Document imaging is part of a larger system, commonly called Enterprise Content Management. As we research all the various document scanning and imaging solutions available, we can sometimes miss the forest for the trees, as the saying goes.
This is regrettable. Even if your business is small by comparison to companies that need products with lofty terms like "Enterprise Content Management," think about what this Harvard Business School-sounding concept means--or could mean--for your business.
If you are new to this conversation or even just looking for a great resource to learn more, visit the Association for Information and Image Management, or AIIM, Web site. It's here and it's rich. To start with a definition:
"Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is the technologies used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to organizational processes. ECM tools and strategies allow the management of an organization's unstructured information, wherever that information exists."
Document imaging is one technology among many in that ecosystem.
This is important to realize not to make some abstract point, but because it makes us consider the real-life workings of these interconnected technologies, i.e. stuff needs to work together. This is why a company like IBM is a major provider of ECM products: because they make everything, everything should (theoretically) work together. The old standardization sell.
However, that is not an argument for using IBM products. It is merely an argument for thinking ahead of time about whether your document imaging system is going to fit into your overall goal of archiving and using the information important to your business.
It is merely an argument for seeing the forest, not just the trees.
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