Predictable Cost of Ownership

Managing the Hidden Costs of your FileNet and CMOD Systems

Implementation, licensing, maintenance, and support – these are a few of the visible costs of maintaining your IBM FileNet P8 or Content Manager OnDemand (CMOD) system. While these costs are generally planned for, there are often additional hidden costs associated with maintaining your Content Repositories.

Hidden costs may include:

• Security Patches, Updates, & Regulatory Requirements: The exponential increase of security threats in the marketplace drives more frequent security patches and updates. Depending on your industry, there could also be regulations that require you to keep your system up to date.
• IBM’s Accelerated Release Schedule: The rate at which IBM has been releasing new product versions is rapidly accelerating, and it is becoming more difficult to predict when upgrades will need to be done in order to stay within their published support policy. If you don’t upgrade you won’t be able to access updates, security patches or open support cases with IBM.
• Serious Outages: Outages do happen – and they can be costly. If your system is not up to date with the latest version, you may not be able to get the support you need to get back online quickly.
• IT Resources & Expertise: Properly maintaining your system requires a deep subject matter expertise. There is a certain level of instinct that comes from experience, and these resources are often expensive and difficult to find.

Achieving A Predictable Cost of Ownership

It is possible to create an environment in which you can properly manage your IBM FileNet P8 or Content Manager OnDemand (CMOD) system while keeping your costs predictable.

Here are the key components necessary in order to achieve this:

1. Upgrade Protection for IBM FileNet P8 & CMOD: As your core applications begin to reach the end-of-support life cycle, it is critical to have a plan in place that handles the cost, planning, and execution of upgrades.
2. 24/7 Mission Critical Support: You need a team available 24/7 that knows your system and can react quickly to the needs of the business and respond to incidents.
3. Application Administration: It’s critical to have experienced, dedicated resources for the general administration of your system – i.e., adding new document classes or adjusting workflows to adhere to new regulatory policies.
4. Monitoring & Reporting: You need to be able to predict issues before they occur so you can address quickly and prevent a more serious problem.

Managed Services is a comprehensive end-to-end remote support administration for your ECM system (including on-premise, cloud or hybrid deployments). Managed Services offers a single point-of-contact (SPOC) for all issues regarding the platform, the admin portion, and/or the end user interface.

Support, monitoring, reporting and administration – these are the key components to any complete managed services offering, delivered by experienced, certified, and highly skilled engineers

Managed Services is not meant to replace any of your team, but rather compliment them. For example, you may have a database administrator. This person might not necessarily know about the solution, but they will know all about your database(s). A good Managed Services provider will work closely with this person to ensure your application, and any associated workflows, captures, or transforms are operating the way they're supposed to in order to meet your availability and business requirements – all while freeing up the time of your best people to focus on strategic initiatives.

With a solid Managed Services offering, you can experience predictable costs with a reduction in ownership costs up to 50%, while keeping your systems up-to-date and running smoothly, and improving services to both your internal and external users.

How enChoice Can Help

enChoice has been providing mission-critical support through a help desk service to ECM systems, including FileNet P8 and IBM Content Manager OnDemand (CMOD), for over 25 years. enChoice has over 1,200 customers and provides Managed Services to over 800 of these customers. enChoice has a dedicated US-based staff of engineers providing Mission Critical Support 24X7X365 with a one-hour response time. We have adopted a philosophy of hiring very experienced and deeply skilled people - our average experience base in our team is over 15 years. Every one of our accounts has a defined primary and secondary support engineer, and their mission is to know you and know your system(s). Since 2003, we have averaged a 9.5/10 customer satisfaction rating.

If you are looking to access needed skills, improve customer service, mitigate new technology risks, and experience a predictable cost of ownerships surrounding your ECM system, contact enChoice for more information on Managed Services.

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About the Author

John Emerson - Executive Vice President, Support Services

John possesses over 30 years of experience in technology evaluation and development, new product introduction and positioning, project management, strategic planning, and business development for high technology businesses. Prior to enChoice, he held the position of Sr. Vice President and managed operations at VIP Ltd., Inc., an IBM Business Partner specializing in eBusiness, eLearning, imaging, and content management systems integration. Before VIP, John served as Vice President of Marketing at TDC, a manufacturer of high-speed document scanners and subsystems. John has also held senior management positions at Control Data Corporation and Floating Point Systems, and founded PACE Systems, a marketing consulting firm that worked with emerging technology companies. He has served as Chairman of the AIIM & International Standards Committee for program interfaces to imaging systems.