If you went to school back when everything was paper-based, you probably have a good recollection of what it was like to write a term paper. If you were lucky, you had a collection of encyclopedias at home to research your topic. You probably had access to research materials at your school library as well. Maybe you expanded your search for information to your county library or, depending on your subject, to a specialty bookstore. The process just to collect materials was extremely time- and labor-intensive. With extensive research on a topic often came the realization that some of the best reference materials to support your thesis were unattainable.
Technology has evolved to radically simplify information access. That’s the good news. The bad news is that most business applications were not created to leverage that access. Typically, they were created as stand-alone line-of-business applications. If your organization uses legacy or proprietary systems, your ability to access and use supplementary information-information that doesn’t reside within these systems-is limited at best.
Why integration is important
It is very rare for one single application to have the functionality to address all of your processing needs. With stand-alone systems, users constantly have to validate, update, or process information by cross-referencing data found within unstructured documents. As a result, they expend a vast amount of energy searching for information within network drives, fax machines, email inboxes, telephony systems, etc.
By making your processing information available within your line-of-business applications, you can simplify access. This leads to significantly improved turnaround times as well as enhanced customer services. Integrating your systems eliminates redundancies and makes information much more accessible.
Challenges associated with integration
Unfortunately, tying systems together isn’t necessarily as simple as it sounds. Many legacy business applications were not created with integration in mind. It simply was not part of the IT vision when many of these stand-alone applications were implemented. Some proprietary systems are built in such a way that they almost go out of their way to limit you from finding a way to integrate with them in order to ensure that you continue to buy their products.
Legacy systems, which usually were purchased to address a specific business need, may run on platforms or languages that are incongruous with the rest of your IT environment. This makes accessibility difficult. Stand-alone systems may have been implemented originally to address business needs that have since changed. And without the ability to integrate these systems into a contemporary architecture, project failures can occur.
Addressing the integration challenge with enterprise content management (ECM)
Instead of replacing old applications, it is often more effective to add value to them by integrating legacy and stand-alone systems with an ECM system. In doing so, you can make the information housed within the ECM repository available within your everyday business applications. You increase the functionality of your legacy systems by matching them to the unstructured documents in your ECM system. This puts complete information at the end users’ fingertips. At the same time, it makes your business applications more suitable to a contemporary IT architecture. To make information accessible without costly custom programming, consider:
1. Zero programming integration tools
A high-performance ECM system will offer tools to integrate your line-of-business applications with forms and other documents that are managed within your storage repository. This will enable you to access business documents from within your line-of-business applications. Desktop retrieval is instant, with just the click of a mouse. Users can remain within their familiar applications and no longer have to search for information externally.
2. Standard API Web services
Wherever the architecture allows for it, API Web services can bridge the gap between diverse applications to make documents accessible. An ECM system that is underwritten in Web services takes advantage of IT standards that are designed to support interoperability. To your staff, the integration appears seamless. They are able to complete work-and access information-without having to leave the software interface with which they are familiar.
Evaluating your business environment
One pivotal component to success is choosing the right ECM system. Some systems do a good job providing a solution to a targeted problem or area. Unfortunately, pursuing this avenue is shortsighted and can hurt you in the long run. Instead, consider a software suite that has the flexibility and extensibility to integrate with your entire enterprise-your back office as well as your front office. Thus, you can leverage one software system to improve operations across the entire enterprise.
Many ECM vendors on the market today are hard to differentiate from one another. They offer an overwhelming array of products that claim to revolutionize your processing capabilities. But at the end of the day, do you really want to be training your end users on how to use hundreds of new functions that they don’t need? Let’s face it. ECM isn’t about bells and whistles and shiny pretty applications. It’s about making sure that when your users need documents for their everyday business processing activities, those documents are just a click away. It’s about making sure that work is distributed to the right person at the right time. It’s about having access to all of the materials that you need in order to make decisions. In short, an ECM system with superior integration capabilities will provide you with a significant ROI. Isn’t it time that you invested in a system that pays you back?
