When BI and ECM Worlds Collide

I recently presented at the EMC Momentum Conference in Sydney with my good friend and colleague David Le Strat on the intersection of Big Data and Case Management.  After flying nearly half-way around the world, it was exciting for us to engage in a dialogue that went beyond the much publicized market hype and was instead focused on real use-cases and navigating through potential challenges.  It was a conversation that I had the good fortune to continue with Bill Dawes, Editor of Image and Data Manager Magazine after the session.

During my discussion with Bill, (and reflecting back on the interactions with the audience), it occurred to me that the natural tendency is to look at information (both structured and unstructured) exclusively from within the four walls of the organization.  We also seem to frame our expectations surrounding business transformation based on the known limitations of traditional BI and view that ECM is somehow a separate, disconnected entity.  These perceptions can obviously cloud our judgment as we try to pursue the aspirational goals of the business.   To help prevent us from defaulting back to this all too familiar muscle memory, our discussion needs to focus on how analytics and ECM can (and should) be intertwined. 

There’s clearly a huge treasure trove of information (emails, documents, etc.) that organizations have yet to tap into and fully exploit.  Currently this asset is often sitting dormant within the enterprise and yet it has the potential to yield new insights on how to better serve customers and increase business performance.  The beauty of Big Data and its intersection with ECM and Case-based processes is the ability to include other repositories of information sitting outside the organization.  Reminiscent of the classic Donald Rumsfeld speech – (the “known known’s”; the “known unknown’s”…etc.), it’s the “unknown, unknowns” that often prove the most interesting and beneficial.  This is why stretching our thinking beyond what exists internally and combining it with other new sources of information can lead to new insights, correlations and perspectives that will take the business to a whole new level and/or can lead to the next market disruption.  What’s important is not only our ability to analyze information, but also the ability to quickly act on it.   Now organizations have the opportunity to be both “predictive” and “proactive”…all in real-time.

For more on this topic, check out the full interview here:

http://idm.net.au/article/009338-when-bi-and-ecm-worlds-collide