To coopt a phrase from a popular children’s book and game series, “Where’s Waldo?” This simple question along with the ever present who, what, when and why, are often answered with inconsistent or incomplete responses in Enterprise data. As companies have merged, acquired and grown, many times it’s virtually impossible to get an answer to those time honored questions without consulting several platforms, legacy and web based applications, departmental portals and divisional Datamarts, Data Warehouses and perhaps a few CRM systems.
More Data, More Problems
With the ongoing push in the Financial Services industry to merge, acquire and grow, it’s not too surprising to see the amount of customer data, images, web content, and related Metadata growing at annualized rates of 30-50 percent. At the same time, the advent of (relatively) low cost data storage, “Big Data”, and cheap mid-range server options has enabled organizations to continue storing customer information in multiple Data stores, or has fostered byzantine integration strategies to force these disparate data elements to play well together. Throw in the chance that customer and other sensitive data can be exposed to multiple user communities on these various platforms, and the possibility of a security breach becomes (and has been) a grave problem.
While this scenario will elicit a knowing smile from many of my readers, the sinister reality is that putting off a comprehensive Enterprise Content Management (ECM) strategy, paired with mature Reference Data and Master Data management initiatives, causes demonstrable results such as poor customer satisfaction, customer attrition, security failures, and internal operational inefficiencies.
“We Just Need a Better Database”
ECM is much more than just Portals and Database schemas. ECM should be thought of as a comprehensive enterprise approach to unifying data and making it available at the right time, at the right place, and to the right person. Having a comprehensive Data Governance policy and implementing a consistent ECM platform in lockstep not only greatly reduces cost to support customers, but also ensures regulatory and compliance issues are minimized while allowing greatly improved customer service.
Thankfully the newest generation of ECM tools have come a long way in providing open and flexible architectures to leverage existing investments in legacy and other internal data assets while providing overarching control and visibility. With today’s generation of ECM tools, it’s no longer necessary to “Rip and Replace” older systems, and the costs and time needed to implement an ECM Strategy for most enterprises are 30-50% less than just 5 years ago.
The projections for Enterprise data growth in the next five years (according to almost every industry measure) is in excess of 100 percent. In 2012, an ECM strategy is not a luxury, it’s a critical necessity that will help decide those companies that thrive and innovate, and those that spin into “Analysis paralysis”.
