Main Motivator for ERM Use is Fear of Leaking Secrets

By Irina Guseva | Published Sep 18, 2008

Gilbane Group, Inc., the analyst and consulting firm focused on content technologies, released a study on the state of Enterprise Rights Management (ERM) adoption.

Turns out, not only the industry’s growth is tremendous, since it first saw the light as an industry about five years ago; more and more companies adopt ERM and their main motivator is fear of leaking sensitive information outside the enterprise firewalls.

Gilbane’s study is entitled “Enterprise Rights Management: Business Imperatives and Implementation Readiness.” The researches say this is the first time in history there’s enough data to produce a study that is meaningful for users and vendors alike. Sounds pretty important, let’s look at the study in details.

ERM Background

Enterprise Rights Management (ERM) technology is a close relative of Enterprise Digital Rights Management (DRM) and Information Rights Management (IRM) – and is part of the broader Enterprise Content Management notion.

In essence, ERM is all about protecting data and managing access rights to that data properly. Processes of encryption and decryption of data are the most common vehicles of data protection.

What we now call ERM began to drift apart from DRM for consumer content after the first Internet bubble burst. In 2006, ERM started being positioned more as an adjunct to content management, after EMC acquired Authentica and began marketing it as an additional module to its Documentum Enterprise CMS. EMC didn’t stop there, and kept on strengthening its ERM powers with other acquisitions. Around the same time, Stellenet also became an important player in the ERM field.

Study Highlights

Gilbane surveyed over 200 senior IT, security and content management professionals across a range of vertical industries. Qualitative and quantitative research was put to work to assess ERM general awareness, the current state of ERM deployments or plans to deploy, as well as target applications.

Some of the highlights of the study’s findings include:

IT managers and executives are the decision-makers on ERM
Infrastructural obstacles to ERM deployment are eroding
Awareness of ERM has increased
The financial services industry is showing the most uptake of ERM
ERM is becoming popular for supporting Sarbanes-Oxley Act and HIPAA
Protecting confidential information from leaking outside the organization is the primary motivation driving ERM adoption
Most prevalent uses for ERM implementations include regulatory compliance, client/customer communications, healthcare and financial processes
55% of ERM implementations are integrated with content management solutions