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

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 mega-

solutions. 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 mega-

vendors.

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

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), e-

discovery, 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.

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

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.

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 price-performance 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.

Ovum Decision Matrix Interactive

To access the Interactive Decision Matrix for ECM – an online interactive tool that provides the

technology features that Ovum believes are crucial differentiators for leading solutions in this area –

please download the Ovum Interactive Decision Matrix tool from the Ovum Knowledge Center.

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

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

Analysis of OpenText as a Market leaders

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.

Market leaders

Market leaders: technology

Please note that the diagram below is a revised version of that originally published on the Ovum

Knowledge Center, as a small discrepancy in one of the data axes was identified after publication.

Figure 3: Ovum Decision Matrix: ECM, 2015–16 – Market leaders – technology

Source: Ovum

It is no coincidence that the five leaders in the technology category (OpenText, IBM, EMC, Oracle,

and HP) have large portfolios of ECM products. All five vendors either provide capabilities in all areas

of ECM, or they partner with specialist third-party vendors for products that they do not support (with

the exception of HP in information rights management). They are also all active in the e-discovery

space, which means that they have strong capabilities in the compliance and governance space.

Although these five vendors come out on top overall in the technology category, there are variations

between technologies. For example, EMC, Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle are the leaders in document

management and collaboration, whereas only EMC, Microsoft, OpenText, and Oracle provide any

capabilities in information rights management. IBM partners with a third-party to provide this

capability. There is a complete turnaround in WCM, with IBM, OpenText, Oracle, and HP the leaders,

and EMC relying on a partnership to provide this capability. OnBase by Hyland does not provide any

capabilities in the analytics and IRM categories; it also does not play in the e-discovery category.

OnBase by Hyland leads in the capture and scanning category, followed by OpenText, Alfresco, IBM,

and EMC. This is because the leading vendors are breaking down their portfolios into solutions for

specific tasks, and capture and scanning may be required as an add-on product, whereas OnBase by

Hyland is more of a niche player with case management as its main focus, of which capture and

scanning is an integral part.

The scores for e-discovery are relatively low. This is not because these vendors lack capabilities in

this area, but that their offerings in this area are separate add-on products and will therefore require

additional licensing. However, as the vendors further develop solutions, Ovum would hope to see e-

discovery tools included in some compliance solutions. Oracle scores strongly in e-discovery

because, although it does not have a dedicated solution, it is able to satisfy some of the requirements,

and it would certainly be able to undertake some of the early requirements of a discovery request. The

same situation arises in customer communications. Some of the vendors have dedicated specialist

add-on products that are highly scalable and support huge volumes of correspondence, while other

vendors provide some of the functionality through their ECM capabilities, which will suit organizations

with a low volume of communications.

OpenText Content Suite Platform (Ovum recommendation: Leader)

Figure 12: OpenText Content Suite Platform radar diagrams

Source: Ovum

Ovum SWOT assessment

Strengths

OpenText has one of the most comprehensive ECM portfolios: OpenText has capabilities in

every category of ECM. 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.

Information rights management is included: OpenText includes IRM in its portfolio, which is an

important factor in protecting content that can be downloaded to a multitude of devices. Recipients

can be prevented from printing, forwarding, editing, annotating, or copying a document. In addition,

document expiration dates, revocation of access, and offline access to individual recipients can also

be set.

Collaborative capabilities support team-working: An environment is provided for project teams to

share information, capture knowledge, manage collaborative processes and projects, and resolve

issues efficiently. Customization is allowed so that users can work in their preferred manner. Content

Server Pulse, a feature included in the Content Suite Platform, provides the ability to comment on

content, like content, follow the activity of colleagues, and view content activity feeds within the

repository, directly from the Content Suite user interface.

Capture triggers many content-centric business processes: Capture and scanning have become

important elements of an ECM system. For basic scanning needs, OpenText Imaging Enterprise

Scan, included in the Content Suite Platform, scans and indexes physical documents either in batch

or on an ad hoc basis. Imaging Enterprise Scan supports inbound sources including scanners via

ISIS/VRS, email from Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes, fax and outputs to the Content Suite

repository or business systems, such as SAP, for storage and management, page enhancement,

barcode support, document separation, and full indexing of scanned documents (including Adobe

PDF). For advanced requirements, OpenText Capture Center provides a feature-rich document

classification and data extraction system. Recognition technology used includes optical character

recognition (OCR), intelligent character recognition (ICR), intelligent document recognition (IDR),

barcode, checkmarks, and patch code. Included are free forms recognition, adaptive learning

recognition, database-enabled recognition, and auto-classification using various technologies.

OpenText has future-proofed its search capability: Content Server provides upgrades for search

indexes that are up to 10 years old without mandatory re-indexing. Re-indexing content is time-

consuming and the ability to perform incremental re-indexing without any downtime is advantageous

to organizations.

Weaknesses

OpenText has multiple products within its ECM suite: OpenText has multiple ECM-related

products in its portfolio, which may result in confusion for some organizations as they decide which

products they need to address their requirements. In line with other vendors, OpenText is beginning to

separate its products into solutions that address different situations, which should make it easier for

organizations to decide which suites they require.

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. All ECM vendors need to make their

portfolios much easier to implement with more out-of-the-box functionality. Although OpenText is

working on simplifying implementation, there is still work to be done.

Opportunities

OpenText provides a purpose-built cloud service for ECM: OpenText ECM Cloud provides a

range of cloud-based applications. OpenText ECM applications are available in private and hybrid

cloud deployment models, ranging from managed hosting services to SaaS. OpenText should benefit

from the increasing number of organizations looking to deploy ECM in the cloud.

OpenText's BPM capabilities provide the opportunity to extend its case management

solutions: OpenText has the opportunity to extend the number of horizontal and industry-specific

case management solutions it offers, using the extensive capabilities of its business process

management (BPM) system, which provides a complete process automation and case management

system.

Threats

Competition is stiff in ECM: There are a number of leading ECM vendors that all offer basically the

same functionality. OpenText needs to ensure that it continues to look for opportunities to extend its

range of information management-related products to remain competitive.

Specialist and open source vendors pose a threat to large ECM platform vendors: ECM vendors

face a threat from smaller specialist vendors that play in fewer ECM areas as well as open source

vendors that are often seen as being more cost-effective than the larger platform vendors.

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

sue.clarke@ovum.com

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 consulting@ovum.com.

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