ECM up 50pc in two years


10 Sep 2007

Some 30pc of Irish companies are now deploying document management software, up from 20pc in 2005.

According to survey results announced today by AIIM Europe, the enterprise content management (ECM) association, 22pc of firms have begun integrating document management projects across departments, up from 11pc in 2005. Irish adoption rates of the technology are now similar to those in the UK and US, the international survey found.

Survey respondents who rated their organisation ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’ in managing, controlling and using electronic information were twice as likely to consider their organisation more effective than the industry average in terms of overall profitability and effectiveness, AIIM revealed.

AIIM also found that 41pc of organisations plan to spend ‘more’ or ‘much more’ on document and records management technologies in 2007 compared to 2006, with only 20pc planning to spend less. When asked to identify the most challenging aspect of document and records management in their organisation, 35pc cited justifying the investment and gaining board commitment, while 45pc considered change management and employee commitment to be the tougher aspects.

Ciaran Kelly, partner, performance improvement advisory services, PricewaterhouseCoopers, commented: “In the past, Irish organisations overly relied on financial information to measure organisational performance. However, in many cases this approach concealed the ‘worm in the apple’ such as customer service issues, low levels of compliance, high level of staff turnover, poor operational performance and unmanaged operational risk.

“However, it is now an emerging trend among many Irish organisations to leverage non-financial information to provide an indication of systemic issues or insights that may present long-term strategic risks and opportunities. Clearly financial information is still the cornerstone of performance measurement; however, Irish organisations are increasingly measuring their performance using a balanced scorecard format to include financial and non-financial data.”

AIIM in association with PricewaterhouseCoopers will address these issues at this year’s Info Ireland event at the Burlington Hotel, Dublin on 18 and 19 September. Over 30 suppliers will demonstrate content, email and records management software along with document scanning and forms recognition systems at the event.

By Niall Byrne