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Most ECM implementations in both government and the private sector are point solutions.  These systems are implemented for a specific business application, one or more agencies in a government, or one or more departments in an organization.  It is relatively rare for the ECM system to be rolled out across the entire organization as a true enterprise resource, using all the pieces and parts that are possible with an ECM suite.

For most organizations an enterprise implementation requires a "perfect storm" of events and personalities to make it happen.  An internal champion is a critical factor.  This is someone high enough in the organization to be recognized by senior management as someone to be listened to, who has the knowledge and vision to understand both the benefits of an enterprise approach and who has the domain expertise in ECM technology and best practices to understand how to accomplish the objective.

Another key factor is event driven - lawsuits, failed audits, court sanctions, compliance, bad press, poor productivity, customer service issues, etc. all factor into motivation for management to get behind an enterprise strategy.

A very significant factor is funding.  There needs to be enough money to do it right, and a commitment to continue funding in future years to provide ongoing support, digital preservation, upgrades, training, change management and so on.

Those of us who have been doing this for many years understand that the Return on Investment for ECM solutions is very high.  Therefore funding requests, if presented with the appropriate ROI analysis, should be easy to understand and it is clear that the organization will both improve its mission-critical business processes as well as save money if the solution is implemented correctly.  Of course this is much easier said than done, especially in a down economy.

So what are the key benefits of an enterprise approach?  Here are a few:

1. Economies of scale - enterprise licensing can be negotiated to get the cost per seat down to reasonable levels and reduce the barrier to entry for individual departments or agencies.  Server and storage resources can be shared, using the latest virtualization technologies.  Maintenance contracts are much easier to manage.

2. Enterprise class backup and disaster recovery becomes practical.  Really buying into this technology means you need real DR with multiple sites in different locations, archiving off-site, real-time failover, and so on.  Departmental solutions rarely can afford this robust type of DR.  If you are following best practices and are destroying paper once it is scanned, moving to electronic records that have to in some cases be kept permanently, the system must guarantee no loss of information in even the most catastrophic circumstances.

3. Cross agency/department information sharing and workflow.  Many business functions cross departmental boundaries.  It is very inefficient for one department or agency to be using an automated technology while others who interface to the business process do not.  Many of the potential benefits are lost in this situation. 

For state and local government, infrastructure management crosses many agency boundaries. For example, an enterprise solution offers the potential to manage information about infrastructure in a holistic manner.  Take a bridge collapse - potentially first responders and investigators could locate the bridge and surrounding structures through a GIS interface, and using the ECM system they can retrieve all types of information that comes from many diverse sources: original as-builts, permits, safety inspections, repair work, contracts, invoices, related power, water, gas, cable, telcom lines, roads, subways, etc. with their associated information, and so on.  Doing this without an integrated enterprise solution means lots of digging for this information in various information silos and in paper files that may only exist in an engineer's cubicle.  This may take weeks or months, and often critical information cannot be located at all.

4. Consistency - an enterprise repository and development toolset means you can acquire or train resources to administer and enhance the system using the same tools.  This means savings on training, improved collaboration, and more consistent results.  For example, integration tools for integrating the ECM with business applications can be standardized so that each project leverages the work that has already been done.  Integration with key business applications solves the problem of where to put source documents and records that are generated by various systems, and users can access these docs directly from their primary interface.

5. Records Management becomes fully automated and consistent enterprise-wide.  If everyone uses the same system, the implementation and enforcement of records policy becomes very straightforward.  Once a document enters the system and is indexed, it automatically becomes associated with the correct retention rule.

In summary, the benefits are significant, the challenges are imposing.  But don't let that stop you from pushing this idea forward.  This is the ultimate pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for your organization.