Enterprise Information Management (EIM) is a particular field of interest within information technology

Information technology

Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...

 area. It specializes in finding solutions for optimal use of information

Information

Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...

 within organizations, for instance to support decision-making processes or day-to-day operations that require the availability of knowledge

Knowledge

Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...

. It tries to overcome traditional IT-related barriers to managing information on an enterprise level.

Definition

Enterprise information management combines business intelligence

Business intelligence

Business intelligence mainly refers to computer-based techniques used in identifying, extracting, and analyzing business data, such as sales revenue by products and/or departments, or by associated costs and incomes....

 (BI) and enterprise content management

Enterprise content management

Enterprise Content Management is a formalized means of organizing and storing an organization's documents, and other content, that relate to the organization's processes...

 (ECM). Enterprise information management takes these two approaches to managing information one step further, in that it approaches information management from an enterprise perspective. Where BI and ECM respectively manage structured and unstructured information, EIM does not make this "technical" distinction. It approaches the management of information from the perspective of enterprise information strategy, based on the needs of information workers. ECM and BI in a sense choose a denominationalised approach, since they only cover part of the information within an organization. This results in a lack of available information during decision-making processes, market analysis

Market analysis

A market analysis studies the attractiveness and the dynamics of a special market within a special industry. It is part of the industry analysis and this in turn of the global environmental analysis. Through all these analyses the chances, strengths, weaknesses and risks of a company can be...

 or procedure definition.

Solutions

the marketplace demonstrates two distinct approaches to EIM.

1. The first (and most applied) places a separate disclosure layer over the sub-solutions ECM and BI. The rise of Microsoft Sharepoint
   Microsoft SharePoint
   Microsoft SharePoint is a web application platform developed by Microsoft. First launched in 2001, SharePoint is typically associated with web content management and document management systems, but it is actually a much broader platform of web technologies, capable of being configured into a wide...
   
    2007 with the information worker paradigm has caused an acceleration of the acceptance of these kinds of solutions. Information workers in their daily activities need access to both data
   Data
   The term data refers to qualitative or quantitative attributes of a variable or set of variables. Data are typically the results of measurements and can be the basis of graphs, images, or observations of a set of variables. Data are often viewed as the lowest level of abstraction from which...
   
    (structured) and content (unstructured), as far as their role and responsibilities give them the appropriate rights. Portal
   Enterprise portal
   An enterprise portal, also known as an enterprise information portal or corporate portal, is a framework for integrating information, people and processes across organizational boundaries. It provides a secure unified access point, often in the form of a web-based user interface, and is designed...
   
    solutions offer possibilities to organize the access to different subsystems, including authorization management. Portal solutions also offer ways to work together on information products in an online environment (collaboration
   Collaboration
   Collaboration is working together to achieve a goal. It is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals, — for example, an intriguing endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing...
   
   ). Processes can be organized and managed (business process management
   Business process management
   Business process management is a holistic management approach focused on aligning all aspects of an organization with the wants and needs of clients. It promotes business effectiveness and efficiency while striving for innovation, flexibility, and integration with technology. BPM attempts to...
   
    or workflow
   Workflow
   A workflow consists of a sequence of connected steps. It is a depiction of a sequence of operations, declared as work of a person, a group of persons, an organization of staff, or one or more simple or complex mechanisms. Workflow may be seen as any abstraction of real work...
   
   ).
2. The other approach, found in large-platform vendors, offers integrated solutions for both BI and ECM. The market shows signs of these platform vendors moving in this direction, but although vendors like IBM
   IBM
   International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
   
   , Oracle Corporation
   Oracle Corporation
   Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
   
   , Microsoft
   Microsoft
   Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
   
   , SAP AG
   SAP AG
   SAP AG is a German software corporation that makes enterprise software to manage business operations and customer relations. Headquartered in Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg, with regional offices around the world, SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software...
   
    and EMC
   EMC Corporation
   EMC Corporation , a Financial Times Global 500, Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company, develops, delivers and supports information infrastructure and virtual infrastructure hardware, software, and services. EMC is headquartered in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, USA.Former Intel executive Richard Egan and his...
   
    are making progress, they still have a long way to go. From their respective backgrounds, they each cover parts of the EIM portfolio, but in specific areas such as security, analytics
   Analytics
   Analytics is the application of computer technology, operational research, and statistics to solve problems in business and industry. Analytics is carried out within an information system: while, in the past, statistics and mathematics could be studied without computers and software, analytics has...
   
    or process management
   Process management
   Process management is the ensemble of activities of planning and monitoring the performance of a process. The term usually refers to the management of business processes and manufacturing processes...
   
    lack essential components. Gartner
   Gartner
   Gartner, Inc. is an information technology research and advisory firm headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, United States. It was known as GartnerGroup until 2001....
   
    is one of the analyst firms paying specific attention to EIM and the progress made by vendors in this field.

Some software companies provide applications for ECMs such as document and image viewers

Comparison of image viewers

This article presents a comparison of image viewers and image organizers which can be used for image viewing.-General information:Note 1: Adobe Bridge comes included in the price with the Adobe Creative Suite CS2, Adobe Production Studio and Photoshop Elements 4 for Mac OS X...

 (e.g. LEAD Technologies, MS Technology, and Accusoft) and for workflow

Workflow

A workflow consists of a sequence of connected steps. It is a depiction of a sequence of operations, declared as work of a person, a group of persons, an organization of staff, or one or more simple or complex mechanisms. Workflow may be seen as any abstraction of real work...

s (e.g. Office Gemini, SpringCM

Springcm

SpringCM is an enterprise content management company that provides cloud document management and workflow solutions for businesses and other organizations...

, and docAssist). There are also several companies that provide plugins for ECMs that can be used to enhance the functions and features of ECMs.