Ovum Expects the Cloud to Impact ECM Space in 2016

With the new year nearly upon us, it’s no surprise that companies have begun releasing predictions for the technology industry in 2016. For example, the latest Worldpay Global Payments Report expects the coming year to bring in “the third age of digital payments.” Meanwhile, independent technology analyst firm Ovum (News - Alert) says the enterprise content management (ECM) space has entered a new period of rapid evolution.

In its 2016 Trends to Watch report on Enterprise Content Management, Ovum outlines the major factors it expects will shape the ECM market in the coming year. These factors include content analytics, the security of content and increased concern over compliance and governance risks. However, the largest overall impact will come from ECM in the cloud. This goes hand-in-hand with the fact that large vendors have begun breaking down their large product portfolios into more manageable solutions, with a best-of-breed approach.

It isn’t surprising to see a shift toward the cloud in ECM as Ovum identified IoT, cloud and mobility as key trends for 2015 with last year’s Trends to Watch: Integration and Middleware report.

“ECM vendors are moving to a solutions approach, which will put organizations in control of building their own ECM systems with a large choice of solutions from both specialist vendors and major ECM vendors,” said Sue Clarke, a senior analyst of Information Management at Ovum and author of the report. “2016 promises to be an eventful year in the ECM market, with organizations having greater freedom to select a best-of-breed approach to implementation, flexible deployment models, and the availability of applications to help manage and protect content.”

The five key trends outlined by Ovum for 2016 include disruption in ECM as major vendors shift toward a solutions approach, new opportunities for ECM in the cloud, and a better understanding of how content is being used via content analytics. Additionally, records management and e-discovery provision will become key to compliance and governance strategy, while information rights management and encryption are expected to aid in the battle to secure content.