The reality of operating a business post Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco means that compliance now has a grip on every purchasing decision and on all software, applications, and systems already in place. Not surprisingly, one area that has emerged as central is enterprise content management. ECM vendors are fortifying their products and in some cases adding new tools to the lineup to help customers keep regulation-worthy tabs on all content.Several years back when the concept of content management was just emerging, only a handful of vendors staked territory in content management, and they all seemed to reference the same customers. This was because content-intensive industries, such as print and Web media and finance, tip-toed into content management piece by piece for specific needs. For example, the department charged with managing the Web site needed Web publishing but another part of the company might need a system with deep document control functions. Now, regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, SEC 17A-4, HIPAA, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley are forcing enterprises to shore up leaky content process. This trend also is coupling with rapid consolidation in ECM over the past few years, which means that most major ECM vendors are capable of handling most file types, from digital assets to e-mail, documents, and Web publishing, according to Stephen O’Grady, senior analyst at RedMonk.“In the past, most enterprises had more than one ECM vendor,” he said. “People would pick an ECM platform based on application type: one for Web publishing, one for documents, one for digital assets. That has changed with compliance.”You can still opt for separate pieces, such as a digital asset management tool or a specialized document management system, but ECM players are adding more and more to their menus, including compliance features like records management and auditing and versioning. Compliance pressures are demanding that enterprises streamline processes in order to account for all things that happened to a type of content, according to O’Grady.Most companies O’Grady talks to are taking a more standardized approach to content management, by limiting the number of tools or in some cases limiting ECM to a single vendor. “Managing different types of content separately becomes more and more of a challenge from a compliance perspective,” he said. “If you have multiple processes and content spread [amongst] different systems, creating a verifiable audit trail is that much more difficult.” So once you’re done compliance-proofing your ECM infrastructure, don’t forget about all the other compliance-critical technologies such as storage, messaging, ERP and CRM apps, databases, and so on. Technology Industry