Visualize the following scenario: All enterprise content (wherever generated by whatever entity) goes into a single repository and users can receive different services (that they were receiving from different applications earlier, or are completely new services) from an integrated system with a standard front end. Service Oriented Architecture, Enterprise Application Integration, and Data Warehousing work to make this scenario a reality.

Along with Content Storage, Preservation, and Delivery, Capture is one of the key components of Enterprise Content Management. This article will explore the ways content is captured in ECM systems.

What is content? What does content management involve? And what is special about enterprise content management? This introductory article will seek to answer these questions.

Enterprise Content Management involves capturing structured and unstructured content that’s generated all over the enterprise, storing that content, processing it into information, delivering that information to those who need it for decision-support, and finally transferring it to long-term storage for preservation until it can be removed safely from the system.

Content is useless unless it’s used for managing the business. Managers must get relevant information presented in ways that bring out its significance. Only then can they make informed business decisions, instead of decisions based on a "hunch".

The word Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP conveys a sense of planning the use of enterprise-wide resources to achieve enterprise objectives in the best possible manner. However, ERP has come to mean something much less ambitious. It simply means integrating two or more separate applications.

The ECM Association ,AIIM, defines ECM as: "...the technologies used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to organizational processes. ECM tools and strategies allow the management of an organization's unstructured information, wherever that information exists."

Enterprise Content Management uses Internet technologies to make information accessible from all over the world. In an age of global business, this enables employees spread across the globe to maintain effective contacts with their headquarters and also other offices located anywhere in the world.

In a large business, many things will be going on in many different areas. It will be impossible to understand what is really going on based on personal observations alone. Analytical reports based on specific data bring out the nuances of ground realities.

SharePoint is a family of products from Microsoft that enables organizations to have one stop solutions for collaboration, content management, business processes and portal development.