As we reach the first anniversary of the OpenText purchase of the Documentum family, I thought it was a good idea to look back at the extraordinary progress that has made in Energy and Engineering over the last 12 months — and look forward to what is happening next.
There are exciting times ahead and a raft of industry-specific content services solutions to ensure our customers continue to have the edge in competitive and challenging markets.
I don’t want to dwell too much on the past but it’s no secret that Documentum was never a perfect strategic fit for Dell or EMC. EMC had made it explicit that future investment in the platform would be limited. Everyone knew a sale was coming and, I believe, OpenText was the best possible fit.
That being said, it’s not really a secret that we were fierce competitors prior to the purchase and as a result some concerns were raised about OpenText plans post-acquisition. I joined OpenText with Documentum so I was fully aware of those concerns.
OpenText bought ECD for very sound reasons — one of which was Documentum’s leadership position in Energy and Engineering. At the time of purchase, Documentum was used by 7 out of the 10 top global energy companies and 8 of the top 10 US utility companies.
The question was whether OpenText would step up the investment that was lacking under Dell and EMC. The answer has been resoundingly positive.
A year of improvement
OpenText™ Documentum is part of a rare breed of technology — it has fans! People have invested years not just working on the platform. but building an emotional attachment to it. That can make it difficult for solution providers like OpenText as they know it can be difficult to change things in a way that pleases everyone.
That’s why I was happy to see research from Doculabs in December 2017 that showed more than twice the number of Documentum customers were positive about the acquisition as weren’t. Many said that their experience of working with us had improved.
We’re seeing this translating into an increasing customer base for Documentum in Energy and Engineering. Over the last two years, we have doubled the number of companies in the industry using Documentum energy solutions. Some estimates say that OpenText now has over 75% market share for Energy and Engineering Content Management (EECM) across the global energy industry.
To serve our growing number of customers effectively, it’s vital that the Documentum product line continues to develop and improve. We have seen impressive strides made over the past 12 months in developing Documentum’s Energy and Engineering solutions. We now have a full stable of solutions across the entire asset lifecycle. We have innovative technologies that enable our customers to create Enterprise Content Management systems to meet their exact business requirements.
Documentum solutions architecture for Energy & Engineering
For example, OpenText™ Capital Projects Express was launched less than two years ago and has been developed into a leading cloud-based solution to control capital project documentation and automate workflows. Its subscription pricing is ideal for Energy and Engineering companies with limited IT resources or budgets. The solution has undergone a series of functional and usability improvements to deliver a project-based content management solution that enables secure document control for team collaboration and rapid set-up of projects.
Other product development milestone this year include:
- The continued development of OpenText™ Supplier Exchange, a cloud-based solution to help companies share and collaborate on documents with suppliers, partners, and contractors
- The release of OpenText™ Asset Operations 2.1—on D2. The latest version of this industry-leading asset management package now includes concurrent engineering and brownfield project capabilities
- The development of a series of mobile applications — based on OpenText™ LEAP — to increase the capabilities of the Capital Projects and Asset Operations solutions.
A roadmap of innovation
On top of all the development work and investment that has already taken place, OpenText has set out a roadmap to improve the capabilities of our Energy and Engineering solutions. Being part of the OpenText family has given Documentum the opportunity to integrate and develop in new and exciting directions that were not available before. Plans are now well advanced to enable integrations between all OpenText Energy and Engineering solutions.
Although I can’t go into depth on everything that’s happening, it’s interesting to note that a Documentum Energy and Engineering solution is driving some significant future technical direction at OpenText. OpenText Supplier Exchange is being migrated to the full OpenText LEAP infrastructure, to be completed by the middle of 2018. Using LEAP offers excellent performance and interoperability benefits.
It’s just one of the instances within OpenText where Documentum has been able to take advantage of a universe of complementary technologies.
The power of synergies
For many years, OpenText and Documentum have been seen as leaders in the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) space. Together, the two organizations are much stronger and able to adapt much more quickly and capably to changing market demands. This becomes vitally important when considering the findings of leading analyst firms such as Gartner, who report that the practice of more traditional ECM has been replaced by a need for agile content services that optimize disruptive, new technologies such as cloud, social collaboration, mobile, and analytics.
Gartner has named OpenText a leader and we believe that’s partly due to the synergies that come from complementary OpenText and Documentum solutions. These synergies include:
- Extended solution portfolios: ECM is one of the pillars of Enterprise Information Management (EIM). OpenText offers complementary solutions in Customer Experience Management, Business Process Management, Discovery, B2B Integration, and Analytics.
- Enterprise Application Integration: The close relationships OpenText has with its partner network will enable Documentum customers to enjoy seamless integration with enterprise applications such as SAP®, Oracle®, and Microsoft®.
- Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI has become one of the hottest topics in the Energy sector. McKinsey suggests the oil and gas supply chain stands to gain $50 billion in savings and increased profit by adopting AI. And, to realize its full benefit, AI should be combined with analytics. OpenText offers a full range of analytics solutions as well as OpenText™ Magellan that extends what can be achieved with AI-powered analytics.
After a year, I can confidently say OpenText is building a strong foundation for the future of Documentum. The OpenText Documentum portfolio of Energy and Engineering solutions has the investment it needs and a hugely talented team to drive its development forward. We’ll be looking to help you make the most of the potential of EIM to deliver the real benefits of Digital Transformation.
If you’d like to find out more about Documentum solutions for Energy and Engineering, please complete the form on this page. And, take a look at our Anniversary page and read more of our ECM blogs to learn about OpenText and Documentum since the acquisition.
