Even the best laid plans are going to come with potential roadblocks, so facing them head on and steering clear of the most common ones means you will have a far greater chance of success.

Content management software has the potential to help a company cut costs and improve workflow, but poorly planned and implemented rollouts can result in financial and productivity losses.

Here are some common mistakes businesses make when investing in ECM technology:
 

Poor Planning

Thorough planning is absolutely necessary if a program is to succeed. Close to 70% of all projects such as this fail.

Chances are it was not a hasty decision when your organization decided to adopt ECM; the planning stages should not be hasty, either.

Yet, in the rush to get the new system up and running, too many companies do not spend enough time in the pre-planning phase.

In fact, part of the problem is that businesses are not properly trained or equipped to effectively dissect their own processes in the manner required for optimal ECM success.

Also, similar to the old adage ‘can’t see the forest for the tress’, businesses can get derailed by (often insignificant) details and can struggle to stay focused on the big picture.

The Solution:

When selecting the right technology for your business, choose a solution that will be your partner, not just your provider. An ideal ECM program will come with a trained and competent staff who can assist your business in the planning stages.

Another option is to bring in a third party business consultant that is experienced in ECM implementations.
 

Not Understanding How To Use Key Features

If a company is spending money on a program, it may as well make sure it knows how to use every part of the program to improve operations!

There may be elements to the software that you are not be taking full advantage of, or features that are not being utilized correctly due to improper training.

When working with any new technology, especially an out of the box solution that doesn’t come with training or an implementation team, chances are there are features that your staff either doesn’t know exist or doesn’t know how to use.

Without an in-house expert, how can your organization be sure they are taking full advantage of the technology?

The Solution:

One business executive stated in the CIO.com article that companies should create a master list of features and track which are being used the most and which are the most helpful. This can be used to train new employees and assist with projects.

Whatever vendor you choose, they should offer a solid support team and training programs so that your company is not left to try and figure out the program alone.

While an out-of-the-box approach is often appealing initially due to the lower price, the costs quickly begin to rise as your business realizes that in-house experts must be hired, you are responsible for properly training the staff, and additional personnel must be brought on to properly implement, manage and support the system.

SharePoint is an excellent example of this exact scenario. Unfortunately, too many organizations underestimate the long term costs of such solutions.

Lack of Goals & Priorities

Priorities and goals need to be established before starting up a new system.

Without priorities, there could be delays and more time taken than necessary on any given project, but with the proper priority system in place, tasks can be completed in an orderly fashion and big issues can be solved.

This will allow companies to get to the most important, pressing tasks first and go from there.

Without goals, there is not way to measure success.

How will your company know if your implementation and overall system is successful or not?

The Solution:

Set objectives and priorities early. Work with your vendor to ensure that goals are aligned with overall business plans and that the are being met at specific points along the way.

Don’t wait until 6 months after roll out to evaluate if goals were met, be conscientious along the way and evaluate early and often. Don’t be so invested that you cannot be flexible and adatable, as this is the best way to ensure long term success.

eBizq.net quoted an implementation specialist in stating that there is a 65% rule of thumb when bringing in a new solution.

If the off-the-shelf integration tool only uses 60 – 65% of a business process, then customization should be used to better utilize the investment.

Working with a set of custom components can set a business up better with a more comprehensive solution than if they were to only use a piece of the new software.

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[PDF] ShortChanged by SharePoint	Battling the Paper Addiction-3 Ways to Help Employees Detox	Processes, Procedures, Work Instructions-Oh, My!

While few companies, if any, have made it so far as to create an actual dark datacenter (the ultimate no-hands-on-deck automated scenario), many companies have invested heavily in various technologies to get the job done with as few people as possible in and out of the datacenter.

While that is all well and good, it’s not the end of the quest.

For one thing, those recently purchased technologies are not in full use in most companies.

There are still loose processes and stacks of paper yet to be incorporated in automated systems.

For another, the concept of full integration is not yet a reality although several combo plays, such as tying BPM to ECM, and the constant improvement of frameworks, most notably the recent release of the umbrella framework COBIT 5, are certainly moving us in the right direction.

What Does It Mean To Be Lean

But a truly lean organization is so much more than a datacenter full of software and a sea of abandoned cubicles.

It is a business philosophy that permeates every level of operations.

Lean means wasting no effort and no money on anything that does not relate directly to customer value – that is, directly to something the customer is willing to pay for.

At least, that’s how it is defined in manufacturing.

Just cutting staff isn’t lean. Cutting staff to save payroll dollars just leaves you short-handed.

Lean, on the other hand, means you’re working at optimum efficiency and staff reduction is done to preserve efficiencies and not to muck them up.

Manufacturing has learned a lot about being lean and manufacturing leaders have retooled both their thinking and their processes to make the most of lessons learned.

As a result, manufacturers have become ideal role models for corporate and small businesses alike.

For example, here are three things manufacturing does to be lean that you can adapt to fit your company:

1) Don’t Tie Money Up in Waste

Just-in-time production is the concept now known as lean manufacturing.

It sprang from the Toyota Production System (TPS) which sought to improve profits by eliminating waste, increasing quality, ensuring consistency (quality control), and capitalizing on workers’ ideas.

You can find full details in the paper “Toyota Production System and Lean Manufacturing” by D. Jorge Leon of Texas A & M University.

TPS is credited for enabling Toyota to successfully compete for U.S. buyers, despite heavy import tariffs and deeply entrenched competition.

To achieve this astonishing feat, Toyota developed a system where parts and supplies arrived “just-in-time” to make the product – sometimes as late as mid-assembly. Thus there was no waste in supply or warehousing and no drain on the bottom line or the checking account that month!

But there are other things they incorporated in that system and you’ll find them in the paper I referenced above.

The key here is to eliminate waste wherever you find it be that in supply and warehousing, shelf inventory, job duty overlap, over production, under production, or wherever.

In order to do this, you must first see your business with new eyes.

Really study how your company does things and what it costs to do those things and why the processes exist in their current form.

Find the waste and restructure your processes to eliminate them.

Once your processes are redefined for efficiency, then automate them to the max. The end result will be higher profits gained from recouping dollars previously lost to waste, and through new efficiencies gained by creating a leaner organization.

2) Don’t Allow Tradition to Choke Profits

Ditch the idea that just because your company has always done things a certain way that it must continue to do so now.

Manufacturers held on to traditional assembly line production methods until those no longer worked.

Your company needs to look not only at streamlining processes but at whether those processes are still needed at all.

Similarly, forcing existing processes into canned software programs doesn’t make sense if you are merely replacing one bad process with another.

Consider developing new processes, adopting standardized processes, or building a hybrid.

For example, GE’s appliances business combined lean manufacturing with a statistical analysis system called six sigma into a hybrid it calls “lean six sigma” in order to benefit from the features of both.

You may find hybridized processes and systems deliver more value than just using one. Or, you may find a standardized process to be the very fix you need for an antiquated legacy process.

3) Buy Technology for Profit, Not for Comfort

Manufacturers did not deploy robotics because of their cool factor or because it made the work easier. They bought robotics because the machines can be directly tied to increased profits.

The same is true of other machines such as the newest in manufacturing, 3D printers.

Robotics are machines designed to improve an existing process whereas 3D printers are machines designed to change and disrupt the process.

With robotics, manufacturing assembly line production was improved. With 3D printers, mass production is succumbing to mass customization.

The best way to create and maintain a lean company is to work from the assumption that nothing is sacred and unchangeable.

Change processes as needed, improve existing processes where needed, but always and forever do with a firm grasp on the affect on profits.

Avoid technologies that simply make work easier and look for those that make less work more profitable.

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“Content without Context is incomplete – I have a whole Blog posting dedicated to this. So if we take that ECM as a Practice, then we can marry this practice with a system that manages content and context, ties together seamlessly the authoring front end and the back and, and infuses Content with Collaboration.”

Lawrence Hart

Now, on to the links!

• Automation Levels High, Satisfaction Higher

  by Craig Le Clair @ The AP Channel

“If your organization has implemented accounts payable automation, chances are you are satisfied with it.”

• A Callous Disregard for Compliance

  By Ron Miller @ Fierce Content Management

“New documents mistakenly released last week by Goldman Sachs, show a callous disregard for compliance and regulations that lead directly to the financial crisis.

• 10 Tech Trends that will Change the World in 10 Years

  by Stephanie Neil @ Manufacturing Executive

“Here’s a snapshot of Dave Evans, Chief Futurist at Cisco Systems, ten technology trends that will change the world in 10 years…”

• Are You Focused Enough? (A Surprising Case Study)

  by Paul B Brown @ Forbes

“It turns out the best entrepreneurs (and leaders for that matter) have great ideas daily but decide not to do anything with them—because they have learned how to focus on what matters most.”

 
What were your favorite stories of the week?

 
Robert Tommy Jr., director of product management for global payment solutions at Fiserv, said ECM programs are now critical to banking, with automation extremely valuable for any of the companies that are considering adoption of the technology.

Addressing compliance concerns, records management needs, cost reduction, improved customer service-there are a myriad of benefits to be gained with the right technology.

And each organization will experience their own unique advantages.

What Should I Save?

Many companies think saving everything in their organization can be a good way to go, but having too much information can lead to compliance issues.

Too much information can mean chaos, even with a great document management system, so companies should look to clear out old, unnecessary documents regularly.

Preparing for Growth

In a piece that appeared on BobsGuide, one enterprise content management professional said banks and financial institutions are looking for ways to accomplish growth goals, please customers and improve technology while reducing risk and costs.

Thus, banks and financial institutions are aiming for a better way to manage and store content, while still maintaining compliance and minimizing costs and potential risk.

Although this isn’t an easy task, the right technology can allow these companies to have the opportunity to add efficiency and still appropriately address budget concerns. In fact, it can actually help address compliance and risk responsibilities of this increasingly strict industry through automation and enhanced reporting capabilities.

 
Ultimately, the right tools and technology will help the organizations that opt to invest become more efficient and offer much better customer service, two things the industry needs to help with the economic recovery.

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Processes, procedures and work instructions are all part of the business eco-system, and just like life on earth, they work best when we work to manage all of them together in perfect harmony.

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“If you are not making the progress that you would like to make and are capable of making, it is simply because your goals are not clearly defined.”

Paul J Meyer

Now, on to the links!

• Enterprise Social, Meet Dynamic Case Management

  by Craig Le Clair @ Forrester

“I must be direct. I never got the hype about social business process management (BPM).”

• W.A.S.I.M.S.

  By Robert Stevenson @ Seeking Excellence

“In preparing for one of my programs I was fortunate to interview a young lady concerning the causes of stress in the workplace. She told me about a program they had implemented within her company that made a lot of sense in reducing stress in their work environment. They called it WASIMS –Work A Shift In My Shoes”

• Data Recovery: A Plan Without Reinforcement Isn’t a Plan

  by Mark Wesley @ Information Management

“Natural disasters, legal changes and audits typically arrive without warning. Without a clear and practiced RIM program, accessing critical information can be a difficult process.”

• Innovate consistently? Yes, you can.

  by Healthcare IT @ Computerworld

“Here are a few of the lessons that we’ve learned about effectively managing innovation and successfully introducing new technology to an organization.”

 
What were your favorite stories of the week?

Computers are taking on more and more of the daily routine.

While this is good news for cost control and efficiency, it’s not so good for accounting controls and segregation of duties.

Where you used to be able to separate incompatible functions between different staff, now there may now be only one person available.

The Controls Environment

The Sarbanes-Oxely Act (affectionately known as “SOX”) enacted in 2002, was legislation designed to reassure the investing public in the integrity of financial statements after the accounting scandals of Enron, Tyco and WorldCom.

It imposes some strict requirements on not just the accuracy of financial statements but also the control systems behind them. Those requirements aren’t going away any time soon.

In fact, the US Bureau of Labour Statistics has this to say about accounting clerical positions:

 
So, not only are accounting departments being downsized, but they are also expected to meet increasingly strict requirements.

What are companies to do?

The answer may surprise you.

Most people don’t think you can automate accounting controls, but the right technology can actually prevent employees from short cutting the internal control system and provide an evidence based audit trail that will stand up to outside scrutiny.

And the good thing is that it can be added to an existing system even if that system does not have the feature built in!

The Paper Trail

The basic building block of accounting control is the approved document.

Whether it is a supplier invoice, a customer purchase order or a government document, it follows a pre-set trail through the company’s approval process, depending on how much it is and what it is for.

For example, the purchasing manager may only approve invoices from preauthorized vendors under a certain dollar amount.

Anything from a new vendor or above his limit requires further authorization from a more senior corporate officer.

Workflow systems work on scanned images of the document and email.

The company’s rules are loaded into the software, so it can check if the document is from an approved supplier, as well as knowing the authorization limits of all of the staff.

This automation saves a lot of accounting staff time because they don’t even see the document until it has been properly approved. No more squinting at illegible scrawls wondering if that’s the new division manager’s signature or turning the documents back because they aren’t approved.

The computer takes care of all that work for you.

“He’s in Europe”

One of my first jobs in accounting was for a company with a head office in the United Kingdom.

The Vice President of Finance would let us know when he was going overseas and there would be a scramble to be sure that he had seen everything that needed to be approved.

And when he came back, there would be a stack of papers on his desk for approval.

No large transactions could be processed while he was away.

Now, workflow would really have come in handy. Regardless of where the VP is, processes don’t have to halt; everything can be approved via a computer or even a smart phone at any time, anywhere in the world.

Now, isn’t that nicer than coming home to a stack of papers in your in-box?

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“If you are not making the progress that you would like to make and are capable of making, it is simply because your goals are not clearly defined.”

Paul J Meyer

Now, on to the links!

• It’s not your imagination; iPads are content magnets

  by Ron Miller @ Fierce Content Management

The iPad remains the preeminent media consumption device and as such, your company needs to include it in your content delivery strategy.

• 10 Predictions for What the CIO Role Will Look Like in 2020

  By John Brandon @ CIO.com

CIOs can expect their jobs to change dramatically by the end of the decade. Expect an increased role in everything from business planning and cybersecurity to robot management and, of course, the cloud.

• The Psychology Behind Employee Productivity

  by Andrianes Pinantoan

Environmental scientists who study the way we work best have long said that our external space greatly impacts our ability to be productive. Give us what we need as human beings and most people will be far more effective and efficient at their jobs.

• Connect Business Problem Analysis to Change Management by Leaving No People Behind

  by Steve Weissman @ AIIM

There is a connection between analyzing your business problems and engaging in change management. Though on the surface these appear to be two completely separate exercises, I believe that your ultimate success depends upon inviting the people who will be affected by the change to participate in the initial articulation of those business problems.

• Is the gap between business and IT shrinking?

  By Peter Schooff @ eBizQ Forum

A subject that comes up routinely on the Forum (but hasn’t in some time), and is a subject I believe is critical to the future of both business and IT: Do you see the gap between business and IT shrinking?

 
What were your favorite stories of the week?

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