In the year 2015, the words “digital age” may induce eye rolls, but the availability and ease in which we access information has become a huge part of our lives both in and out of the office. After working hours, we spend just as much time in front of screens, having more information at our fingertips (literally, in the case of touch-screen mobile devices) than has ever been accessible in history. The availability of Electronic File Storage and Sync (EFSS) services lets us keep virtually as much digital content as we need and access it from anywhere. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that the lines have started to blur between how we access data at home and at the office.
Users can easily store their documents, photos and other content onto services like Google drive, so why not use the same services at work? Enterprise content management (ECM) platforms have become more prevalent in the marketplace as businesses try to streamline the way they handle documents. Additionally, these solutions have proven to be important money makers for imaging equipment dealers as print output steadily goes down. However, just when the ECM space seems to be getting established, it faces the age old tech challenge: disruption.
A study done by online magazine CMSWire and sponsored by M-Files has found that “employees and business partners are using [EFSS] systems borrowed from the consumer market,” often using them for business tasks instead of the ECM products. The study aimed to find out why this was happening, and what ECM developers are to do in this potentially dangerous situation for this product category. In short, EFSS can be an opportunity for growth in the ECM space. Seeing the results of the CMSWire report, M-Files asked for the insights of several industry experts.
While they had differing opinions, none were convinced of the complete death of ECM. Among their most interesting observations were:
Usability concerns: Arguably the largest factor in employee adoption of EFSS systems. ECM software can work wonders for companies with their advance tagging, workflow and compliance features. On the other hand, they can also be convoluted and unintuitive. Sure, EFSS services lack robust feature sets, but they allow users to store and share their information painlessly.
Alan Pelz-Sharpe, research director for the Social Business Group at 451 Research, says that “EFSS systems provide simple enough file management and bring true mobility to formerly tight controls for on-premise files.”
Pelz-Sharpe also notes that ECM tools help organizations effectively manage only the most important documents. This is obviously important, especially for vertical markets, such as healthcare and legal, where many documents have sensitive information and are all considered “mission critical.”
Conversely, anyone who’s had an office job knows that these files only take up a small part of the workload, with tons of smaller, less important data that is better managed through EFSS, where it does not have to meet rigorous processing that content goes through in an ECM platform. While this insight does little to actually predict the direction of the market, it does highlight the importance of usability in software, and it certainly helps explain why employees are ditching their company ECM products in favor of EFSS systems. It also suggests that ECM and EFSS can coexist.
EFSS “evolving” into ECM: Alex Gorbansky, former CEO of Frontier Strategy Group, sees a possible scenario where EFSS systems find themselves gaining functionality that effectively evolves them into fully featured ECM products. In a market as crowded as EFSS, competing services will likely try to add value and capabilities beyond the simple storing and sharing functions of these systems. “Over the long run,” says Gorbansky, “file sharing solutions like Box will directly compete with some of the established ECM tools.”
Mergers and Acquisitions: A tech industry virtue as old and true as disruption. EFSS and ECM each have great use in the workplace, and a balance between using ECM for important files and EFSS for everything else can be ideal in the right organizations. Hyland Market Insights Manager Ken Burns says he sees “the relationship between EFSS and ECM as complementary” and offers possibilities for ECM providers to acquire (or perhaps even develop their own) EFSS systems, either as extensions to the platforms or standalone products.
“ECM suites have evolved largely by combining and absorbing existing technologies from adjacent markets,” he says. “EFSS doesn’t threaten to end that evolution—it holds far more promise as a means for it to continue.”
The third insight in particular has the most potential to help developers and the providers tasked with selling their products. EFSS should not be seen as a threat to ECM but rather as a complement, one that can be agile and intuitive for the employee tasks that don’t necessitate the functionality of an ECM solution.
OpenText’s Lubor Ptacek says that their product already incorporates EFSS as a feature. Fast, easy file sharing stands to be another evolution in the long progress of the complete ECM platform. Click here to read the full M-Files eBook, which contains other industry insights. Also, be sure to check out our Solutions Center to read more about enterprise content management solutions.
