ECM Software Key To Business Growth, Better Decision Making

Enterprise content management (ECM) supports improved decision-making and better business outcomes, with ECM-enabled organizations achieving greater business growth than companies who lack ECM. This was one of the key findings of new global business research from Epicor Software Corporation, a global provider of industry-specific enterprise software to promote business growth.

In the survey of some 2,500 respondents in 14 countries, business professionals were asked how they manage access to corporate files, images, documents, and other content output from various business systems. Of these respondents, nearly 60 percent (58 percent) of businesses experiencing strong growth said they had an ECM solution in place. Moreover, 79 percent of stakeholders in strong growth companies attributed better decision making to greater operational visibility.

“While enterprise content management has been around for decades, the technology continues to be relevant in our modern-day business environment, and in fact, is playing a key role in digital business transformation,” said Tom Franceski, vice president and general manager, DocStar. “Our global research shows multiple data storage systems and lack of ECM solution are standing in the way of business growth.”

Information access fuels growth; lack of ECM solution stunts it

The research also shows a correlation between perceived ease of information access and sales performance. Nearly 40 percent (38 percent) of businesses experiencing strong growth said they found it “extremely easy” or “fairly easy” to use data to make a measurable, positive impact on sales.

In contrast, 63 percent of businesses experiencing weak growth did not have an ECM solution in place. The research quantified various challenges businesses experience in working with data stored in multiple systems without the benefits of unified access and visibility supported by ECM.

Nearly 40 percent of businesses said it was challenging to identify and remove process bottlenecks, while 33 percent of businesses said matching up and comparing information in different systems was a struggle. Almost one-third of respondents had difficulty identifying significant, measurable cost savings, and an inability to interrogate data to extract “actionable information” was cited by 30 percent of businesses.

Additionally, of companies experiencing weak growth, 35 percent indicated they struggled in using data to make a measurable, positive impact on sales, characterizing this as “extremely challenging” or “fairly challenging.”