Should I Hire a Consultant to Help with My ECM Implementation?
John Mancini

By: John Mancini on October 24th, 2014

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Should I Hire a Consultant to Help with My ECM Implementation?

Enterprise Content Management (ECM)

Businesses need to act swiftly in order to maintain a competitive advantage, but swift action without proper planning results in unnecessary delays, potential compliance risks, and increased costs. As much as 40% of an ECM implementation’s costs could be the result of rework due to poor planning and requirements gathering.

Many organizations use a technology-first approach to quickly address a perceived business problem, often coming up short in their results. Enlisting experienced services personnel, with expertise in requirements gathering, ECM technology application, and process improvement ensures that a thorough assessment has been conducted, problems identified, stakeholder issues and considerations contemplated, process improvements made, and proper technology applied.

There are typically 3 types of external help you can procure. These are help from an external consultant in modeling processes, shaping the requirements specification and selecting systems; professional services supplied by a vendor post-selection to plan and drive the implementation; and help from a Systems Integrator (SI) to stitch together different elements and sub-systems, and to help with integration to existing enterprise systems.

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Using the rework costs as an example, it stands to reason that an additional investment of 15% upfront to get the requirements and planning correctly can save you as much as 30-40% in rework costs after the fact. As a first step forward:

  • Assess your internal expertise and identify the gaps
  • Solicit your suppliers and external resources to fill in where you need the expertise
  • Look at the process, content, and people before applying technology
  • Assess options of on-premise versus cloud applications, and mobility can be used to augment or supplement the traditionally high-value proposition of ECM Solutions

By engaging external services help you achieve three things:

  1. Objectivity – a view from outside your business looking in
  2. Domain knowledge – how do other companies like us craft the system to solve similar problems
  3. Momentum – meeting the milestones set by the (paid-for) consultant will keep the project moving.

Additionally, when it comes to change management, external resources can help develop and deliver a good, objective training about the project, process changes, and technology use, as opposed to product-specific user training from just a software vendor. This will get your people onto the same page as the services consultant, creating much more of a team effort, and will also help drive user acceptance.

 

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About John Mancini

John Mancini is the President of Content Results, LLC and the Past President of AIIM. He is a well-known author, speaker, and advisor on information management, digital transformation and intelligent automation. John is a frequent keynote speaker and author of more than 30 eBooks on a variety of topics. He can be found on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook as jmancini77. Recent keynote topics include: The Stairway to Digital Transformation Navigating Disruptive Waters — 4 Things You Need to Know to Build Your Digital Transformation Strategy Getting Ahead of the Digital Transformation Curve Viewing Information Management Through a New Lens Digital Disruption: 6 Strategies to Avoid Being “Blockbustered” Specialties: Keynote speaker and writer on AI, RPA, intelligent Information Management, Intelligent Automation and Digital Transformation. Consensus-building with Boards to create strategic focus, action, and accountability. Extensive public speaking and public relations work Conversant and experienced in major technology issues and trends. Expert on inbound and content marketing, particularly in an association environment and on the Hubspot platform. John is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the College of William and Mary, and holds an M.A. in Public Policy from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.