In today’s rapidly changing business environment, the ability to be constantly proactive with limited resources is critical to long-term organizational viability. You have to be agile. And at the same time you have to be coordinated. Many companies are discovering that although central control of information assets enables compliance, business units need flexibility in order to deliver services in the most proficient, cost-effective way. Enter Agile ECM.

Agile ECM is scalable, responsive and easily–modifiable content management technology that enables this organizational nimbleness. An agile organization, of course, has the ability to react quickly, flexibly and intelligently to changing business conditions—all without breaking the bank. To be successful in their implementations, organizations must heed the Three Laws of Agile ECM, each of which applies at a different phase of the implementation:

• The Law of Probability (Adoption): The business world today is changing at an incredibly rapid pace. This law reminds us that as the rate of change in the business environment accelerates, the probability of an organization’s success gets smaller. To succeed, organizations must match—or ideally anticipate—the constant evolution of the market. The adoption of ECM as an infrastructural technology that provides information, auditing and business process management supplies the vital feedback an organization needs to be agile in its environment.
• The Law of Simplicity (Deployment). This law reminds us that even the most complex problems often have simple solutions. Unfortunately, what is simple for one group may not be simple for another. Practitioners of Agile ECM reject the “one size fits all” mentality. They have learned to size up the complex information management challenges of different groups and find simple and repeatable solutions for each of them. Standardizing on an agile ECM system enables organizations to quickly and easily solve various groups’ information management challenges because it provides central control (enterprise–wide content standards and security) alongside local flexibility (the ability to store information and configure business processes according to specialized needs).
• The Law of Innovation (Ongoing Implementation): Doing the same thing over and over yields less and less benefit, so constant innovation is key. And yet it is difficult and expensive to modify many traditional ECM systems to suit evolving business needs. An agile ECM system, however, grants business units, departments and other groups the flexibility to make controlled changes when necessary. Furthermore, it emphasizes the configuration of standardized solutions and leverages existing administration platforms to minimize the need for costly and time–consuming consulting or professional services. This allows organizations to react quickly and innovatively to changing conditions in order to drive increasing—rather than decreasing—business results.

How agile is your ECM?

The exponential explosion of social media is beginning to shake the foundations of large organizations and governments. Social media represents the ultimate in decentralization. In times past, organizations and nations could largely control their workforces and citizens from the top down, creating a sense of group-think, and enforcing a contrived "unity." Decisions from the ivory tower were for the best interest of the whole, or at least were purported to be. And even in many instances the media has propagandized the interests of the government. But with the internet, and now particularly social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, that power is shifting distinctly to the masses. Is this good? And should there be limits to this new-found freedom of expression?

Our founding fathers did recognize that a pure democracy can be bad, and instead elected to establish our country as a representative republic. The idea that majority rules exclusively is destructive of liberty because there is no law to prevent the majority from trampling on individual rights. In the world of social media, we can point to many extreme examples of this, on both poles, that make the case for some boundary definition versus the purely laissez-faire approach.

The state of California has recently thrown its hat in the ring regarding this issue - and of course California is no slouch when it comes to regulation of any kind - by releasing this past Friday its "Social Media Standard." According to the Statewide Information Management Manual, Section 66B: Tweeting and Facebooking can hamper employee productivity, strain Internet connections, cause "reputational risk to personnel, the agency, and the state," resulting in the leak of sensitive materials and more. (Read the article )

But the real question becomes, is creating a policy to prohibit this new behemoth of creative expression the best course of action? Is it possible, instead, to enable individual creativity and input and at the same time keep them from driving off the cliff? Could a collaborative enterprise content management system be commissioned that would allow central boundary definition, but at the same time foster local creativity and empowerment?

Successful companies are not product innovators but those that develop innovative business models. Take breakthroughs and figure out new ways to manufacture, distribute, and market them. Be customer centric, shape technology to meet the customer’s needs. Looks for small well articulated ideas. Focus on products, the end goal that guides and informs innovation. Don’t try to solve problems that don’t exist. Become a product oriented culture. Don’t let product oriented approach be replaced by a sales approach.

What does the largest operational hydroelectric powerplant in the world have in common with Agile ECM? Started in 1971, construction of the dam between Paraguay and Brazil took almost 12 years to complete. The dam's reservoir began its formation on October 13, 1982, when the dam works were completed and the water rose a staggering 100 meters (330 ft) reaching the gates of the spillway by October 27th. The amount of potential energy, or energy assets, sitting behind the dam wall was hard to comprehend. People could enjoy the many benefits of the reservoir lake...fishing, boating, irrigation, and more. But was there more tangible benefit to be had?

Over the last several years, many organizations have successfully implemented some form of document management system or content management system. Millions and millions of documents have been digitized, indexed and added to these systems - what we would call digital assets. These organizational assets, now being present in the repository (or reservoir...), have improved business operations and efficiencies for a host of reasons including: faster search and retrieval, reduced costs, improved storage, disaster recovery, etc. But could there be even more benefit for your group? What if those digital assets could be leveraged into a true power source for your organization? Could that be transformational? That is what we call Agile ECM...combining Business Process Management (BPM) with Enterprise Content Managment (ECM) to truly empower your team and generate real productivity gains. When they installed generators at Itaipu, they leveraged the power of their liquid assets and created more power than 10 nuclear power stations, which provides 19% of the electrical power for Brazil, and 90% for Paraguay. Wow!


What could turning on the generators of Agile ECM do for you?

Contact Unity Business Systems for more information.

Yesterday morning, Laserfiche kicked off its “Empower 2010” Conference with a keynote address from company President and CEO Nien-Ling Wacker. A record 1,200 attendees turned out for the event, reflecting the accelerating growth of the Laserfiche community even in the face of recession.

“2009 was a watershed year that separated the truly great companies from the rest of the pack,” said Wacker. “Laserfiche is committed to helping great companies succeed, and we worked relentlessly throughout 2009 to make our agile ECM system the clear winner for the new decade.”

Despite the economic downturn and heightened security for air travel, end user attendance at the Conference is up 52% over last year. A healthy number of industry analysts, consultants, partners, journalists and resellers are also in attendance.

One of the highlights of the event so far was to see Unity Business Systems' very own Alondo McClees, of the City of Norfolk, presented his RunSmarter award! Way to go Alondo! Stay posted for more to come...

And take a minute and view the world-class video that Laserfiche presented on the software's global reach, and how we are truly part of a positive revolution.

http://www.laserfiche.com/conference/Video%20Highlights/Opening%20Video-Empower%202010.aspx