Many of the people and organizations that sell products or services for content management and knowledge management are guilty of putting the technology before the problem.

It’s easy to do, because it’s the most obvious piece of the puzzle to point to – but that doesn’t mean it’s the best way to discuss the impacts of content management.

This is why, during the 13 years I spent at Delphi Group and Perot Systems, we talked constantly about BizTech – the Business of Technology. Heck, that’s why I created my personal blog 6-7 years ago, BizTechTalk.

It’s also why I co-founded Information Architected – it’s not about the architecture, it’s what you do with it. It’s not just the art of the architecture, but the function and final impact.

Or as I like to say…

What is Your Information Architected FOR?

Meanwhile, technicians and those who are already involved in the “secret language” of content managers bury people in the details of the features and mechanics, when what they really want to know is…

What will Content Management do for my company?

It’s not just about generic efficiency in handling or finding content – let’s get specific. Let’s get *very* specific.

I’ll be posting a number of Use Cases for ECM (Enterprise Content Management) and the related topics of Use Cases for Knowledge Management, Use Cases for Enterprise Search, and more, over the coming weeks, based on real-world work.

I hope you find this useful – and if you have other resources that you refer to, feel free to post in the comments, where to find those resources, and how you’ve used them, or what value you’ve received from them.

First example

ECM Use Case for Onboarding New Hires

Goal:

Increased efficiencies for new hires

Who:

Mid-size life insurance company

Business Objective:

Reduce staff-turnover, shorten new hire ramp-up time – to manage staff and training costs

Solution Scope:

Began as departmental solution (New Client Processing) as the Pilot, and into the field for regional offices to offload responsibilities locally for their client base. Formally documented processes with automation (workflow) and pre-defined templates for OCR/Imaging of paper documents, made the ramp up of new employees more focused on standardized documents, and moved exception-handling to dedicated groups at a smaller scale.

Business Impact:

This particular client experienced a 50% reduction in new hire ramp-up time (6 months to 3 months), due to consolidation of the number of systems they needed to use individually, and introduction of workflow in the “typical tasks” that their role required. Turnover of new staff in particular, decreased from 30% to 10%.

Additional Research Context: The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM): Estimates based on survey that 70 – 85% of total hiring costs come from the new hire ramp time before new employees are fully up to speed in their work.

Do you have metrics for ECM or KM Onboarding impacts?

If so, please comment below (anonymously if you feel you need to) – the mainstream event of content management is finally upon us, folks, but only if it’s made bloody obvious what the impact is.