From ECM to Content Services: Evolution or Revolution

The move from ECM to Content Services has been well debated – but what does it actually mean for end-users?

Since 2001, Enterprise Content Management (ECM) ruled the information management domain. As a natural progression from the term “Document Management,” the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) positioned ECM as “the strategies, methods and tools used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to organisational processes.”

 

But in 2017, ECM found itself declared outmoded – replaced with a descriptor more reflective of the evolving information management category: Content Services.

 

The vision: a world where software vendors and enterprise solutions work together, each providing a piece of the puzzle and not seeking to pretend they could always be “the one solution to solve all problems.”

 

Was this shift a necessary step, and if so, what does a content services platform deliver that ECM could not?