In the overly saturated market of electronic content and document management there is a deep divide developing between the enterprise-class content management systems (CMS) and the small and medium business document management systems (DMS). What is interesting to me is there are some programmatic differences between the applications, but the key differences tend to come in with the levels of professional services offerings and general approach or offering to the target account.

Many larger CMS/DMS vendors, like EMC, see the SMB marketplace as a ripe opportunity since their upper end client-base has been saturated. I am not completely convinced they understand the SMB marketplace as it requires strong channel partners or seriously commercializing the offering, thus reducing the lucrative professional services divisions’ opportunities. The smaller players have some interesting offerings, but with all of the chatter in the space, it is difficult for potential customers to determine the best offering for their business without simply jumping in the proverbial water. Therefore, what do they do, they turn to trusted technology partners in their area for advice.

This prompted many software companies into looking at channels instead of investing in a direct sales force - or at least, augmenting direct sales forces. This is a stable model and has some unique advantages, like allowing for localized service - which SMB customers identify with quite well.  However, there is often a wide variation in the level of expertise at each channel partner, so SMB owners would be well served to dig in and understand the bench strength of the local provider as well as what certification programs the software vendors require.

Another disadvantage of a channel-sales model is simply a cost factor. With each hand through which the inventory passes, the costs rise to the end-customer. Add to this any installation, training, maintenance, and customization fees and the price tag for an SMB can quickly rise to a dollar figure that could make an owner’s head spin. But, what an owner must way is whether the expertise of the local provider and on-going support offset a slightly higher cost, many times the answer is, “Yes.”

Learn the tricks to control costs in a DMS project and the benefits and risks of Software as a Service (SaaS), in Part 2 of this story…

Tags: CMS, Document Management, EDM, EDMS, IT, Project Management, SMB