. This must be balanced against the differing functional roles of a Facilities and Operations department, for example, which has much different business processes than Information Technology. Even if they are both working from the same structure (the Financial A/P and A/R structure illustrated in the figure above), the specific document types to be found beneath one department will be very different from the document types for the other department, but they will be starting from the same area of the taxonomy and enacting more consistent processes as a result of the consistency in the organization of their information.

To go into more detail, Facilities and Operations may manage the purchasing of supplies such as building supplies and cleaning supplies, while Information Technology will have financial transactions related to capital purchases of hardware, leasing, and services contracts with consultants and vendors. The details of specializations beneath that should be left to the specific groups and their respective Subject Matter Experts, who work with that information on a daily basis.

What is important, however, is that both departments begin from the same structure: a structure that groups all purchase orders under Accounting / Accounts Payable / Purchase Order, which may have a standard retention policy and filing strategy associated at that level, thus enforcing consistency of information organization across departments that, at least on the surface, do not appear to have anything in common.

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Communication and Marketing

Organizations that have succeeded in implementing ECM as a shared service have also recognized the importance of providing effective ongoing communication and marketing throughout the deployment. Best practices include the development of a range of tools for communication and marketing, such as communications plans, project charters, scorecards, training kits, user labs, and technology showcases and fairs

The objective of all of these activities is to prepare the user base for the new approach to ECM – and to create end-user buy-in among users who may not have had access to ECM capabilities previously. An organization can then build upon this awareness to assess the specific training and development requirements of various user constituencies.

The figure below shows a template for assessing and weighting the change management requirements of different solution packages, providing a method for assessing the impact of change management requirements on the overall rollout time and the project timeline for the implementation of these packages.

45

135

211

25

191

166

24

56

14

3

89

208

119

Template for Change Management Impact Analysis

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Services and Support Delivery Model

The Services and Support Delivery Model provides the framework for the necessary resource planning and for definition of solution packaging. It also outlines the deployment methodology for rolling out the various tiers of service and provides the financial models for investments, chargeback mechanisms, and metrics for measurement.

The following subsections take a closer look at the resource management, solution packaging, financial models, and deployment methodology components of the Services and Support Delivery Model.

Resource Management

Organizations deploying a shared-services approach to ECM need to establish the right balance of resources and commitment to ensure success. A review and inventory of existing roles and responsibilities and the current management structure should be part of the initial information-gathering. Then the organization can begin to identify the gaps and estimate the required resources, using roles-based resource capacity planning (see figure below). Finally, the organization can begin to acquire the necessary resources based upon these roles. The figure below shows a sample determination of staffing for a 3-year rollout of ECM shared services, showing estimated resource utilization by roles.

Staffing

Sample Determination of Staffing for Rollout of ECM Shared Services

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Solution Packaging

The purpose of solution packaging is to define standard packages of shared services that meet the needs of those groups of business units or departments that have similar requirements for the various components of ECM functionality (imaging/capture, document management, workflow, etc.). Developing such service packages reduces the level of custom development and therefore the amount of IT services required, thereby ensuring that ECM can be implemented rapidly throughout the organization.

Defining solution packaging generally requires the collecting of information on existing ECM usage as a baseline and reviewing business processes within any units not currently using ECM functionality to identify potential applications. Then IT and the business units work together to develop usage pattern scenarios and to develop “tiers” of ECM functionality The tiers are then integrated with the financial model for chargeback (see Financial Models discussion, below), and are tested to ensure they meet the needs of the departments representing each tier of functionality. Involvement of both IT and the business is critical at all steps of the process to ensure that the service packages align accurately with the ECM needs of business units or departments.

The figure below shows a list of sample functional tiers, together with a sample range of dollar amounts for chargeback per tier, based on the service levels and the user/client support levels required at each tier.

Sample of Chargebacks for a Range of Solution Packages

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Financial Models

The shared services approach to ECM requires the development of cost allocation models – preferably models that incent the adoption of ECM systems when offered as a centralized or shared service. Ideally, a chargeback model should:

� Recover 100 percent of costs related to services rendered

� Introduce fairness and accountability

� Incent adoption

� Reduce waste

� Provide metrics and indicators to measure success

� Be easy to implement and administer

Among the common chargeback models are Direct Cost, User-based, and Usage-based. While each model can enable effective cost recovery, some perform better than others when it comes to factors such as introducing fairness and accountability, or ability to provide measurable results, or client satisfaction, as shown in the figure below.

Comparison of Common Chargeback Models

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Deployment Methodology

This component of the Services and Support Delivery Model provides a set of guidelines for organizations to systematically implement shared services ECM applications in a defined period of time.

The objective is to provide the business with a definitive schedule of the time it will take for a systematic rollout of ECM services from the time of initiation of a project request, using a standardized deployment methodology. In a typical IT organization, projects are rolled out serially, limiting cross-project visibility and limiting the total number of projects that can be deployed. An effective deployment methodology includes the development of a program management function that aggregates shared visibility and support across a number of similar projects.

The figure below shows a sample schedule of the time required for a systematic rollout of ECM services within each of the various tiers of ECM functionality. Within each tier, a standardized deployment methodology is developed to streamline the rollout of the service package for that tier, including basic and advanced functionality.

FUNCTIONAL CAPABILITIES

Time to Rollout for Various Tiers of ECM Functionality

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Key Questions to Ask

So what can you do to ensure the success of your ECM shared service deployment? As you prepare to make the case for offering ECM shared services in your organization, Doculabs recommends you ask the following key questions:

� Do we know the baseline requirements for all high-profile ECM applications within our organization, across all business units and departments?

� What are the common ECM applications across the organization (e.g. imaging/capture, document management, workflow)? Which business units not currently using ECM are candidates for some components of the technology? How might these applications be defined as usage scenarios?

� Which technologies should be used for what types of usage scenarios and user requirements?

� Given our existing ECM usage patterns, how should we package ECM services to meet the needs of our various user constituencies?

� What is the most effective chargeback model for our organization to create the maximum incentives for adoption of ECM technology?

� What financial metrics should be put in place to allow us to measure the success of the ECM shared services program?

� Within our organization, what are the best ways to develop and enforce policies, procedures, and guidelines for use of ECM systems and related content?

� How are we currently addressing change management within the organization? How might we improve upon our change management practices?

� Do we have an organizational model in place for oversight and governance? If not, what type of governance model makes sense for our organization?

� Do we have a standardized information taxonomy and a process to maintain it? If not, what process should be followed to organize content and records and develop an information taxonomy? How can we ensure consistency in our information taxonomies?

ECM shared services may provide the way for you to take content management enterprise-wide. Answering these key questions can help you make the case for taking this approach to ECM in your organization.

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Final Word

Doculabs believes that ECM shared services is an idea whose time has come. In fact, for large organizations, it may be the only way to achieve true enterprise adoption – and the only way to achieve the economies of scale to cost-justify the investment.

Many organizations have operated using multiple ECM solutions from multiple vendors, providing varying levels of functionality from department to department. As IT looks for new ways to contain costs, the costs of planning, selecting, implementing, and supporting multiple systems within a single environment have become prohibitive.

The shared services model for ECM offers significant business benefits to both IT and business units – chiefly because of a consolidated and simplified technology infrastructure and an approach to service delivery that ensures greater alignment between business unit demand and the delivery of the various components of ECM functionality.

Consider some numbers. By deploying ECM as a shared service, an organization can expect the following:

� The cost per user of ECM technology to go from $1,500 per user down to less than $500 per user

� The adoption of ECM technology throughout the organization to increase from the current 40 to 60 percent, to an almost universal 60 to 80 percent

� Implementation time for the rollout of ECM applications to decrease from 12 to 18 months, to as little as 4 to 6 months

� The percentage of content managed enterprise-wide to increase from 8 to 10 percent, to 40 to 50 percent

Doculabs has developed a comprehensive framework to help organizations succeed in implementing ECM as a shared service. This framework can help your organization develop its vision for ECM shared services and, more important, provide you with a series of methodologies and models to help you get a head start in building an effective program management framework. The components outlined in this white paper are intended to serve as a starting point. Contact Doculabs to discuss specific services to help you develop and implement an ECM shared services program in your organization.

Implementing ECM as a shared service presents a number of practical challenges. But upfront strategy and planning and ongoing program management can help an organization meet the practical challenges of implementing a shared service program.

Doculabs offers recognized expertise in ECM, with proven methodology for strategy planning. We can work with you to develop a strategy for successfully implementing ECM shared services within your organization.

To learn more about Doculabs’ consulting services in ECM shared services initiatives, please contact us at (312) 433-7793 or at [email protected].

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About Doculabs

Doculabs is a consulting firm that helps organizations develop sound technology strategies for content- and process-related applications. Our engagements focus on helping clients leverage their existing enterprise content management (ECM) investments on a broader enterprise basis through

objective analysis and in-depth market knowledge. This approach is based on our fundamental belief that in order to protect a client’s long-term interest, technology advisors should not be implementers.

Doculabs helps clients deliver on their technology objectives through consulting engagements that address ECM opportunities such as strategic planning, center of excellence creation, taxonomy development, and maturity assessments. Through more than a thousand engagements for organizations facing technology-, compliance-, and process-related challenges, our proven approach has provided our clients the information and advice they need to make confident and well-informed decisions.

Hundreds of leading organizations in the Global 2000 and in state and local government have turned to Doculabs for assistance with their technology strategies.

For more information about Doculabs, visit our web site at www.doculabs.com or call (312) 433-7793.

200 West Monroe Street Suite 2050

Chicago, IL 60606 (312) 433-7793

www.doculabs.com

E-mail Doculabs at: [email protected]