Strengthening Compliance Initiatives with Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

I grew up in the age of paper. During those ancient times, if I wanted to correspond with someone I would write a letter. If I wanted to learn specific information about a topic, I went to my local library and either checked out books on the subject or parked myself in front of a set of encyclopedias. I did all of my shopping in stores. In college, my social security number was emblazoned proudly on my student ID card—visible and available to anyone who requested to see my information. The idea that a small, portable phone might someday serve as a camera, a radio, and an encyclopedia seemed like science fiction.

Since computers entered the mainstream, we’ve all seen a lot of changes. So many that it is easy to take for granted the planning that was necessary to implement our modern technological infrastructure. In many instances, it seems that technology has progressed so quickly that the business world is struggling to adapt. Contemporary technologies are rapidly replacing paperbased processes. Management can be extremely complicated as businesses are tasked with organizing back files, electronic correspondence, paper records, e-mail, and other types of documents. Unstructured information is increasing, and compliance requirements are becoming more stringent with each passing year.

A high-performance enterprise content management (ECM) system can help you organize and control your records, regardless of their diverse formats. Scanned archival paper records, PDFs, email messages, faxes, JPEG files, and other documents can all be stored in a single, searchable electronic repository. With the implementation of workflow and automation technologies, ECM software allows you to process more work in less time. It also helps connect you to information stored in legacy systems to further expedite processing.

An ECM system has the added benefit of helping you address compliance directives. Regardless of your industry, there are specific areas where ECM can provide significant improvements to your compliance efforts as well as to your business processes. Four of these areas are highlighted below:

1. Ensuring privacy
A transition to electronic processes demonstrates that you are taking steps to ensure the privacy of both your customer base and your employees. By definition, an ECM system gives you a degree of built-in security that you just can’t achieve with paper. An ECM system that supports redaction can guarantee that your customers’ personal information is not accessible to processing staff. Under a system that is paper-based, it is impossible to guarantee that records are not accessed by unauthorized viewers. Even the most secure system is prone to sabotage.

An ECM system allows you to establish exactly who has permission to access, view, and annotate a document. Furthermore, strict monitoring capabilities support customized reporting.

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