Enterprise Content Management, Document Management, Records Management - Same or Different?

Yes. And yes. As interchangeably as these terms are used in the IT industry, there are indeed both distinct similarities and differences.

AIIM, the Global Enterprise Management Association, provides the following definitions:

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is the technologies, tools, and methods used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver information, content, and documents related to organizational processes. ECM enables four key business drivers: continuity, collaboration, compliance, and costs.

Document management technology helps organizations better manage the creation, revision, approval, and consumption of electronic documents. It provides key features such as library services, document profiling, searching, check-in, check-out, version control, revision history, and document security.

Records management is content of long-term business values that are deemed records and managed according to a retention schedule that determines how long a record is kept based on either outside regulations or internal business practices. Any piece of content can be designated a record.

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) has become the term of choice in large corporations and throughout the IT industry, but when it comes to the small to mid-sized companies, document management remains commonly used. As ECM has evolved throughout the last several years, its extensive offerings have grown to include content management and records management. In turn, confusion and misuse of the terminology has prevailed.

“Both enterprise and mid market organizations purchase technology solutions for similar functions—but how they are branded, positioned and sold can be vastly different. For example, a large corporation buys Business Process Management or BPM, while similar solutions for small– and medium-sized business (SMBs) are marketed simply as workflow. In a like manner, enterprise accounting departments deploy Enterprise Resource Planning, or ERP, while SMBs have an accounting software package. Plain and simple,” states Laurie Shufeldt, author of Why Does the Middle Market Get Watered-Down Names When It Comes to Technology Solutions, printed in ECM Connection, May 2006.

In the past, it was thought that the SMBs would not be receptive to purchasing a solution that included the term “enterprise,” viewing it as a vast, expensive system, beyond their operational and budgetary limits. But, as SMBs have grown more technologically savvy, the market has been experiencing a big trend toward embracing ECM as the appropriate and suitable term for these solutions.

Companies, both large and small, now realize that ECM accurately defines not only an enterprise-wide solution but also individual components, specifically designed for various horizontal areas of a company. Many clients begin applying ECM in accounts payable, followed by human resources, account receivable... at their own pace.

In the end, it is important to remember that much of this terminology is designed to simply serve as a tool to define a set of products and services. The real underlying importance to developing definitions is to create a clear path of communication between the IT industry, as a whole, and the clients it services.
During our 35+ years in business, we have assisted over 700 clients achieve their business objectives, with 100 ECM solutions designed and integrated to best utilize the most innovative IT products and services available in the market. During those years, we have seen terminology trends come and go, but at the end of the day, it is the results that we achieve for our clients, that matter the most.