Compliancy: the new Information Management driver

Alan Pelz-Sharpe, Sector Research Director

The constant chatter amongst information management vendors is focused on compliancy and regulations. The ‘imposition’ of the Sarbane-Oxley Act along with HIPAA and a raft of regulations surrounding Homeland Security in the US is driving sales of content and data management software in North America.

But how real a market driver is this? Compliancy to legal regulations is a requirement – theoretically, corporations do not have a choice, they have to do it. And since scandals have rocked the financial world and the drive of eGovernment have co-incided, the IT world sees the potential for a ‘perfect storm’; a huge wave of customers who have no choice but to buy their products. If only it was so simple…

This week’s AIIM Conference in New York, one of the industry’s largest events, at times resembled a a cult convention, with the mantra of “…Sarbane-Oxley…” resounding throughout the Javits Convention Centre. Many substantial IT vendors are betting the ranch on regulations driving future sales.

I have no doubt they are right, up to a point. Regulation is hot at the moment, and related topics such as Records Management are finding an audience like never before. And who would have thought that Records Management would ever be a ‘hot topic’?

The sheer scale of the mess most companies face in dealing with their information management issues cannot be resolved quickly or easily, and though many IT vendors can help, none have comprehensive solutions to the problem. Indeed many of the problems will be resolved simply by the implementation of corporate policies regarding records retention, rather than implementing new software.

This mundane reality combined with the fact that Information Management, and Content Management in particular, is undergoing a massive consolidation at present will impact further this opportunity. Simply put, much of what currently sells as high end document or content management functionality is becoming a part of the infrastructure and will become pervasive throughout the enterprise, courtesy of Microsoft, Sun, IBM and Oracle.

Independent IM vendors are having to decide whether they will go the infrastructure route and compete against the goliaths of the industry or return to building vertically specific solutions – in many cases building solutions to compliancy and regulatory issues.

Buyers of technology to meet compliancy requirements need to be sure that current software will actually provide a solution to meet their needs. Nobody can blame the IT industry for trying to rush after a sales opportunity in such a tough environment, and some vendors can offer some very valuable help to users. But think about it for a moment, how many corporate cans of worms do you really want to open at once? Meeting a regulation in word, rather than in spirit may be the most likely outcome of buyers’ current interests.

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