Manufacturers need a different approach to document management

That’s chief among the findings in analyst Butler Group’s report, Document Collaboration. “Technology issues, business constraints, and information formats combine to make the job of document collaboration a much more arduous one than it should be,” says Richard Edwards, senior research analyst and co-author. He reckons that manufacturers need to move on from systems capable only of simple intra-company exchanges to systems that support inter-company collaborative document management. “Organisations are now looking to extend the reach and range … in order to support high-value, low-overhead joint ventures and collaborative commercial undertakings,” he says. “In the ultra-competitive new world of work, document collaboration tools and technologies must support, encourage, and facilitate high-value interactions in a manner that ensures information confidentiality, integrity, and accessibility,” adds Sue Clarke, another co-author. Butler suggests that while five years ago IT managers were focusing on internal content management and web conferencing products – and hence the birth of enterprise content management (ECM) systems – that has changed. Today senior managers need different ways to cut the cost and complexity of business interactions, and that includes around electronic documents. Butler’s report contains profiles of some 20 vendors offering ancillary document management products, technologies and services. It suggests that Microsoft looks set to become a key provider, but adds that new peer-to-peer and new web-based technologies will force organisations to re-think how they go about document management.