BPM and ECM: Similarities, differences, conceptual, and technological limits

Abstract

Enterprise information architectures still do not deliver all the value that comes from integrating structured and unstructured
information. Enterprise Content Management and Business Process Management were developed as autonomous disciplines.
Thus, Enterprise Content Management still occurs without formally considering the business processes that generate and
manipulate content, while Business Process Management initiatives arise without a documented treatment of materials
produced by the processes. The non-integrated approach to these disciplines collaborates to reduce the potential benefits
expected in Organizational Change Management programs. In such context, the article discusses the interrelation between
Business Process Management and Enterprise Content Management, approaching from a historical view of these disciplines,
their conceptual limits, technological support, and dialogues that would benefit both initiatives. The paper contributes to clarify
a question still vague in the field of Information Management, which is how to integrate Business Process Management and
Enterprise Content Management treating structured and unstructured information in a unified manner. It discusses how to
approach this issue in a broad scope of IM by combining the concepts of Enterprise Content Management and Business Process
Management. Based on a literature review, the paper analyzes and synthesizes experiences in Enterprise Content Management
and Business Process Management acquired in the context of a project carried out in a Power Sector Company.