As more organizations shift operations to cloud services like Managed AWS, businesses are waiting to see what the next big thing is. According to a recent report released by Technavio, one area of major growth will be SaaS-based Enterprise Content Management (ECM).

As more organizations seek to streamline operations, cloud-based content management solutions have become an increasingly attractive alternative. When these solutions are deployed on an enterprise level, large-scale document management is possible, preventing duplicate efforts and providing enhanced version control.

On-Premise Shrinking

According to the report, on-premise ECM held a 90 percent market share last year, but that share is rapidly shrinking. Businesses are increasingly aware of the benefits of moving ECM to the cloud, although the process is gradual. As a business’s equipment ages, instead of replacing it, many organizations are choosing to contract with a cloud service providers.

In the report, Technavio predicted a 31.1 percent annual growth rate between 2013 and 2018. The increase will be driven by businesses’ need to save money while also improving data accessibility. A SaaS-based ECM means documents can be accessed from anywhere, using the mobile devices that are becoming so popular for business use.

Benefits of the Cloud

The report mentions the growing awareness of the many benefits of relying on cloud providers for data storage and manipulation. By turning enterprise software operations over to a cloud provider, professionals can focus on business functions while allow trained technology experts handle IT operations.

In a SaaS environment, businesses pay only for the space they use, allowing for cost savings in the early phases of development. Many of these solutions are scalable, with plans increasing as an organization’s data use and storage grows.

To arrive at its conclusions, Technavio conducted extensive research into trends and market drivers in business today. The survey results were based on ratings on a number of criteria, including buying criteria.