New Report: Taming Data by Expanding the Scope of Enterprise Content Management

Last year the world produced 1.8 zettabytes of information - a number that doubles annually, according to EMC, which reports that by 2020 the world generate 50 times the amount of information while at the same time corporate IT staffs will increase by less than 1.5 times. Taming that volume of information through the use of enterprise content management (ECM) has become a popular initiative for Microsoft Dynamics solution owners in their role as active information-generators.

Defined as a formal manner of organizing, storing, and accessing content, ECM fills in where other systems leave off. According to Gartner's recent  Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management report, ECM continues to demonstrate value and growth, with total software revenue increasing 11.1% annually to $4.3 billion in 2011.

Gartner reports that many enterprises are moving well beyond the basic uses of ECM (such as secure file storage in organized libraries), to tackle deeper business requirements that need strong process efficiency as well. As a strategic approach, ECM can help enterprises take control of their content and, in so doing, boost effectiveness, encourage collaboration, and make information easier to share.

The solutions' core components include document capture and management, image processing, workflow/business process management (BPM), records management, and web content management (WCM). Gartner identifies ECM's extended functionalities as digital asset management, document composition, e-forms, search, content and analytics, email and information archiving, email management, and packaged application integration.

Effective ECM is within reach for Microsoft Dynamics users that want to harness the data-generation beast. ...