ECM as an organisational nervous system

In his book, Business @ the Speed of Thought: Using a Digital Nervous System, Bill Gates reminds us that, in order to function in our digital age, we need a digital infrastructure that acts like a human nervous system.

This nervous system has to do with information, how we manage information and the impact of information on the bottom line. Gates makes two important statements:

* Information is a differentiator: "To differentiate your company from your competition, the best way to put distance between you and the crowd is to do an outstanding job with information."

* Information is a key resource: "How you gather, manage and use information will determine whether you win or lose."

One could use this analogy to look at enterprise content (documents, records, scanned images, e-mail, Web content, collaborative content and messaging, to name but a few components) as an organisational nervous system.

Proper ECM leads the organisation to truly focus on a task.

Bennie Kotze is manager of the ECM strategy development unit at Nokusa Engineering Informatics.

The human brain and nervous system is a complex network of interrelated points, signals and flows that coordinates everything we think and do. It manages muscles, senses, memories, thoughts, emotions, the heart, feelings, logic and life in general.

This system receives inputs from the outside world, translates it and leads us to act on it. It determines our personality, ensures self-control and gives us memory - it represents being.

Enterprise content management is the processes, tools and methods used to capture, manage, store, preserve and deliver content (like document records, e-mail and other content) related to key business processes. The content, as well as the processes, practices, methods and technologies to manage it, represent the organisational nervous system.

Any disorganisation, damage or disease of the nervous system has a substantial impact on the behaviour and performance of a human being. Similarly, in organisations, disorganisation of content leads to malfunction and disease.

Parkinson's disease (degenerative disorder of the central nervous system impacting on motor skills and speech): Mismanaging content, disparate uncoordinated business rules, lack of governance, dumping content on network drives, using e-mail as the only content management system and other disorders can slow down organisational movement. It inhibits efficiency in business processes and slows them right down. It also impacts on how the organisation relates to the outside world in terms of collaboration through content impairing the speech of the organisation.

Dissociative identity disorder (condition where a single individual evidences two or more distinct identities or personalities): Many organisations are exemplary in moving forward, making the most of the digital age to ensure success - but there is a dark side, another entity within that does not comply fully to the regulated environment, where records are managed haphazardly, where evidence of business activities is some secondary task somewhere. This organisation can clinch the best deal one day and be unable to retrieve that very important contract or report the very next day.

Paralysis (loss of simple movements of various body parts): In how many cases do we see business units or business processes suffering from a lack of information - it is there but almost impossible to retrieve, time is lost in processing content and this leads to paralysis. Paralysis can become more prevalent where the organisation jumps to technology without considering the content elements in processes and the content bottlenecks within the organisation.

Obsessive compulsive disorder: Organisations focus on one area but sometimes ignore the related content - we are all about quality and have all the rules for quality management in place but lacking substantially on a holistic approach to capture, manage, store, preserve and deliver content.

Loss of flexibility in thinking: How many organisations re-invent the wheel because the content related to previous initiatives or projects is not readily available to those who need access to it? Proper ECM leads the organisation to truly focus on a task.

Perhaps the most important illness today is the delusional disorder that dictates that we can change processes, implement technology, automate, merge companies, make money, comply and survive without really spending time, effort and resources on the good old tasks of managing documents, records, images, e-mail and the like.

* Bennie Kotze is manager of the ECM strategy development unit at Nokusa Engineering Informatics.