AIIM president John Mancini believes that organizations that implement ECM systems overwhelmingly do so following an issue that makes the need for content management obvious. However, Mancini urges companies to avoid such an instance by moving to ECM before potential issues become problems that result in fines or lost business.

Advances in ECM have made it easy for companies to adopt the systems regardless of their industry. Microsoft SharePoint is an especially popular ECM system, according to a survey conducted by AIIM. Fifty-three percent of the companies surveyed use SharePoint 2007 or are planning to implement the program.

"[ECM] will provide both management control and universal access to shared knowledge. Mobile working, virtual meetings and team collaboration are driving the need for shared electronic access to core business knowledge through a single interface – and it needs to be simple," John Mancini, AIIM president, said.

A report recently released by the Seattle Times illustrates the versatility of ECM systems like SharePoint. Companies like Starbucks and Ferrari detailed their use of the program to improve operations internally and customer service by developing business-critical solutions and augmenting document management practices.