What is Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Software?
Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is a system for capturing, preserving, managing and delivering unstructured content and documents. ECM also secures content digitally in compliance with policy. ECM systems make these records retrievable and shareable. Content can be transferred with minimal risk to the content's security.
Enterprise content management systems ensure that users can easily access up to date documents. ECM systems also include version control features so that old versions of documents can be recovered as needed. Businesses use ECM systems to reduce organizational risk and ensure that users get the documents and information they need.
ECM Software Features & Capabilities
- Capture, Imaging: The ECM system supports the digitization of content.
- File Sync, Storage, Archiving: Foundational to the ECM system is its storage system for long-term preservation & retention of content in an organized fashion.
- Document Management: Beyond capture, ECM systems support sharing, distributing, printing, faxing, etc.
- Records Management: Secure, policy-controlled and compliant storage, retrieval and production of records, transactional or otherwise.
- Search & Retrieval: Helps users find the content they are looking for. Various methods for assistance include filters, tags, metadata, and the like.
- Collaboration: ECM systems support file and content sharing within the enterprise, or integrate with preferred collaboration software or modules.
- Content Publishing & Creation: Some ECM systems also support the publishing of content to web pages.
- Security, Risk Management & Information Governance (IG): Security controls with rules, policies, and permissions defining and delimiting access to content and records. This is a core feature and a necessity for enterprises.
- Integrations: ECM systems have integrations with multiple 3rd-party systems such as electronic signature software, hardware (printers, scanners, etc.), digital asset management, Disaster Recovery solutions, CRM, ERP, and web content management systems (WCMS, or CMS).
ECM System Considerations
Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software is designed to facilitate lifecycle management, information governance (IG), and collaboration. Modern ECM systems should provide a single source of truth. Additionally, they should offer features for version control and synchronization, intuitive search, and discovery. It is also important for ECM software to integrate with other applications to deliver viewable content across multiple platforms.
The timely delivery of contracts and other transactional documents is also an important component of business process management (BPM). This is a secondary goal of ECM software. Security and optimized business processes are built into a successful ECM's content storage and retrieval systems.
Pricing Information
Enterprise content management systems may have a one-time/ annual license fee that can start in the $2,000-$3,000 range. Alternatively, they might offer a monthly subscription fee that is per user per month. The subscription fees start at $15-$20/month/user and increase proportionally with the size of the company. Certain ECM vendors also offer a free trial.
However, many ECM vendors do not openly disclose their prices but will provide a quote upon request.
The following Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software offer award-winning customer relationships, feature sets, and value for price. Learn more about our Best Of Awards methodology here.