One on One with Dan Carmel of SpringCM

Dan Carmel is CEO at SpringCM. He has more than 20 years of experience in executive positions including GM of the legal/professional services business unit for Interwoven (which was recently sold to Autonomy). SpringCM delivers an SaaS document management solution and differentiates itself in one key way. It offers the service as components, meaning the customer only needs to purchase those services that they need for their particular installation. I asked Carmel about this approach and what it means in the context of today's economic conditions.

FCM: Your company focuses on document management and workflow using a modular approach, rather than a one-size-fits-all solution. Why did you decide to go this way? This had to be planned long before the current economic crisis. 

DC: Yes this has been part of the company's product plan from day one for these reasons: 1. ECM is not a one-size-fits-all need--each department has different needs from an ECM capability. Our "modular" approach (in which different ECM technologies/features can be added to a given implementation rapidly through configuration) enables SpringCM to cost effectively address a wide variety of application needs for our clients. If you need advanced scanning (zonal OCR for example) with a few clicks, you can enable this feature and use it. Need advanced view and markup for CAD files, redaction and other uses? Click and you add that. The same goes for Advanced Workflow, eForms, and so on.

Every user does not need to see all this advanced functionality (it clutters the typical user's experience), but in a SaaS model all of these technologies are available and fully integrated in the back-end. You can add or hide features without costly integration (in the interest of full disclosure there are fees charged for the use of some advanced functionality). Our newest enhancements enable you to design custom menus and hide all unnecessary buttons on our toolbars so that users (based on their role in an application) have the simplest interface possible. All of this fosters user adoption and cost effectiveness and makes SpringCM suitable to address a broad range of what we call content-centric applications across a typical enterprise. 

FCM: You've recently started a partner program. How does this work and how does it help you and your customers?

DC: We have had resellers for some time but have recently introduced a new level of partnership called a solution partner. A solution partner wants to build a SaaS-based content application for automating a specific business or industry process. Examples include Securities Broker Compliance, Patient Record Management, and Student Record Management. Using our new solutions configuration capability, each solution partner can configure a complete application with application-specific metadata, workflows, reporting, forms, integrations with third party products--anything that can be configured in SpringCM--and then sell that complete application to any of its clients, all hosted as an on-demand application in our SAS 70 certified data center.  

This is part of the new wave of delivery models that are enabled by SaaS. Salesforce.com has introduced a similar capability (called Force.com and App Exchange) for data-centric applications and we have now brought this concept to content-centric applications that require the advanced content management functionality of our platform. Solutions partners receive complete training and assistance in designing their applications and all approved applications are featured on our website in our "Solutions Central" marketplace.
 
FCM: What do your customers say are their primary content management concerns and do your document management customers have any different concerns from ECM or WCM? 

DC: The concerns we hear across DM, WCM and ECM are that customers are tired of investing large up-front sums in hardware and software licenses, professional services, integration and implementation before understanding whether the technology can solve their actual business problem. The SaaS delivery model allows a more interactive approach to evaluating, licensing and deploying ECM and that is why we believe it will become the dominant model in the future. Customers of a SaaS vendor have typically tested the actual production service in a pilot and face none of the high upfront investments and can roll-out their solutions in an iterative fashion--start with the most basic use cases and build from that (as they learn how the technology may actually change their processes). This is a whole new experience for customers who have tried one kind of SaaS application and then realize these benefits and tend to then deploy more diverse SaaS applications.  

FCM: What role does business process play in content management? Do you think it's more important in your end of the business? 

DC: We believe that in order for content management to have business impact and ROI, it must be an integral part of a business process. All of the solutions in our Solutions Central have "process" names. That is why we have built three levels of process automation into the SpringCM platform: simple rules-based (stage gate) process management; document routing and approval; and full business process management (workflow). Different business processes require different classes of process automation and in this way each organization can use the combination of content and process automation that is right for its specific application.  

FCM: You're a SaaS vendor that deals with records management. How do you answer security concerns about sharing information in the cloud? 

DC: How well security is managed is independent of whether it is done inside your firewall or by a vendor. You would trust your bank to manage your financial transactions (and account balances) accurately and securely on an outsourced basis. Our VP of Operations managed 50 data centers for a major US bank before coming to SpringCM, so we hold ourselves to a very high standard. Our data centers are in the same facilities used by leading banks--our security policies and operating controls are managed under SAS 70 standards, and this means that all controls are documented--and now physically audited. We share those operational control documents (under proper non-disclosure) with our clients' security and operations staff so they may compare our controls to their own, and we are always enhancing those controls.  

We have had more than one customer comment that our controls are more severe than their own--and that is the point. Our sole purpose is to manage clients' content securely and we are 100% focused on that. Uptime, content security and business continuity are all part of that. Many clients have discovered that their own IT organization does not manage their content to the same levels as SpringCM, and once they do (because a server fails, content is lost due to poor administration, or the installed system is overwhelmed and performs poorly) we get a call.  

FCM: Your company aside, what do you think overall industry outlook is right now? 

DC: I have to say the situation today is about as grim as I have ever seen it. The tough economy means that more and more companies are not able to make the investment that a typical ECM project requires for success. The danger is that users may give up and not look for alternatives, just as new business models are emerging that enable innovation to continue even in tough economic times. Smart companies invest intelligently even in a downturn and we are seeing more and more evaluate new delivery models--Open Source and SaaS to name two--to find what works best for them. So despite the tough market, there is still innovation and there are places to turn to gain competitive advantage. Companies must continue to innovate so that they can survive the tough economy, and emerge stronger as the business climate improves.

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