FARMINGTON HILLS, MI--(Marketwire - March 10, 2011) - Getting an optimal enterprise content management (ECM) system requires choosing the right solution architecture, Yasir Hussain, a senior architect with X by 2, a software architecture consulting firm in Farmington Hills, Mich., tells Insurance Networking News in a feature interview.

Before looking at even one ECM vendor, an insurance company should specify both its functional business requirements and create a conceptual solution architecture to drive non-functional or architectural requirements, he says.

While ECM installations are challenging, the technology offers a way to go paperless, providing "a competitive advantage that helps cut costs and enable process efficiencies by streamlining workflows across the enterprise," Hussain says.

Because the stakes are high, "IT departments are under a lot of pressure to implement content management tools and strategies that can cut across departmental lines while at the same time also support, scale and respond to evolving business needs," he adds. "In a market where vendors quickly achieve feature parity, underlying architecture often becomes the sole solution differentiator."

The Q & A also covers how to evaluate ECM vendors against an insurance company's unique requirements and why the project team needs to have both business-domain experience and a strong software architecture background.

Don't let the vendor solution drive the evaluation criteria and the flow of information, Hussain cautions. As well as meeting business needs, the solution must also meet "architectural" needs such as performance, scalability and flexibility.

The full story can be read at www.xby2.com/x-by-2-in-the-news.aspx.

Founded in 1998, X by 2 (www.xby2.com) is an architecture consultancy primarily to the insurance industry whose motto is "Architecture First." Clients include national and regional life, health and property-casualty insurers -- companies that want to build their business-technology architectures and foundations right the first time. X by 2 provides architecture design, planning, oversight, and turnaround services on transformative enterprise scale business technology initiatives. 

Contact Information:

Contact:

Henry Stimpson
Stimpson Communications
508-647-0705
Henry@StimpsonCommunications.com