CRANLEIGH, England, September 27 /PRNewswire/ --

- The Content Group Leads in Emerging Quality Standards for Enterprise
Content Management

The Content Group today announce that it will be working with BSI British
Standards to develop the first ever Publicly Available Specification (PAS)
for Enterprise Content Management.

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) has become increasingly important in
a business world powered by the internet, where information is expected to be
available instantly and at any time of day or night on a global basis. The
result is a proliferation of information that is often unstructured and
difficult to navigate through and, from a company perspective, complicated or
even impossible to manage.

The aim of The Content Group's work with BSI is to develop a best
practice standard for Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and establish a
frame of reference for the entire ECM market.

Once completed, the standard will provide definitions and a common
understanding of ECM. It will enable benchmarking and ensure consistent,
measurable Enterprise Content Management with increased accountability and
transparency across the whole information spectrum.

The manifold benefits of an industry-wide code of practice for ECM
include helping organisations and individuals to understand 'What it is',
'What it can do', and 'How to measure the quality level of any project
against a formally recognised specification'. The PAS is intended to be the
first step moving towards an internationally agreed standard for ECM.

Ben Richmond, Founder and CEO of The Content Group, will be the lead
author and will also head up the team involved in producing the standard
using a 2-stage stakeholder consultation. The steering panel of stakeholders
will review and provide feedback on the best practice standard before it is
put out for public consensus. New and existing best practice work in this
area will also be considered in the PAS development. This process is designed
to develop a credible, usable method through an open and consultative forum.

Ben Richmond, Founder and CEO of The Content Group comments:

"This is a major step forward for our industry. With the unparalleled
proliferation of information and the challenges that presents to
organisations across the globe ECM has come to the fore. The establishment of
an ECM best practice is long overdue and should be seen as critical to the
successful development and implementation of an ECM strategy."

Mike Low, Director of BSI British Standards comments:

"BSI British Standards is delighted to be working with The Content Group
on this important first step towards a framework for best practice in
Enterprise Content Management. The combination of BSI's development
capability and the expertise of The Content Group will ensure a PAS that
enables stakeholders to better understand ECM and therefore raise the
standard in this area."

Notes to Editors

The Content Group (www.thecontentgroup.co.uk)

The Content Group is the one-stop source for the provision of integrated
Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Solutions that enable organisations to
gain competitive advantage, improve operational efficiency and ensure
compliance and reduce risk.

By partnering with market leading vendors, The Content Group is able to
provide truly integrated end-to-end ECM Solutions as well as 'point of need'
solutions to address specific business requirements. These solutions can be
deployed as an infrastructure or as a complete outsourced managed service.

The Content Group's range of capabilities focus on the 'Nine critical
elements' of ECM, which are namely create, capture, manage, process,
collaborate, distribute, publish, report and store. Key partners include EMC
Documentum, Autonomy, Microsoft, INVU, FormScape, iMarkup, Kofax and Ektron.

The Content Group was founded in 1998 and has grown rapidly since. It is
a privately-owned UK organisation delivering ECM Solutions to over 375 UK and
global clients in a range of vertical markets, including construction &
manufacturing, oil & gas, financial & legal services, travel & tourism and
government & public sector. Clients include Persimmon Homes, Interserve, KMI
Water, Severn Trent Water, Trelleborg, Alba, Virgin Mobile, Travelsphere,
Bedford Borough Council and Northumbria University.