Enterprise Content Management is the strategy or official protocol employed by an organization in order to manage its business documents. Generally this includes all recordation including; paper, electronically scanned documents, documents that were both created electronically and remain so - such as email or website pages, as well as microforms (such as microfilm and microfiche).
With respect to the management of electronic-only content, generally such a system is known as any of the following:
- Electronic Content Management (ECM)
- Electronic Content Management System (ECMS)
- Electronic Document Management (EDM)
- Electronic Document Management System (EDMS)
Within certain industry verticals or specific document types, for example healthcare, this same system might be called an Electronic Health Record (EHR) or Electronic Health Record system.
When an organization decides to go paperless, they must either choose a commercial-off-the-shelf system (for which there are hundreds to choose from) or develop their own in-house system. There are pros and cons on both sides of this decision making process. When documents are scanned by SoftFile, we can either include a commercial ECM system or develop a custom non-proprietary database. If the customer already has an ECM, the electronic document and data captured by SoftFile can likely be imported into the existing system.
