How is the ECM market doing?

2017 evolutions: situational state

Whether we’re talking about ECM or Content Services, the market of document processes’ management displays a pretty good growth in France. It is mostly sustained by a positive economical and legal context but also by the rise of digital.

The notion of GED (ECM in French) tends to progressively disappear to be replaced by the English term ECM. Indeed, “GED” means Electronic Document Management and as of now, we are no more talking about documents but content at its largest meaning: emails, texts, phone calls…

The amount of different communication channels keeps on growing and it gave no possibility for the digitization market other than to adapt and benefit from these new uses.

1. A growth driven by the rise of the Cloud

a. A few figures

With more than 6 billion euros (over $7,012M) in 2017, growth  forecasts for 2018 exceed 6,8 billion euros (over $7,9M) with the following distribution*:

Cloud is gaining ground with a +14% growth, which is stronger than for the digitization market (+6%). Until 2018, it is estimated that nearly half of the enterprises will choose a SaaS solution.

This growth is mostly linked to the fact that cloud offers enable companies to gain in agility and flexibility by freeing themselves from numerous technical constraints.

b. A favourable environment

The legislative and economical contexts encourage the ECM market’s growth. Indeed, companies are looking for solutions that enable them to save money and gain in profitability. ECM offers are, as a result, increasingly chosen to initiate digital transformation plans.

Furthermore, the commencement date of GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in May 2018 represents quite a challenge for it considerably changes the way personal data is treated and archived. This security aspect impacts enterprises’ policies and accelerates digital transformation processes.

2. A generalisation of process automation

The run for performance and processes optimisation inside organisations results into an increasingly strong involvement of business departments’ directions. We particularly witness the rise of the HRD among the functions linked to digital.

a. HRD example

True transformation driver for organisations, Human Resources Directors need to set up adapted policies in order to better take up the challenge that is change management, and face the collaborators’ reluctances.

The increasing involvement of these services in automation researches aims to support the companies’ business goals:

• Support digital client strategies
• Digitize HR document processes to automate and fluidize processes
• Generalize electronic invoicing (encouraged by the legislative context)

Furthermore, the survey conducted by the firm Markess highlights strong intentions around BPM (Business Process Management) and Case Management related problematics.

3. Multiple growth levers

a. Invoicing and reliable audit trail

The French legislative context offers a lot of opportunity to the ECM market. Therefore, electronic invoicing has grown from 38% in 2014 to 84% in 2017, supported by the development of the reliable audit trail.

b. Digital transformattion’s progression

The ECM market offers now mature technologies, technologies that reassure companies who get involved incrementally in a digitization vision. Nevertheless, the growth margin stays high, more than 90% of the respondents feel they are still in the “in progress” phase of their document processes’ optimization.

c. Simplify the customer relationship

One of the biggest stakes for the upcoming years concerns the importance of being able to interconnect the clients’ ECM solutions. Indeed, two out of three respondents fall back on multiple solutions, which implies the necessity for them to deploy secured documents highways in order to avoid information silos.

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*Article based on the survey conducted by the Markess Firm, digital experts society