Synchronization

It’s been about a year and a half since Gartner retired the term “Enterprise Content Management” and replaced it with “Content Services.” We have talked in the past about what Content Services is and why Gartner has shifted their terminology away from ECM. If you are unfamiliar with the subject you can read about it here. Recently, we have seen a number of publications about how ECM failed the industry and that Content Services is going to save us. However, it could be argued that Content Services is destined to make the same mistakes ECM did.

Many times, successful implementations of new technologies and applications in the workplace are coupled with great strategies and an overarching vision among the organization. We have found though, that in some instances, organizations have a philosophy of “deploy it and they will use it.” This means that they add applications and technology without much input from their users and expect them to just use it. The idea is that if it’s accessible it will be used. However, that way of thinking often ignores any kind of strategy or goal for systems. In this blog, we will talk about some major pitfalls when you implement systems with this kind of mindset and some things you should consider doing to achieve user adoption.

It is nice to think that all your business content lives in your repository of record. That’s why you have invested so much into these systems. However, that may not always be the case. In many organizations, content bounces between various systems throughout its lifecycle. Some content might live in a CRM like Salesforce or Dynamics. Other content might live in a collaboration platform like HighQ or Box. Whether that content makes it back to its repository of record, like an ECM or DMS, is often a mystery.