December 20, 2022
Reaching a point where your Legacy ECM System is no longer easy to use and is characterized by slow performance, complex UI design, and poor user experience can strongly indicate it is time to change. But what exactly is preventing organizations from transitioning to something more modern, technologically advanced, and with a clean UI that will enhance user experience leading to improved productivity?
For starters, making this transition can be a daunting task. Apart from the investment of time and money in new hardware and software, the migration process can be further complicated by the potential risk of service disruption, data loss, security concerns, and the training required for employees to use the new system.
Regardless of the concerns of organizations, migrating to a more advanced and modern ECM solution can provide a plethora of benefits. You will be able to take advantage of workflow automation tools, improve access to information, and increase productivity while reducing costs. At Helix International, we have the perfect purpose-built solution, MARS Platform, to help you migrate and overcome any of your worries, so let's take a closer look at the problems at hand.
Organizations often face several challenges when considering content migration, such as the investment in time and money for human resources and hardware/software, service downtime, compatibility, data loss, and security. People can need clarification and organization when migrating to a new environment, leading to further challenges. Another critical consideration is the content and URL structure; migrating content while preserving the same file URLs is paramount.
We understand your many challenges and have the ideal solution to help you realize these advantages. Let us explore these issues in greater detail.
In general, no two ECM systems are alike in how they handle documents and data in the repositories, leading to differences in URLs to stored files. This is, not so surprisingly, one major obstacle preventing many organizations from migrating to a modern ECM system. Without the same URL structure, accessing files and contents using existing links in emails and other documents would be impossible, leading to even more chaos. Remapping everything in the new ECM environment to match the existing URL structure is not something you can do manually, and organizations are afraid of errors even if this process is automated.
When moving content to a modern ECM System, files require to be updated. For instance, if your legacy system used to store documents as images (which is something that is done by some outdated systems to upgrade viewing performance), the migration will involve converting those files to PDF. The same applies to documents, for example, Word and Excel files.
At Helix International, our purpose-built migration software platform MARS (Massive Archival Retrieval System), can take care of all that painlessly. MARS has workflow automation capabilities and a complete migration suite of tools that you need to take control of all your enterprise data.
Perceived cost is another significant barrier to migrating from a legacy Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system. Organizations often feel that the money they have already invested in their current system is wasted if they migrate, and the additional costs of purchasing new software and training their team can be prohibitive. This can lead to a reluctance to migrate, even if the benefits of a modern ECM system are clear.
Time is another factor in addition to the financial cost. This can include the time needed to evaluate different options, plan the migration process, tackle the migration project, and train staff on the new ECM system. The complexity of the migration process and the potential disruption to operations can also be a concern for companies.
However, it is clear that keeping legacy systems operational costs organizations much more compared to using a modern ECM platform. Legacy systems usually come with exorbitant annual licensing fees and high maintenance costs and require specialized teams to operate them. Since legacy ECM systems make things harder for organizations to be fully compliant with data privacy laws, there is also a potential risk of astronomically high fine fees as a result of non-compliance. At this point, it is obvious that migrating to a newer ECM system can outweigh keeping the legacy systems in terms of both time and money.
And with the right migration partner like Helix International, IBM's partner of choice for data migration and process automation projects, organizations can be freed up from dedicating their in-house teams to the migration project.
The most significant potential risk that organizations are afraid of is the risk of data loss. If migration is not planned and done properly, some data may not be transferred properly, resulting in data loss. Data loss during migration can also pose a security risk. Confidential and private information may be compromised if it is not properly protected.
As content is moved from the legacy system to the new one, some files may become inaccessible, or user permissions may not be migrated correctly. This can make it difficult for users to access the data they need, leading to disruptions in their work and productivity. The new ECM system may not be able to handle the migrated data properly due to differences in the environment, technology, and hardware between the old and new systems. This can cause compatibility problems.
To avoid these problems, companies need to carefully plan their migration and work with the right migration experts. Helix International has successfully delivered migration projects for 500+ enterprise clients with a 100% project success rate.
An even more confounding concern is the challenges concerning people. When an organization migrates away from its legacy ECM system, it is paramount to prepare and train its employees properly. What's the use of a modern ECM system with all the new features when your employees are not trained to use them at their full potential?
Employees may need clarification or organization during the migration process, which can lead to problems such as data loss or compatibility issues. To avoid these problems, it is essential for companies to provide their employees with adequate training and support to help them adapt to the new ECM system.
MARS is purpose-built proprietary software we developed for all migrations and workflow automation operations. With over 45 connectors and extractors for every ECM solution in existence, it can work with and extract data of any filetypes at any scale. With RealTime Viewer (RTV) component, it can even view documents in any filetype on demand from any data source without needing to migrate. This effectively allows you to bypass legacy ECMs, their licensing, and external APIs. Watcher component can determine, locate, and predict data issues/errors before beginning migration and offer capabilities to rectify them to ensure a smooth migration proactively. And the migration itself gives you a complete audit trail, control, and migration options.
Need to migrate your legacy ECM? Reach out to our experts at Helix International.
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