What is Enterprise Content Management?

The process begins with capturing information from documents and transferring it to a secure digital repository. This greatly reduces the reliance on paper documents and cuts down on costly and redundant tasks such as manual scanning, copying, searching for records, and filing. These documents can include invoices, contracts, applications, and virtually any other form that was traditionally processed by enterprise staff.

Once the documents are stored in the digital repository, they are now accessible to designated personnel. Those individuals can view and edit the documents, while also having access to the metadata associated with a particular form.

Furthermore, the documents are now securely stored—no longer floating around on various laptops and/or locations. Within the secure repository, they can also be full-text searched for ease of retrieval by staff.

What does that mean for your enterprise? Employees now have instant access to the information they need in a centralized location, which reduces the time and cost associated with finding the documents they are searching for. These savings multiply quickly, especially if your organization employs hundreds, if not thousands of staff members.

Aside from boosting efficiency, Enterprise Content Management also improves compliance by providing an audit trail—allowing you to access a document’s history and the information needed in the instance of an audit request. Identifying what documents are required to be part of this audit trail will help your enterprise design a framework for your Enterprise Content Management that is audit-ready.