Ovum Decision Matrix: Selecting an Enterprise Content Management ...

Ovum Decision Matrix: Selecting an Enterprise Content Management Solution, 2015–16

Publication Date: 03 Sep 2015 Sue Clarke

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Product code: IT0014-003055


Summary Catalyst This Ovum Decision Matrix for Enterprise Content Management focuses on the core technology included in ECM products. For a perspective looking at a broader, suite-based approach to ECM, please refer to Ovum's addendum report, entitled Enterprise Content Management: The Suite Perspective. Enterprise content management (ECM) continues to evolve. The past few years have seen ECM platforms grow to more than 13 different technologies, all tightly integrated together to create megasolutions. Now, the situation is in reverse as the large, multi-product vendors start to break down their platforms into smaller, more manageable solutions that address specific areas of ECM, such as customer experience management, compliance, or case management. Ovum urges organizations to take a "solutions view" to ECM by thinking about their pain-points and then shortlisting vendors that provide solutions that best address these issues. Consider mixing and matching solutions from different vendors to create a best-of-breed approach to ECM. However, this will require integration between different vendors' products, so ensure that the solutions selected adhere to CMIS (Content Management Interoperability Services), the standard for interoperability between content management systems.

Ovum view The ECM vendor landscape has been dominated by a few large, high-profile vendors for the past few years. However, this is changing as the vendors break down their large portfolios. This should make ECM selection easier, as organizations can compare like with like, when selecting a solution, regardless of the size of the vendor. The large mega-portfolios still exist and can be implemented, but multiple licenses may be required as organizations may need to implement several products. This is providing organizations with a much wider choice when selecting ECM products, and it favors organizations that provide a best-of-breed approach. We are only at the start of this process and Ovum expects there to be much more separation of portfolios in the future. This will allow smaller vendors that only play in a few areas of ECM to compete on more favorable terms with the megavendors. Ovum believes that there are currently eight major ECM vendors that address the core capabilities of ECM (document management and collaboration, records management, archiving, case management, capture and scanning, and search). These vendors are: Alfresco, EMC, HP, IBM, Microsoft, OnBase by Hyland (formerly Hyland Software), OpenText, and Oracle. Ovum expects them to be joined by a new breed of vendor – printer hardware vendors that move into the information management area to provide software to manage the content that is output from multifunction printers. One such vendor is Lexmark, which has made several ECM-related acquisitions over the past few years and now has a large portfolio, which we expect to feature in the next ECM Ovum Decision Matrix. The company declined to participate in this Ovum Decision Matrix as it had (at the time of writing) only just completed its latest acquisition – that of the capture and scanning vendor Kofax, to add to previous acquisitions of Perceptive Software and Saperion (two smaller ECM vendors). When selecting an

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ECM solution, organizations should take into consideration the changing ECM vendor landscape, and consider implementing solutions rather than a platform. Although Ovum uses the term "follower" as a category, organizations should not consider vendors that fall into this category as inferior to those in the "leader" or "challenger" categories. Vendors in the follower category are very much specialists that focus on specific core areas of ECM and because of this often have capabilities that are superior to those of the larger vendors, which have capabilities across a wide range of ECM technologies. Most of the major vendors also provide at least some extended capabilities, including web content management (WCM)/customer experience management (CX), digital asset management (DAM), ediscovery, and customer communications. In addition, we are seeing file sync and share and information rights management (IRM) added to portfolios. File sync and share is becoming a standard feature, although not all vendors currently have this capability. This is one area where organizations must take care, as there is a lack of control over the use of these products in many organizations. The Ovum BYOD (bring your own device) survey for 2014 shows that 65% of employees using file sync and share technology at work are using unmanaged consumer products, e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, and Apple iCloud. This demonstrates the ease with which employees can move large volumes of corporate content to external, as well as internal, parties. This poses a huge risk to organizations, particularly when coupled with the fact that a large number of these self-provisioning employees will also be viewing the content on personal mobile devices. This lack of corporate control opens organizations up to the risk of noncompliance with regulatory requirements or at the very least poor governance. Organizations must ensure that file sync and share is included in any ECM list of requirements, and either select an ECM solution that includes file sync and share, or one that integrates with a third-party file sync and share system. An enterprise-managed file sync and share product will go part way to protecting content, but organizations need to have additional measures in place. IRM helps to reduce the risk by preventing employees from moving the content to the cloud, or allowing access to the content by any unauthorized person. IRM can also expire content that has already been moved to the cloud and make it no longer available on the device it has been downloaded to. This will help organizations if they are not able to eliminate self-provisioned file sync and share altogether. Some file sync and share products and ECM systems include IRM, but for those that do not, organizations should ensure that they implement IRM alongside their file sync and share solution to help protect corporate content. Selecting an ECM system should become easier in the future as the large vendors break their vast portfolios down into smaller, more manageable chunks that address specific areas of content management. For example, WCM is becoming CX and is now being sold as a standalone solution by some ECM vendors. In addition to the core WCM system, a DAM system, social capabilities, and mobile apps may also form part of the solution. Similarly, a compliance and governance solution may comprise records management, archiving, and e-discovery tools. This approach makes it easier to select and bolt together solutions from different vendors, including specialist vendors that offer a single solution. When selecting solutions, check whether the vendor offers the mechanism to easily integrate solutions with third-party products. CMIS is becoming the de facto standard for integration between ECM systems, and while most vendors support it, one or two do not as yet. If considering a solution from a vendor that does not support CMIS, ensure that you ask how the vendor's products integrate with solutions from other ECM vendors.


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Key findings  By taking a solutions approach, ECM vendors are making it easier to adopt a best-of-breed approach, allowing organizations to mix and match the solutions they select from different vendors.  Organizations should examine the pain-points they need ECM to address and then select the solution that best suits their requirements, not the one with the most features.  Consider including enterprise file sync and share as part of an ECM deployment to ensure that content is managed outside as well as inside the firewall.  Implement information rights management to manage what actions users can perform on content. This is especially important when content moves outside of the firewall, or if employees are using unmanaged file sync and share products.  All of the ECM vendors now offer cloud deployment options; consider moving to a hybrid cloud model if you feel that a full move to the cloud is a step too far.  CMIS has become the de facto standard for allowing interoperability between ECM systems. Most, but not all, ECM vendors support CMIS, so check how vendors provide interoperability with other systems.  EMC, HP, IBM, OpenText, and Oracle are the leaders in this ECM Ovum Decision Matrix, but they are also the vendors that provide capabilities in the most areas.  Microsoft and Alfresco are challengers, as they do not provide capabilities in all of the areas that the leaders do.  OnBase by Hyland is in the follower category because it specializes in core technology areas and does not offer capabilities in extended ECM areas such as e-discovery, but this does not mean that its capabilities are inferior to those in the leader category.

Vendor solution selection Inclusion criteria Given the broad definitions of ECM and the consequent very wide range of products and vendors that are positioned in this technology area, identifying those which could be properly assessed during the period of report research, and which would be appropriate for the largest number of Ovum's enterprise subscribers, resulted in a very tight set of criteria.  The vendors had to offer a "platform" for ECM, where all functionality could be accessed and managed though a single interface.  The vendor had to offer capabilities in 8 of the 13 functional technology areas.  The products had to have a significant level of recognition among enterprises, cover a range of verticals, and have a presence in multiple geographies.

Exclusion criteria Vendors and products excluded from analysis in this report include:  those providing point solutions such as WCM or records management


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 offerings with a significant portion of functionality that is delivered through third-party products  those vendors whose presence was limited to a restricted geographical area.

Methodology Technology assessment In this assessment dimension Ovum analysts develop a series of features and functionality that would provide differentiation between the leading solutions in the marketplace. The criteria groups identified for ECM are as follows:  Document management and collaboration: The ability to create and edit content in a collaborative environment.  Information rights management: Protecting individual items of content by controlling what actions can be taken on them.  File sync and share: The ability to securely share and collaborate on documents, typically in a cloud environment.  Records management: The ability to control content from its creation to disposition, with processes to ensure that content could be retained in an immutable form when needed.  Web content management: The function of creating and consequently publishing content to the Web or intranet in a controlled manner.  Analytics: Tools that analyze user behavior on the website, which can provide information ranging from the volume of web traffic on the site to the individual visitor's navigation through the site.  Digital asset management: The control of not only access to, but the "lifespan" of, a piece of content, in line with company policies.  Archiving: The ability to retain content for a period (or indefinitely) for continued access/reference on a platform not used for operational purposes.  E-discovery: Specialist tools that help legal departments and firms to identify and review content that is required for discovery requests or litigation.  Business process management: The ability to create content-centric processes that are often triggered by the receipt of an item of content.  Capture and scanning: The ability to import information from physical media in a form that can be managed by the rest of the products in the platform.  Customer communications: The ability, based upon the information held, to create personalized content, in a format or layout specific to the recipient.  Search: The ability to locate content across the enterprise on local drives, desktops, and a wide range of repositories.

Execution In this dimension, Ovum analysts review the capability of the solution around the following key areas:  Architecture and administration: A platform approach, with a single point of control for all the technologies delivered and integration with enterprise security tools and regimes.  Mobile capabilities: Features and functions provided to support a mobile-first strategy.


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 Social capabilities: Features that provide social-like capabilities, both internally on intranets and externally on websites, and integration with social network sites.  Interoperability: In this element we assess how easily the solution/service can be integrated into the organization's operations, relative to the demand for integration for the project.  Deployment: Using a combination of assessed criteria and points of information, Ovum analysts provide detail on various deployment issues, including time needed, industries involved, services offered, and support provided.  Scalability: Points of information are provided to show the scalability of the solution across different scenarios.

Market impact The global market impact of a solution is assessed in this dimension. Market impact is measured across four categories, each of which has a maximum score of 10.  Revenues: Each solution's global enterprise content management revenues are calculated as a percentage of the market leader's. This percentage is then multiplied by a market maturity value and rounded to the nearest integer. Overall global revenue carries the highest weighting in the market impact dimension.  Market competitiveness: Ovum's examination of the enterprise content management market includes a detailed look at the competitive landscape. Every vendor has a few competitors that it competes against on a regular basis, and Ovum's research methodology captures this information, using it to rank vendors accordingly.  Geographical penetration: Where the information is provided, Ovum is able to establish the geographical reach of the product, both in terms of regional brand recognition and physical presence. Data center locations, sales operations, and provision of local support are also given merit.  Vertical industry penetration: Some vendors provide industry-specific solutions and/or implementation expertise, while others partner with industry specialists and consultancies to extend their reach and range. Where provided, this information is considered along with other market impact indicators.

Ovum ratings  Market leader: This category represents the leading solutions that we believe are worthy of a place on most technology-selection shortlists. The vendor has established a commanding market position with a product that is widely accepted as best of breed.  Market challenger: The solutions in this category have a good market positioning and are sold and marketed well. The products offer competitive functionality and a good priceperformance proposition, and should be considered as part of the technology selection.  Market follower: Solutions in this category are typically aimed at meeting the requirements of a particular kind of customer. As a tier-one offering, they should be explored as part of the technology selection.


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Market and solution analysis Ovum Decision Matrix: enterprise content management, 2015– 16 Content management technologies are relatively mature from an IT software perspective, and differentiation between the major providers of ECM platforms is consequently limited. Included in this ECM Ovum Decision Matrix are technologies not covered before, including information rights management and file sync and share. These are important technologies in an organization's armory that can help to protect content, and they also provide an area of differentiation between vendors. Ovum's analysis spans products from the software behemoths, the independent sector, and open source. Microsoft chose not to participate in the Ovum Decision Matrix so all of the information relating to Microsoft has been researched from published sources, and from Ovum client inquiries. Figure 1: Ovum Decision Matrix: enterprise content management, 2015–16

Source: Ovum


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Figure 2: Expanded view of Ovum Decision Matrix: enterprise content management, 2015–16

Source: Ovum

Table 1: Ovum Decision Matrix: enterprise content management, 2015–16 Leaders

Challengers

Followers

EMC

Alfresco

OnBase by Hyland

HP

Microsoft

IBM OpenText Oracle

Source: Ovum

Market leaders: EMC, HP, IBM, OpenText, Oracle EMC was, for many years, the undisputed leader of the ECM marketplace, and is considered to be a high-end, expensive solution. The company is addressing this partly through its updated ApplicationXtender (AX), which addresses the more basic document management needs of the midmarket space. EMC has made a number of strategic acquisitions over the years to fill gaps in its functionality, but the area where it is weakest, web content management, has been addressed through a partnership with Hippo. Also, EMC is investing further in Project Horizon (its next-generation content delivery platform) and plans to make more new public cloud product announcements over the coming twelve months. Implementing Documentum is a major undertaking and one that will generally require accompanying services. There may also be a need for integration with line-of-business applications (which can be easily achieved by those organizations implementing Documentum xCP).


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Globally recognized as having a significant partner ecosystem, EMC is still the first name that comes to mind when the CIO thinks "content management." HP is also moving towards being a solutions provider by breaking down its portfolio into smaller solutions that address specific requirements. These include customer experience management and compliance and governance. This makes it easier to implement HP solutions alongside existing technology. HP's ECM portfolio has grown rapidly thanks to its acquisition of Autonomy and the bringing together of technologies from both companies' portfolios. IBM established itself as a leading ECM vendor when it acquired FileNet, which allowed it to extend its focus beyond the traditional big IBM-house implementations. Since then it has boosted its capabilities further through the acquisition of complementary technologies. IBM still has two ECM products, which offer solutions for a wide range of issues, both of which are covered by this Ovum Decision Matrix. The company is acknowledged as the largest ECM vendor in terms of volume, revenue, and market share, and it has a huge global services organization and partner network, which enables it to provide assistance in the implementation process. OpenText is the last remaining tier-one independent ECM vendor. Like EMC and IBM, it has made numerous acquisitions, although some of them have resulted in duplicated technology, which has forced the company to support more than one ECM platform and two WCM products. This has resulted in a high level of integration work, which has sometimes affected sales of its ECM products. However, the company now has a strong strategy and its acquisition of the BPM vendor Metastorm is enabling OpenText to strengthen its capabilities in the case management area. Oracle, a well-established ECM vendor, has moved up from the challenger category in the previous Ovum Decision Matrix, published in 2013. It has built its portfolio largely through strategic acquisitions, which have been integrated to provide an extensive suite of capabilities. Oracle's portfolio has also expanded with the rollout of its cloud offerings, which includes the Documents Cloud Service, which has integrated support for WebCenter Content as well as collaboration support via Oracle's Social Network Cloud product offerings. Its ECM portfolio forms part of its Fusion Middleware layer, which makes it available to a range of systems including its enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) products, and also allows Oracle to provide "embedded ECM." Although a large part of Oracle's customer base will be organizations that already have Oracle products, the ECM products do not require the implementation of any other Oracle products, which will reassure organizations that do not wish to go down the "Oracle everywhere" route.

Market challengers: Alfresco, Microsoft Alfresco is the leading open source ECM vendor. Its product has grown organically rather than from acquisition, which makes Alfresco one of the few vendors that has built its ECM platform from scratch. Despite being open source it integrates well with other ECM repositories as well as line-of-business applications, and although it does not have solutions in all of the ECM-related technologies, it will satisfy the requirements of a great many organizations. However, being open source does not mean that it is necessarily simple to implement, and services may be required during the implementation process. Alfresco is winning business over the larger vendors when organizations consolidate from multiple ECM systems to a single platform, because of the capabilities it offers, and the fact that it is seen as value for money.


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Microsoft has the biggest mindshare of any of the vendors featured in the Ovum Decision Matrix, according to vendor impact ratings in Ovum's Technology Trends survey. Although SharePoint has a huge installed base, which far exceeds that of any of the other products, not every implementation is being used for ECM. In Ovum's opinion the main audience for SharePoint Server as an ECM platform is small-to-midsized enterprises that are using ECM for the first time. Large enterprises wishing to use it for an enterprise-wide deployment may have difficulty getting it to scale, but it is ideal for departmental deployments and for ad hoc users. Organizations with extensive compliance requirements will need a strong RM offering, but SharePoint will integrate well with virtually every ECM product on the market. The addition of extra technologies, including information rights management and enterprise file sync and share, in which Microsoft offers extensive capabilities, has allowed the company to move up from the follower category since the 2013 ECM Ovum Decision Matrix.

Market followers: OnBase by Hyland OnBase by Hyland (Hyland Software) is positioned in the follower category solely because its portfolio is less extensive than those of its competitors. In the areas in which it does have functionality, its capabilities are comparable, and in some cases superior, to those of its larger competitors, and it should always be considered when selecting ECM solutions. OnBase by Hyland focuses primarily on transaction- and case-driven content management, and as such it does not have capabilities in all ECM areas. It has built its product internally from the ground up, and until recently had not made any acquisitions, which means that its portfolio has a single underlying architecture that has not required any integration. The company provides pre-built solutions for a number of horizontal and vertical industry cases, and this is a product that should be considered by organizations that require strong capabilities for content-centric, collaborative processes with case management capabilities. It is also ideal for organizations that have a need for document and records management or those that prefer a best-of-breed approach to areas such as WCM.

Emerging vendors Table 2: Emerging vendors: enterprise content management, 2015–16 Newgen Software

Newgen Software is a vendor that is growing in prominence thanks to its extensive ECM portfolio. However, it needs to build its market profile if it is to challenge the larger vendors.

Perceptive Software

Perceptive Software is another well-established vendor. It has grown its capabilities thanks to its acquisition by Lexmark. Lexmark has expanded Perceptive's portfolio by adding complementary technologies, the latest being the capture and scanning vendor Kofax. In addition to capture, Kofax adds business process management to the Perceptive portfolio.

Nuxeo

Nuxeo is an open source ECM vendor that has reinvented itself by rebuilding its ECM platform and moving its headquarters from France to the US. It offers its capabilities as a SaaS offering as well as on-premise. As an open source offering, it can be downloaded for free, but Ovum believes that most enterprise customers will benefit by purchasing support.

Source: Ovum


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Vendor analysis EMC Documentum 7.2 (Ovum recommendation: Leader) Ovum SWOT assessment Strengths EMC has one of the most comprehensive ECM portfolios: EMC has capabilities in every category of ECM-related products. It has strong core capabilities as well as a range of extended products, including customer communications and e-discovery. These will benefit organizations in industry sectors such as energy, utilities, and the financial sector that need extended ECM technologies as well as extensive core features. EMC offers different user interfaces to meet the requirements of the use cases it supports. The two main interfaces are: D2 (library cases) and xCP (integration and applications). EMC also provides access to content through familiar user interfaces, such as SharePoint, Syncplicity, and email. Information rights management is included: Extensive IRM capabilities allow content owners to control what happens to their content. Recipients can be prevented from printing, forwarding, editing, annotating, or copying a document. In addition, document expiration dates, revocation of access, and offline access on a recipient basis can also be set. Extensive capture and scanning capabilities provided: EMC has one of the leading capture and scanning systems in Captiva, a comprehensive solution that enables organizations to digitize and electronically process the vast number of paper documents they continue to receive. It also forms an integral part of EMC's case management system xCP. Case management is a focus for EMC: The xCP system allows developers to build and deploy custom, information-intensive, process-centric, and case management solutions with minimal customized code. It includes business process management (BPM) capabilities, including a process engine that executes, orchestrates, and controls business processes, assigning tasks to the correct system, group, or individual at the appropriate time. It includes load balancing, persistent state management, and support for distributed environments.

Weaknesses EMC has weak web content management features: EMC has basic WCM features, which may be adequate for some organizations, but most will need to bolt on a third-party WCM product to provide web/customer experience management. EMC partners with Hippo to provide these capabilities. ECM implementations can be complex: Because of the number of technologies that are potentially involved in ECM and the need to set up taxonomies and policies, ECM often requires a high level of professional services during the implementation process. However, ApplicationXtender (AX) is routinely implemented in as little as 10 days, while the Documentum platform is deployed usually where complex business and content environments exist. All ECM vendors need to make their portfolios much easier to implement with more out-of-the-box functionality. However, more customers are buying EMC Certified Solutions from partners and/or deploying EMC Managed Services OnDemand, which has reduced the amount of consulting required.


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Opportunities The cloud provides an opportunity to increase Documentum's market share: While EMC Managed Services OnDemand is delivering the benefits of agility, lower TCO, and simplicity to larger enterprises, it should enable the company to drive Documentum into the mid-market. However, Ovum believes the company will have to better target its marketing campaigns for its Managed Services OnDemand products at midsized organizations to successfully break into this market. With effective marketing, EMC’s Project Horizon offerings look promising to dramatically change the perception of EMC's cloud offerings and their appeal to all markets. EMC's industry solutions help organizations achieve rapid return on their investments: EMC provides industry solutions for energy and engineering, healthcare, and life sciences. In addition, partners supply solutions for financial services and public sector organizations. These solutions address industry-specific requirements. EMC and its partners continually add new solutions to these portfolios. EMC has an opportunity to provide solutions for further verticals by extending its partner network.

Threats Relying on partnerships for WCM is a risk: Partnering with Hippo to provide WCM capabilities could be regarded as an opportunity, but it is also a threat. There is also the chance that Hippo will decide to end its partnership, leaving EMC without a strong WCM product to offer its customers. EMC needs to end the perception that it is a high-end-only vendor: ECM is a very competitive market with a number of large players. Documentum has always been seen as a high-end enterprise offering, which may push smaller companies towards other ECM systems, particularly lower-price, open source ones, even in situations where EMC Managed Services OnDemand may be a suitable option. EMC also offers AX, which is a comprehensive ECM product targeted towards small and midsized businesses, but EMC needs to market this more effectively to ensure that organizations are aware that this is an option. A major AX release was delivered in Q4 2015.

Appendix Further reading Enterprise Content Management: The Suite Perspective, IT0014-003079 (December 2015) The Fundamentals of Core Enterprise Content Management, IT0014-003003 (April 2015) The Fundamentals of Extended Enterprise Content Management, IT0014-003002 (April 2015)

Author Sue Clarke, Senior Analyst, Information Management [email protected]


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Ovum Consulting We hope that this analysis will help you make informed and imaginative business decisions. If you have further requirements, Ovum’s consulting team may be able to help you. For more information about Ovum’s consulting capabilities, please contact us directly at [email protected].

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