What is SAP Enterprise Content Management?
An SAP ECM solution provides unified access to enterprise and SAP content, with seamless integration into SAP ECC and/or S/4HANA. Zia Consulting’s deep expertise makes them uniquely qualified to understand the needs of businesses using an SAP ECM platform.Industries That Can Use Our ECM Solution
SAP ECM benefits a wide range of industries by optimizing document handling, enhancing compliance, and improving process efficiency. Here are a few key industries:
Financial Services
Banks, insurance companies, and investment firms managing documents like loan applications, policy documents, and compliance records.
Manufacturing
Manufacturers with a centralized repository for technical documentation, engineering drawings, quality reports, maintenance logs, and compliance certifications.
Healthcare and Life Sciences
Hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and research institutions managing patient records, clinical trial data, and regulatory submissions.
Utilities and Energy
Oil, gas, and renewable energy companies managing large projects with inspection records, compliance documents, and safety protocols.
Retail and Consumer Goods
Retail and consumer goods companies that manage vendor contracts, marketing materials, supplier contracts, and compliance documentation.
Benefits of SAP Enterprise Content Management
Benefits to the User
- Storage, management, and retrieval of all business-related documents and unstructured data (i.e., emails, contracts, invoices, etc.) from a single location.
- Communication and collaboration across departments that can access, edit, and share documents in real-time (e.g.., finance, HR, and procurement departments).
- Content that is enriched with metadata and linked directly to relevant SAP business objects (e.g., customer documents, contracts, and invoices).
- Context-based retrieval of documents within the SAP interface (e.g., accessing an invoice directly from an SAP order screen).
- Immediate access to documents through a portal interface without the need to leverage an SAP license or system resources.
- Quick and accurate responses to customer inquiries (e.g., accessing customer contracts, previous correspondence, and transaction records).
- Powerful search and indexing capabilities makes searching for documents and/or content by keyword, metadata, or specific SAP business objects quick and precise.
Benefits for the Organization
- Improved document management efficiency prevents data silos across departments.
- Informed decision making with direct access to all relevant documentation from the SAP system, without searching separate repositories. This is particularly valuable for complex processes like vendor selection, procurement, and sales.
- Fewer paper-based processes, improved productivity, and cost savings with automation.
- Reduced storage and document handling costs, while optimizing the efficiency of processes like invoicing and contract management.
Archiving SAP ECM Content and Data
Implementing an SAP archiving solution within an SAP ECM strategy is crucial. Archiving involves moving infrequently used, business complete, or old content and data to a secure, long-term storage environment. SAP content management ensures content is automatically moved to an external storage device while continuing to provide direct access through the native SAP interfaces (i.e., attachments, Fiori, etc.). SAP users continue to have access to content without change management or additional training. Here’s why archiving is essential:
1
Improved System Performance
Our team members perform a discovery and assessment of the ECM migration and process engineering effort required. We then evaluate business processes and the use of content management and integrated technologies. Develop the architecture and business flows for migration to and implementation of your solution.
2
Cost Savings
A cost-effective, long-term storage system reduces the need for expensive primary storage solutions. Companies can focus resources on managing current, business-critical data.
3
Compliance with Retention Policies
Automatically configuring an SAP ECM system to archive documents according to predefined retention periods ensures records are kept in compliance with industry regulations and internal policies.
4
Streamlined Data Management
Archiving old and irrelevant content creates a more organized data management environment where users can find and access relevant, active content.
Why choose Zia Consulting for your ECM?
Implementing Zia Consulting’s SAP ECM and Archiving strategy gives you access to their knowledge and experience in Enterprise Content Management Consulting, ECM Lifecycle Management, hyperautomation, and digital transformation. They’ll help you combat challenges associated with the accumulation of unstructured content, such as:
Performance
Degradation
The performance of an SAP environment declines as the volume of stored documents and data grows. This affects operational efficiency, especially in processes that rely on rapid access to historical documents.
Increased Storage Costs
Accumulated data leads to increased storage requirements, which drives up the cost of S/4HANA. While scalable, it is more cost efficient to archive unused documents.
Difficulty in Accessing Relevant Data
Not being able to find relevant documents wastes time and reduces productivity, especially without data classification or search functionalities.
Data Integrity and Security Risks
Old data becomes corrupt, difficult to manage, and plagued with security risks. The older the data, the greater the exposure to potential breaches or unauthorized access.
Features of Our SAP Enterprise Content Management Solution
Improved Document Control and Compliance
1
Advanced versioning, audit trails, and access controls enhances document security and compliance with regulatory requirements like GDPR, SOX, and others.
2
Streamlined workflows and SAP processes require compliance documentation to reduce the risk of non-compliance (e.g., financial audits or HR recordkeeping).
3
Automatic archival based on relevance completed transactions ensures data integrity of the SAP environment, while still having data availability for future audits or reviews.
Automation and Workflow Efficiency
1
Integration enables automation of document-driven processes within SAP, such as automated invoice processing, approval workflows, and employee onboarding.
2
Linking content like purchase orders and contracts within SAP transactions reduces manual intervention, streamlines processes, and lowers the risk of errors.
Archiving SAP ECM with Zia’s SAP Content and Archiving Appliance
The Zia Content and Archiving Appliance is a 25 year old proven technology that has been repackaged as a modernized solution and software appliance to align with our customers’ technology and management strategies. It is SAP certified, built on SAP standards, and can be deployed in AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, etc. Customers come to us with a variety of archiving needs, but typically fall into one of the following categories:
- On ECC6 that haven’t migrated and are looking to clean-up prior to upgrading
- On S/4HANA that are looking to stymie database bloat and soaring costs
- In the process of migrating
- Have already implemented an archiving strategy but are looking for a less expensive and performant option
- Are decommissioning SAP or need to separate data due to a divestiture
Contact Us Today
Wherever you are in your data management and archiving process, Zia is eager to help you avoid the hiccups associated with data bloat, governance, archiving, and external access.
Check out our whitepaper, tune into our recent ASUG webinar, or contact us for a conversation or a demo. If you are already ready to archive or want to explore better options, you can complete our ROI calculator for predictive pricing and an estimated ROI within the first 9 months. It would be an honor to help you.