10 reasons why we believe in the Documentum product family

Ever since OpenText announced that it was buying Dell EMC’s Enterprise Content Division (ECD), much has been speculated about the future of Documentum and associated products such as Captiva, InfoArchive and LEAP. The acquisition not only placed long-term competitors’ Documentum and OpenText ECM side-by-side as a single solution, but it also reinforced that the product family will hit most companies’ shortlists when reevaluating their enterprise content strategy. 

We stand by these 10 points on why we believe Documentum is still the top platform for enterprise document management with a future that is brighter than ever.

#1 – A CORE PART OF OPENTEXT ECM STRATEGY

When interviewed for CMSWire, Stephen Ludlow, Senior Director Enterprise Product Marketing at OpenText, affirmed the company’s vision for Documentum had not changed and that OpenText is committed to ongoing investment in the platform: "Documentum is a core part of its enterprise content management strategy, which in turn is part of the company's wider information management strategy".

#2 – CONTINUED INVESTMENT ROADMAP

OpenText CMO Adam Howatson also reiterated the company would “continue to deliver active investment and active innovation across the entire ECD portfolio, full stop” to banish any lingering doubts, when asked by CMS-Connected.

During a recent webcast hosted by the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM), Ludlow also cited the strategic areas of Documentum investment as being furthering its capabilities as industry-specific solution and continuing to improve usability in applications such as InfoArchive or D2. As a prominent OpenText partner, we have an inside view on the company’s current heavy investments in the Documentum stack with multiple tools in the pipeline.

#3 – PRIMARY DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN REGULATED INDUSTRIES

With regard to the industry focus attribute of Documentum, it’s true it’s the go-to application in heavily regulated sectors, from public and finance to energy & engineering through life sciences. In fact, over 75% of leading pharmaceutical and medical devices firms rely on the platform to deliver standardized business processes and simplify access to content. In the public sector, we see it heavily used to cover formal retention and archiving legal requirements.

#4 – FORRESTER’S EMPHASIZES PROMINENT SECURITY AND COMPLIANCE CAPABILITIES 

Documentum’s responsiveness in “security-conscious regulated industries with rigorous compliance, governance, and retention requirements” was also one of the strengths appointed by Forrester’s ECM Wave for Business Content Services Q2 2017, where the platform ranked sixth among the seven leaders. The assessment considers the “15 most significant” business content services providers. Documentum was referred as having a “solid offering’’ and was also one of four vendors tied for the top spot in product strategy.

#5 – HIGH CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

According to the same research (Forrester Wave ECM Content Services 2017), Documentum “customers report high satisfaction with the product’s security, metadata, integration, and records management capabilities.” With Dell EMC’s hardware-centric focus no longer weighing on OpenText’s product strategy, Ovum, which has also graded Documentum a leader, states the platform’s capabilities and attractiveness to enterprises are likely to grow further. Customers “will (now) be able to take advantage of features such as experience management and that Leap will enable content-centric applications”.

#6 – SYNERGY PORTFOLIO OPPORTUNITIES FOR DOCUMENTUM AND OPENTEXT CUSTOMERS

The much-awaited OpenText Enterprise World held in Toronto last July confirmed that the acquisition stands as a huge opportunity for both Documentum customers and OpenText content services customers. OpenText provides Documentum customers an integration with a broader EIM platform, while bringing very important capabilities like InfoArchive to the OpenText portfolio, when it comes to regulatory, compliance and archiving requirements. The positive and enthusiastic tone of all the speeches and presentations was such, that we even summarized the event’s main message in five words “keep calm and carry on”.

#7 – LEADER AMONG LEADERS IN GARTNER’S CONTENT SERVICES PLATFORMS YEARLY ASSESSMENT

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant research for Content Services Platforms (CSP) has just been published last month and deemed OpenText leader among the 17 vendors evaluated. It scored highest not only for its completeness of vision, but also for its relationship and deep integrations with SAP, Salesforce and other vendors. Within the company’s CSP portfolio, the analysts looked at OpenText Content Server and the Documentum platform, and particularly commended the latter for its extensive partner network, market share and professional services capabilities. The report concluded that OpenText is an “obvious CSP candidate for organizations that want a proven and trusted partner, which can address a broad range of horizontal and vertical requirements”.

#8 – FRONT-RUNNER IN TRANSACTIONAL CONTENT SCOREBOARD 

In April, Forrester assessed the “13 most significant” enterprise content management providers for transactional content services – these being the invoices, statements, applications, and communications that fuel processes.  OpenText Documentum was selected as a Leader, receiving the highest possible marks in “Strategy” and ranked second only to IBM in terms of Market Presence.

#9 – INTERACTIVE ANALYTICS FOR DECISION-DRIVEN INFORMATION

The data visualization capabilities over Documentum systems is also constantly developing. A good example is myInsight, a powerful reporting add-on certified by OpenText that generates personalized information dashboards in real-time. While it’s a part of OpenText’s Life Sciences Solution Suite, it will still be available as a standalone solution for customized Documentum monitoring and reporting that’s fully adjustable to specific user profiles and industries. Additionally, OpenText has already enabled the connection of iHub to Documentum, enabling full business intelligence possibilities upon the Documentum platform.

#10 – GROWING DEMAND FOR TRUSTED DOCUMENTUM PARTNERS

As a long-term Documentum partner and leading digital solution provider, Acolad still values it as a core resource for enterprise content and compliance projects. Acolad customers such as the Province of Antwerp, the Dutch Chamber of Commerce, ING, the Data Protection Authority and DSM among others use the Documentum platform for a broad spectrum of enterprise document management solutions ranging from scanning software, over document management and business process management, to document archiving. The demand a robust, scalable and feature-rich document management platform is such, that we’re always on the lookout for senior Documentum or Captiva profiles to complement our global teams.

CONCLUSION

Call it content management, call it content services, OpenText Documentum’s market positioning is stronger than ever and it will remain on most shortlists of companies as they look to identify the right platforms for their needs in the digital era (whether they are currently using it, or not). Not only is this the opinion of some of the most respected Information Technology analysts in the world such as Gartner, Forrester and Ovum, but also the market and customer satisfaction speaks for itself.