Enterprise content management software guide
Explore how enterprise content management software works and how it can help your organization work more efficiently than ever.
Enterprise content management software guide
Whether your business is a global corporation or an SMB, one thing’s for sure: you have a lot of documents. In today’s increasingly digital age, it’s no longer sufficient to store paper files or even manage files locally on employee hard drives. Employees need to collaborate on files across states and time zones, gain access to media while working from coffee shops, and share information at a moment’s notice.
Rather than complex file storage in disparate locations, it’s important to have a single, centralized location for all your company’s digital assets that employees can access at any time. One solution to this problem is a system known as enterprise content management.
Thanks to enterprise content management, access to files will no longer be a stumbling block to completing projects, making sales, and expanding your business. In this guide, you’ll learn all about enterprise content management systems, their benefits, drawbacks, and alternative options that may better suit your business’s needs.
What is enterprise content management (ECM)?
Enterprise content management (ECM) is a system through which businesses manage, store, and access their digital files in a single, centralized location. Through enterprise content management, businesses can build a repository of all vital company files that team members can easily access as needed.
Enterprise content management (ECM) systems generally focus on file formats like MS Office files, PDFs, and other basic files. Compared to digital asset management (DAM) systems, they are less equipped to manage rich media assets like video, audio, and images. Instead, they focus on other forms of content management, like marketing resources and media assets. ECMs have a much more basic organizational structure than DAMs, making the storage of more complex files much more difficult via enterprise content management software.
How does an enterprise content management system work?
Enterprise content management software acts as a single, centralized location for all of your business’s basic files. These may include data and documents like:
- MS Office files: DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, etc.
- PDFs: Contracts, paystubs, employee tax documents, etc.
- Emails
- Data and codes
Typically, these documents are stored in a file-based system. Users can either navigate their file system or use metadata to search for the content they need. Some ECMs offer the ability to search documents by their content, enabling users to find documents that contain a specific word or phrase.
Key features of enterprise content management software
Enterprise content management system software can offer a range of benefits to companies with more basic file management needs. These include:
- Document management: Enterprise content management software allows users to manage basic files by storing, organizing, accessing, and sharing important files. While enterprise content management systems typically offer more capabilities than document management systems, they often don’t handle rich media files like videos, images, and audio files, which a digital asset management solution can do.
- Collaboration tools: Enterprise document management tools enable members of different teams and locations to collaborate on documents in real-time.
- Workflow tools: ECMs often feature various workflow tools that improve efficiency by automating manual processes. For instance, your team can set up rules to automatically send documents for reviews and approvals.
- Version control: Enterprise content management system software makes it easy to track changes and view historical versions of documents. This also serves as a backup in case of technological failure.
- Advanced search capabilities: In document management software, users must know the file structure in order to find documents. Enterprise content management system software allows users to search for files using metadata.
- Integrations: Most enterprise content management software integrates with important tools in your martech stack that your business may use daily.
Benefits of ECM software
Companies benefit from enterprise content management in many ways. These may include:
- Increased efficiency: Employees can spend a significant amount of time trying to track down assets not housed within an enterprise content management platform. Not only can searching for files eat away at your employees’ valuable time, but it can lower employee morale and retention rates. With an enterprise content management system software, your employees can simply search for the files they need using metadata.
- Streamlined workflows: No need to print and distribute files or email versions of works-in-progress back and forth. Thanks to your ECM, you can improve your workflows. Your most important files are easy to access in a single place, no matter where you are.
- Straightforward compliance: Easily manage and archive any necessary legal documents, like contracts or documentation necessary for audits and tax season. Any regulatory processes can be managed using your ECM.
Enhanced security: Disorganized and unprotected files can pose a significant security concern for your company. Enterprise content management system software protects your most important files by requiring login credentials for access. Some programs even offer user-based permissions that give specific team members access to certain files.
Challenges of ECM software
While enterprise content management software can be a great solution for some companies, it does have some drawbacks. Challenges of ECM software include:
- File type limitations: ECM software is designed to manage basic files like Microsoft Office files and PDFs. However, for many companies, this simply isn’t enough. In today’s digital age, most organizations have a wealth of rich media assets like images, videos, and audio files that enterprise content management software simply cannot support. This is where digital asset management solutions like Bynder come in.
- Fewer options for creative teams: As they’re primarily designed for text-based files, even the best enterprise content management software lacks creative tools like video preview or image cropping capabilities.
- Lack of automated processes: While most enterprise content management software allows users to search content using metadata, creating metadata is still a manual process. Unlike DAM systems, most ECMs lack the ability to automatically tag files upon upload using AI.
- Minimal additional functions: Many ECMs have limited functionality. They are designed to serve a single purpose, creating a centralized location for your business’s basic documents and data, and just that. DAM platforms, on the other hand, offer a wealth of solutions to make your life easier. Bynder offers content collaboration tools, workflow tools, brand guideline management, and other solutions to create an integrated digital ecosystem of all your most important assets.
ECM or DAM: What’s best for my brand?
Enterprise content management software enables companies to create a single, centralized location for important Microsoft Office files, PDFs, and other documents. These systems can improve employee workflow, aid in collaboration, enhance security, and ensure compliance. For businesses with disparate and complex file storage, they can be revolutionary.
While enterprise content management systems provide adequate solutions for many businesses, in some cases, they simply won’t solve all of a company’s digital asset management needs. ECMs are designed to handle basic, plain text files, and chances are, your business needs solutions that help with rich media files like video, images, and audio files.
For a solution that satisfies all your business’s asset management needs, explore digital asset management software. With the right DAM platform serving as your system of record, all of your company’s most important files—Microsoft Office, PDF, image, video, and audio—can be stored in a single, centralized location. Plus, with Bynder’s DAM solution, you’ll get access to various other solutions to help create and collaborate on content and creative assets, protect your company’s sensitive files, and improve brand consistency. It’s no wonder G2 named Bynder the leading digital asset management solution. Explore our definitive guide to DAM to discover whether a DAM platform like Bynder satisfies your company’s needs.
