Content Management: A New Spin
October 27, 2020
What do you get when a young wizard reinvents information management? First, there was records management. Do you know what that was supposed to do? Yep, manage records and know when to destroy them according to applicable guidelines. Next, there was content management. In the era of the Internet, newly minted experts declared that content destined for a Web site had to be management. There were some exciting solutions which made some consultants lots of money; for example, Broadvision/Aurea. Excellent solution. Then there was document management exemplified by companies like Exstream Software which still lives at OpenText as a happy 22 year old solution.) These “disciplines” generated much jargon and handwaving, but most of the chatter sank into data lakes and drowned. Once in a while, like Nessie, an XML/JSON monster emerges and roars, “Success. All your content belong to us.” On the shore of the data lake, eDiscovery vendors shiver in fear. Information management is a scary place.
I read because someone sent me a link, knowing my interest in crazy mid tier consulting speak, to this article: “The Problem with Books of Record and How an EMS Could Help Solve That Problem.” Now here’s the subtitle: “Execution management systems are a new category of software that unlocks value in the hairball of enterprise IT landscapes. Here’s how.”
The acronym EMS means “execution management systems.” Okay. EMS is similar to CMS (content management systems) but with a difference. Execution has a actionable edge. Execution. Get something done. Terminate with extreme prejudice.
Another clarification appears in the write up:
To be a book of record, the data would be in one place, always current and complete. Today’s business systems often have data stored, redundantly, in many places, with many elements incomplete and possibly out of date.
Okay, a book of record and the reference to the existing content chaos which exists in most of these “management” systems.
I am now into new territory. The filing cabinet has yielded to the data lake which suggests dumping everything in one big pool and relying of keywords, Fancy Dan solution like natural language processing, and artificial intelligence to deliver what the person looking for information needs. (The craziness of this approach can be relived by reading about the Google Search Appliance or using an enterprise search system to locate a tweet by a crazed marketer who decided to criticize a competitor after a two hour Zoom meeting followed by a couple of cans of Mountain Dew.)
The write up explains:
Solutions like Celonis’ EMS (execution management) exist because few vendors have focused on all these information handshakes. To create a really efficient business environment, the devil is in the nooks, crannies, handoffs, manual steps, integrations, systems changes, queues, and more. Execution management is about documenting, understanding, integrating, streamlining, optimizing and reengineering how work gets done. Put simply, Celonis’ tools, in short, document processes, mine what’s happening from the underlying systems to see what kinds of tortured paths are being followed to get work done and then, via benchmarks, best practices and smart automation capabilities, straighten out the flow.
Is this a sales pitch for a company called Celonis?
The firm, according to its Web site, is the number one in the execution management system space. I believe everything I read on the Internet.
Several observations:
- Automation is a hot topic. Hooking information to workflow makes sense.
- The word choice or attempt at creating awareness with the EMS moniker could be confusing to some. For me, EMS means emergency management solutions.
- Founded in 2011, Celonis has ingested (according to Crunchbase) more than $300 million in funding. Investors are optimistic and know that the trajectories of FileNet and FatWire are in their future.
The information management revolution continues. At some point, the problem with information in an organization will be solved. On the other hand, it may be one of those approaching infinity thing-a-ma-bobs. You can’t get there from here.
Some corporate executives experience stress when dealing with content and information challenges: Legal discovery, emails with long forgotten data, and references to documents which no longer “exist.”
Net net: Stress can lead to heart attacks. That’s when the real EMS is needed.
Stephen E Arnold, October 27, 2020
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