Technology churn is creating fashion slaves of us all. By jumping
on the latest IT bandwagon companies are now repeating the same
mistakes of the past.
In the 1990s, businesses spent billions on enterprise resource
planning (ERP) but now find that these closed, green screen systems
cannot output information in a format demanded by the new Web-based
delivery channels. The knee-jerk reaction has been to spend
billions replacing ERP with large-scale customer relationship
management (CRM) solutions which have not fulfilled on their
promise.
Pundits are now referring to these costly mistakes as "ERP2." If
you want to avoid being caught up in just another sequel to an
earlier IT disaster it is worth taking a long, cool look at how you
can ride out the CRM hype. The advice now is that you should
continue to use your ERP systems but still develop a successful
e-business by implementing a cost-effective, pragmatic document
management solution.
There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that with the right
document management tool an ERP system will have at least another
five years of useful working life, probably a lot more. Analysts at
Gartner Group predict that companies that continue to fund ERP
initiatives and adapt them to e-business needs will be growing at
least twice as fast as their competitors by 2004.
ERP supports the vital business processes by holding valuable
business intelligence, information and data for invoice production,
orders, contracts, images, drawings and more. But ERP was not
designed for creating presentable electronic documents for the
extended e-business communities of employees, partners and
customers requiring 24x7 access to business information.
Document management bridges the gap between legacy systems and
Web-based front-end information delivery. It is an essential
element in the e-business equation: ERP + document management =
CRM.
E-business is all about communication, and in business
communication and presentation is everything. If a critical
document, such as a report or a proposal, is not available at the
right time, in the right format, business is disrupted and a deal
worth thousands can be lost.
Document management provides the means to customise information
cheaply and easily, without the need for costly programming
expertise or expensive pre-printed stationery. Changing the company
logo, for example, would usually involve a massive logistical task,
but with document management the task can be completed within half
an hour. CRM can't do that.
If you scale that up to the countless day-to-day changes a business
makes to its output - you have a powerful tool. Raw data from
legacy systems can be completely transformed. For example, local
authorities are using document management tools to convert
traditional green screen output, such as council tax bills, to
include advertising from local businesses.
A high degree of personalisation is possible as content can be
transformed or manipulated in flexible ways. You can also use
document management to improve workflow, enhancing productivity by
enabling the automatic sorting, distribution and collation of
documents.
It is vital to choose a document management solution that is
XML-enabled so that flat files can be transformed into high-quality
customised output. This will enhance customer relationships and
offer valuable marketing opportunities. XML provides the standard
to achieve open document presentation across all devices and
applications. It allows much faster and more efficient flow of
business output across the extended enterprise to the global
marketplace.
The advice now is not to go for a big bang approach, avoid the kind
of massive process re-engineering of the ERP era and adapt your
existing systems to your current and future needs.
According to analysts at KPMG, the implementation of a document
management system increased customer satisfaction from a score of
68 to 90 and achieved an 8% rise in repeat business. With document
management you have a modular, scalable solution to develop
innovative solutions to meet all your e-business needs but still
harnessing the valuable data held in ERP systems.
For many organisations, the wholesale replacement of their legacy
systems is simply not an option. The answer is not to replace ERP
but to use document management as a cost-effective and practical
alternative.
Keith Bloodworth is chief executive officer of FormScape