The amount of electronic content, unstructured data and documents being generated is growing very rapidly. Adding to the complexity, this content spans across multiple formats including electronic, paper, Web content, email and instant messages, images, audio, video, etc, across disparate systems. The result is that Indian enterprises are struggling to deal with the avalanche of information hitting them every day, especially the unstructured part.

Effectively managing this information explosion has been driving the initial phase of adoption of advanced and automated content and process management solutions like enterprise content management (ECM). However, as the Indian enterprises get onto the ECM bandwagon, they are looking beyond just managing the information explosion, spiraling the ECM adoption trends toward more strategic business drivers. The next phase of mainstream ECM adoption is being driven by the business necessity of leveraging information as a strategic business asset, unlocking its value, harnessing the power of content for better and faster decision-making, and meeting compliance requirements.

According to Dhiren Savla, chief information officer, Kuoni Travel (India), today content/information storage, management, usage for workflow and collaboration are key business drivers. Globally, ECM has huge importance due to legal and statutory requirements. However, without ignoring legal and statutory needs, India is inclined to use this more for business benefits, he adds.

Market Size
According to Gartner, the ECM market in India stood at $19.6 mn in 2007 and is expected to touch $24 mn in 2008, growing at 22.6%. Gartner pegs the segment to continue the growth momentum is tespected to continue to reach $29.6 mn in 2009.

According to Newgen Softwares MD Diwakar Nigam, India is witnessing a trend similar to the one earlier witnessed in more mature ECM markets like the USA and Europe in their growth phasethat of adoption of ECM and business process management (BPM) solutions for driving efficiency and productivity increase.

Savla of Kuoni points out that in the last few years, projects like ECM existed in small pockets of enterprises. Few matured organizations took this up as enterprise-wide initiatives. With businesses realizing the importance of information/content in various forms, ECM projects are gaining momentum and are high on the radar for many enterprises in their strategy for the next few years.

Enterprises are considering compliance and risk management as high-priority. Which along with the low cost of ownership and the comparatively quick results, are some key drivers in the Indian market Kaushik Bagchi, country manage, information management, IBM SWG	"India is witnessing a trend similar to the one earlier witnessed in more mature ECM markets like the USA and Europe in their growth phasethat of adoption of ECM and business process management (BPM) solutions" Diwakar Nigam, MD, Newgen Software

Kaushik Bagchi, country manager of information management at IBM SWG, the Indian enterprises are rising faster than expected to the benefits of ECM. Enterprises are considering compliance and risk management as high-priority, which along with the low cost of ownership and the comparatively quick results are some key drivers in the Indian market., he further adds.

Driving the spurt in the pace of ECM adoption are a number of those companies that have adopted document management solutions. These companies are now graduating toward implementing a full-blown ECM solution. In terms of verticals, the demand for ECM is primarily being driven by banking, insurance, financial services, telecom, government and manufacturing.

According to Harshal Pendse, director, technology initiatives, Oracle India, the financial services and telecom industries have already started to deploy enterprise content management solutions primarily because of the large volumes of data they have to secure and update. The government and manufacturing sectors are also realizing the need to automate and access their content.

The current usage is based typically for customer record management, mainly in telecom, centralization of paper intensive business for banks and insurance, file tracking initiatives in e-governance, and few image enabling of ERPs. However, as Indian companies are setting shops abroad and vice versa, coupled with newfound enthusiasm among government organizations, more applications are emerging.

According to Pendse, As regulatory and compliance obligations increase in India, organizations are likely to increasingly turn to ECM to automate document- and paper-based business processes, so that they are efficient, reliable and auditable.

As regulatory and compliance obligations increase in India, organizations are likely to increasingly turn to ECM to automate document- and paper-based business processes Harshal Pendse, director, technology initiatives, Oracle India	Globally, ECM has huge importance due to legal and statutory requirements Dhiren Savla, chief information officer, Kuoni Travel (India)

The ECM Advantage
ECM plays a significant role when it comes to managing the unstructured data in the enterprise. According to Diwakar of Newgen, typically, more than 80% content in an organization is unstructured. Unstructured content is defined as the content not organized under defined structures as those used in database. Content of documents, presentations, wikis, emails, audio, video, etc, can be defined as unstructured content. For compliance and traceability, it is becoming increasingly critical to consolidate and unify this unstructured content or data. This complexity has multiplied due to computerization. The new breed of unstructured electronic data has created more dimensions and challenges for business users to consolidate, adds Pendse.

The role of ECM is to automate such unstructured data so that they are efficient, reliable and auditable. ECM is specially designed and configured to handle such myriad unstructured content to deliver it in a timely and consistent manner, and make it easily consumable for applications and users.

Content becoming more dynamic and the stupendous growth in the Web/online content, brings its own set of challenges, and ECM helps in dealing with those. Ease, sharing, interoperability, controls and standardized framework for Web platform are outcomes of ECM. Other key advantages include cross media standardized branding, sharing of content across geographies, controlled management with approval process.

SMB Push
While traditionally large enterprises have been the customer base for ECM vendors, of late the SMB segment has also emerged as a potentially strong candidate on the lookout for ECM solution. One of the biggest challenges before any company, be it a large enterprise or an SMB, is to provide its employees timely, seamless access to information. Ecm allows the smbs to do so without wasting resources on searching for information.

However, the typical flashpoint for SMBs has been pricing. As ECM has been traditionally viewed as a cost-intensive deployment intended for large enterprises, SMBs have shied away from ECM solutions. But, today ECM vendors have emerged that provide affordable ECM solution tailored to the specific needs of SMBs. According to Diwakar, SMBs need to have a vendor that can not only quickly implement the ECM system, but also have an offering specifically targeted for mid tier businesses.

Emerging Trends
Over the years ECM has transitioned itself from a collection of static repositories to a strategic asset that enables customers to reap the benefits of critical business efforts like SOA, business process management and compliance. On the technology front, the evolution and capacities of ECM systems has toed in line with huge gains in processing speed and capabilities of computers.

Some prominent technology trends emerging in the ECM space are greater storage capabilities and development of tools for automated management of content; use of SOA; new s/w models (like open source Saas) greater workflow and BPM capabilities providing quick access to various types of data and documents; better and easier integration with other enterprise systems such as SAP, CRM, etc.

Pendse points the trends toward consolidation and data archival. Content consolidation is looked upon as the immediate pain area in global markets and India is not far behind. Companies are throwing out conventional imaging solutions and adopting one vendor approach that can help consolidate their content and tag compliance based document lifecycle. They are looking out for a software solution where digital rich media, user desktop folder, office communication, customer documents, and also digitized customer papers are stored in a searchable robust e-Folder, explains Pendse.

Data archival is an area which otherwise was untapped by ECM vendors or older imaging solution provider. This archival solution coming from a software company provides greater importance as it could become a strategic software content consolidation.

The growing adoption of enterprise mobility has spiralled off another trend. According to Diwakar, ECM would need to handle needs of mobile users to access the content from various locations and remote checking in of the data. Thereby requiring more robust version controlling and better rights management. In addition, ECM systems would also need to be able to be accessed by WAP-enabled devices.

Various government rules and regulations will dictate the development of capabilities of ECM. Stringent compliance would require continual improvement in security methods, reporting tools and content retaining and archiving.

In terms of market trends, small and specialized players are posing challenges in existing geographies in which they operate. There has been emergence of some smaller vendors, having strong client base domestically, on a global scale, as these small vendors start competing with bigger vendors both domestically and globally.

However, over the last two years, the market has been moving in the direction of consolidation with the bigger players taking over the smaller niche players. For instance, IBM acquired FileNet, EMC taking over Documentum and Oracle acquiring Stellent. SAP is believed to be working out an ECM strategy too in order not to be left behind in this market space. Gartner predicts a shift towards larger infrastructure vendors as the leading players in the ECM market. The other prominent ECM players are HP, Xerox, and Microsoft.

Diwakar believes that consolidation has resulted in the emergence of vendors who provide end-to-end and complete ECM solution, rather than delivering only a part of ECM solution. In fact some of the vendors now have multiple products offering similar functionality. However, he adds that there are also certain complexities arising out of this consolidation. These are the typical challenges of which of the products shall continue to be supported by the acquiring vendor and which ones shall perish; how to integrate different acquired product components and make them smoothly work as a complete ECM suite.

Shipra Malhotra
shipram@cybermedia.co.in