ECM by Numbers

Using SharePoint for ECM

Publishing the annual Industry Watch survey report on SharePoint coincided with my spending a week on the AIIM UK Roadshow. It was an enjoyable if exhausting week, and a good show, with  many of the exhibitors commenting on the number of SharePoint ECM projects that are finally taking root in some major UK organizations and public bodies. This chimes with the response from the survey - which is free to download here. Companies seem to be taking a little longer to upgrade to 2010 than was at first predicted, but in doing so, they are thinking better about how to use the new content classification and taxonomy rules, and putting right many of the things they got wrong on the 2007 deployment.  

Despite predictions that the 2010 vesion would obviate the need for 3rd party add-in products and integrations, the report shows that over 75% of users plan to utilise one or more add-on products, the most popular being workflow/bpm, followed by analytics & search (presumably FAST). After security and rights management and back-up support comes records management and archive, reflecting the continuing view that out-of-the-box SharePoint records management isn't up to some heavy-weight needs.  

AIIM Roadshow Presentation

Presenting the keynote at the UK AIIM Roadshow this week - Edinburgh, Bolton, Birmingham and London. Download my presentation, "From Content Chaos to Corporate Collaboration" here.

Nearly there with the SharePoint Survey 2011 report

We have the results,  we're just waiting on the design of the report. Heads up is that 3rd party ECM add-ons are still very popular despite the added content management functions of 2010. Upgrades to 2010 seem to be taking a while with only 8% of users live, plus 6% who are first-timers direct to 2010. In 6 months time, over 50% say they will be live on 2010. Interestingly, standardizing a taxonomy or metadata template was the biggest upgrade issue, showing that the new functions are being adopted - except maybe the RM functions - but over 60% still plan to use add-ons. Re-applying customization, and training staff were the next two issues. Much more to come!