I do believe the industry has come full circle.  I think it has
happened for a number of reasons and I also think it is a very good
idea.  

As mentioned earlier, systems of the past had high failure rates, not so
much because of the individual technologies, but because of the
difficulty in getting them to play nice in the same sandbox.  As a
result, large enterprise projects were risky, in part because enterprise
projects demand far more flexibility in the technologies.  Departmental
or other focused solutions were more likely to succeed because the
breadth of requirements was much more focused.

In addition, many organizations were splintered into operating groups or
units that were semi-independent of each other.  Sharing was not always
in their perceived best interest.  Even organizations that developed
standards for the technology often put in several similar systems rather
than sharing a single solution.  

Sometimes the decision was not political but was based on limitations of
the technology.  One frequent roadblock to sharing enterprise systems
was security requirements.  Most systems provided fairly good security
to the front door.  Unfortunately, many of the technologies left gaping
security wholes in the background, a situation that did not sit well
with security and compliance officers.

The time to production was another roadblock to enterprise solutions.
Many times the users could go from worst to first simply by justifying
their own solution.  

Finally, I think many organizations greatly underestimated the effort
required to create and manage a plethora of individual systems.  A
premise that at least from my vantage seems to be changing.

Many organizations are looking to consolidate their current redundant
systems into a single system that can be used by all.  In the past three
months I have talked to several states that are planning on
consolidating stand alone solutions to an enterprise system.  The
reasons are almost always the same.  It costs less, it is easier to
manage, it is easier to share, there are less points of failure, and
technology has improved enough that it plays well on an enterprise
scale.

I think the future will only bring more consolidation in the industry.
Hopefully this will drive vendors to provide truly integrated ECM suites
that are capable of single system support of all but the most disparate
needs.

Bill R

Bill Roach, CRM
Enterprise EDMS Coordinator
State of North Dakota
ITD/Records Management
701-328-3589

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