Import substitution of EDMS, ECM and CSP systems

2025: EDMS Import Substitution: Current Realities and Perspectives

The issue of import substitution of foreign decisions is still relevant and will be on the agenda for the coming years. Experts note that there is still a great need to replace platforms such as Documentum, OpenText, IBM FileNet, which are used in enterprise companies.

Solutions for working with document flow and document storage based on platform data in large organizations have been created for years and have their own specifics. Replacing them in one approach is a rather laborious task. In addition to this, not all existing solutions for document management are able to withstand the load for which such foreign platforms are intended: tens, hundreds of thousands of users and millions of documents per day, - explains Pavel Perov, Product Director of Avandok (KORUS Consulting Group of Companies).

The request to replace foreign EDMS is very relevant. The extension of licenses or scaling their number is associated with difficulties, since foreign manufacturers have left the Russian market. In addition, foreign systems are becoming obsolete, customers have new requests, and it is difficult to get support and development assistance. In addition to choosing EDMS for import substitution, compatibility with Russian OS, DBMS, office packages and other software is important, - notes Ilya Zaychikov, Director of EDMS Development THESIS.

In the past two years, customers have mainly been engaged in import substitution of system software and business-critical systems. Now companies are ready to concentrate on import substitution, including EDMS/ESM systems. 

At the same time, many organizations still choose wait-and-see tactics. They believe that while foreign software is working, it can not be changed. But this approach often loses, because it inevitably leads to serious consequences for business: loss of access to your own data due to the lack of the ability to renew your subscription, license or support, the inability to adapt systems to dynamically changing legal requirements, the risk of vulnerabilities and critical problems due to limited access to technical support and software updates, - comments Kirill Sokolov, Managing Director of Citros, SL Soft (part of Softline Group of Companies).

If we talk about classic electronic document management systems, then Russian solutions have long been almost completely supplanted by foreign analogues, but at the moment we are witnessing a large volume of projects for import substitution of foreign ERP systems, in particular SAP, and for these projects our clients often need to automate the document storage function, that is, find an analogue of a centralized corporate file storage (Russian Content Server). For these tasks, we have our own solution, which was originally developed as an analogue of SAP server content or Open Text, "says Mikhail Egorov, Senior Executive Director of ID Management Technology

Russian systems in some respects do not reach the level of Western analogues. However, it can also be seen as an opportunity for further technology development and improvement.

The need for migration to domestic software is the reality most likely for the near future. But this process is complex and multi-stage. Solutions based on Microsoft and Oracle technologies have become the de facto standard over the years, overgrown with a large army of users and specialists who can work with them. Therefore, problems arise not only when migrating existing EDMS/ECM/CSP databases to independent system software, but also at the level of users who psychologically find it difficult to leave their usual Windows applications for something else, - comments Andrei Kozlov, General Director of EOS Soft (EOS Group of Companies).

We regularly work with migration projects from foreign systems, and I can say that the main complexity is not related to the technical side of the issue, but to a change in the usual business processes and retraining of personnel. It is important to understand that import substitution is not just a replacement of one system with another, but an opportunity to rethink and optimize existing processes. There are certain difficulties in terms of customer habits for foreign vendors and their implementation practices. However, these barriers are gradually overcome as successful import substitution cases accumulate. Moreover, the current situation stimulates the development of the ecosystem - the number of integrators, consultants and specialists working with domestic solutions is growing, - said Igor Prostokvashin, a leading analyst at Comindware.

Among the factors that complicate import substitution, personnel shortages remain, especially in cases where companies try to independently establish processes without referring to specialists with experience in solving such problems. To implement import substitution, the company must have a team of trained specialists who will ensure the performance of the software, provided that the migration process itself will take place with the involvement of developers and their partners.

The process of import substitution of EDM systems is underway in all industries. We cooperate with domestic vendors and introduce systems into the IT landscape of public sector organizations, fintech, insurance companies, as well as mobile operators and marketplaces. In addition to customization of the solution and its refinement for a specific business, in most cases it is necessary to connect and "make friends" various software that exists in the customer's contour and is often not agreed upon with each other. Information security requirements are growing. Especially strong attention to the security of systems is felt on projects of fintech, medicine and the public sector, where the volume of sensitive information and personal data of users is large. Since 2023, the number of integrations and digitalizations within the framework of interdepartmental electronic document management has increased at the projects of state-owned companies when creating GIS, "says Andrei Preobrazhensky, head of the Develonika competence center (Softline Group of Companies).

According to Ivan Agapov, Product manager of Directum ECM solutions, there are prospects for the growth of Russian solutions for the gradual displacement of Western ones in terms of corporate software. Vendors need to make their solutions more modern, more technological and more convenient. Competition within the domestic market for the healthy development of solutions is enough.

2023: Distribution of domestic and foreign EDMS, ECM and CSP systems on the Russian market. Expert assessments

The share of Russian platforms in the market is growing, but not as quickly as domestic vendors would like. This is due to the large organizational and financial costs required to transition to new systems. And not all Russian organizations are ready to do this promptly.

According to a study by TerraLink, no more than 10% of customers have abandoned the already implemented Western solutions. Most retained the solution, and often acquired alternative support. The transition to domestic software is higher in monetary terms, since government customers and programs make a significant contribution.

According to TerraLink experts, large oil and gas chemical companies, transport, energy companies and large retail are the last to import substitution. The first ECM systems were accompanied by engineering and operational processes, one way or another integrated with foreign software (ERP, PLM, project management systems, etc.), which simply did not have time to replace. The second has another feature - a high load (both through regular routes and the widespread penetration of marketplaces) dictates the choice in favor of industrial software, this was especially true with a rather limited choice of hardware in the first half of the year. At the same time, of course, the share of the Russian software market in the topic under discussion is growing significantly and may reach a total of 65% according to the results of the year.

The share of Western products is falling, but not too quickly. Domestic products are increasing their share. First of all, this applies to domestic products leading in our market, which also include the Docsvision platform. The largest number of implementations of EDMS, ECM and CSP systems falls on the largest corporations from the RBC 500 list, and this is due to the accelerated growth in the share of domestic leaders, says Vladimir Andreev, president of Docsvision.

According to Alexei Chernyshev, an expert at Digital Design, in recent years, the share of Russian solutions in new projects has been predominant. Foreign solutions also remain on the market - their highest share among Russian representative offices of foreign companies. There is a significant number of previously introduced foreign systems in Russian commercial companies (for example, in large retail). Nevertheless, this share is steadily decreasing due to the ban on the sale of licenses and updates by many foreign vendors in the Russian Federation, as well as the curtailment of technical support. This trend will continue in the future, the expert "Digital Design" believes.

Western vendors have historically been trusted by banks, large holdings, companies traded on exchanges, Russian representative offices of Western brands. But it is difficult to talk about a change in shares within the market, since the customer market itself has changed a lot, there is a certain rubbing. It is clear that among government agencies and state-owned companies the share of foreign EDMS/ESM systems is clearly falling. In general, relative to 2021, the shares have not yet changed much, but the replacement process has intensified, - said Ivan Agapov, product manager Directum.

In his opinion, for organizations, especially large ones, moving to a new system is a difficult and long process. Replacing infrastructure, testing and launching into production, integrating with Russian office products, training administrators and users - all this is not easy. Replacement of systems will occur faster, but not avrally. The evaluation and preparation of the company's projects are beginning now. Scalable, powerful Russian systems are needed at the moment, and not in the future for 3-5 years. Customers need to learn to trust Russian vendors, he said.

As a recommendation, you can advise you to choose leading brands, study the entire set of solutions in detail, discard small requirements, and concentrate on business benefits. The place of the departed Western vendors will be occupied by domestic ones, the plans Directum to strengthen leadership due to this. In general, vendors with experience and a good reserve will have more confident positions, it is more difficult for new players to progress in conditions of instability, says Ivan Agapov.

Alexey Peregudov, director of work with partners of the EOS company, also believes that foreign suppliers are noticeably losing their positions. However, in his opinion, in some cases this is not the merit of their Russian competitors, but the political situation.

He adds that foreign systems are more likely to use large businesses and state corporations.

Will they stay on them for long? It is acceptable that those who have made big investments in their systems, have their own support and development teams, will try to keep them as long as possible. What will happen next? Any forecast will be ungrateful, the EOS expert believes.

According to Rais Akhkyamov, product owner ELMA365 ECM, relative to the general market, the share of net foreign EDMS is less than half, however, given the fact that many domestic EDMS are based on foreign platforms, such as MS SharePoint, Lotus and the like, we can say that the overwhelming part of the market, more than 3/4, depends on foreign commercial solutions.

The share of Russian EDMS is much larger in the public sector, although even there it is not 100%, adds Ilya Zaychikov, product owner of EDMS THESIS. This is due to the greater fame of world-famous manufacturers, as well as the fact that many companies still use EDMS, introduced a very long time ago.

At the same time, it is important to say that among Russian systems there are many high-level solutions that can successfully compete with foreign ones in price and functionality, "says Ilya Zaychikov.

2016: What impact did the import substitution trend have on the Russian EDMS/ESM market?

In order to answer the question of what impact the EDMSECM trend had on the market/and import substitution what prospects it will have in the coming years, TAdviser interviewed a number of Russian experts. The answers are given below.

Import substitution is, I would say, a strong driving force for a very dynamic market development. In my opinion, the great potential for the market is also laid in the close attention of the state, in the support of Russian software and developers. The dynamics in 2015 is a decline, not significant, but still. In 2016 - the beginning of growth. And first of all, due to the redistribution of the interests of customers from Western software to Russian. There are undoubted drivers - import substitution and registry. ' Elena Ivanova, Head of Marketing EOS

{{quote 'author
= Sergey Plaunov, Head of BPM and ECM at CROC|The trend for import substitution has led to additional demand for Russian EDMS and open source solutions. In particular, automation of document flow is possible using solutions based on open-source products Alfresco and JBoss, and using domestic platforms such as Directum, Docsvision, 1C: Document flow. For example, the last CROC product was used to automate project management processes in a large international organization.
In general, for each project you can choose your own individual solution, depending on the tasks, business requirements, budget and criticality of using imported products.}}

Import substitution has stirred up attention to domestic solutions that do not have such large advertising budgets as world ECM leaders. Therefore, at the initial stage, of course, the balance of power has changed, but in the medium term, the natural development of the power of domestic ECM solutions will have a greater impact. And over the past 10 years, domestic solutions have become competitive. 'Vasily Babintsev, Director of Marketing Directum '

For many years, the largest Russian companies have invested in the development of EDMS infrastructure based on Western software. A large amount of both funds and organizational efforts have been invested. Replacing these decisions is expensive and not a quick thing. However, increasingly "in the air smells" of this topic. Companies are in no hurry to take such steps, but it can be stated that this is becoming an urgent trend, there are more and more such projects. Although projects are not yet being implemented on a very large scale, several very large migration projects from Western software are in the works. So, perhaps, it will soon be possible to talk about the real translation of such solutions into Russian software. If we talk about new implementations, especially in the public sector and the defense industry, then the requirement of the "Russian" software is already a fait accompli. 'Vladimir Andreev, President of Docsvision

The state's import substitution policy and sanctions risks from Western vendors have created a trend of growth in replacement sales of Russian software. In fact, during the year the market was stagnating, specific mechanisms for policy implementation were incomprehensible, replacement proposals from Russian vendors were not ready, there were no reference examples of migration from Western to Russian software. However, the government decree banning the purchase of Western software in government agencies, the register created by the Ministry of Communications in cooperation with the industry, which is very important, and the practice of using these documents moved the market. The prospects are generally understandable. Obviously, this policy is long-term, and from the state level it will penetrate to the level of corporate policies, after all, in 2012-13 no one thought that the Western vendor could refuse to support its products both at individual Russian enterprises and in Russia as a whole. Now this is an accomplished fact and is unlikely to be forgotten by Russian corporations, not only large and not only state, raw materials, banking and defense. The volume of the Russian software market in Russia in the coming years will grow at a faster pace, and the share of Russian vendors on it will stabilize in 5 years. 'Sergey Kuryanov, Director of Strategic Marketing, Docsvision

Import substitution motivates Russian manufacturers to improve their software, make it more technological, functional and high-quality. The ECM systems market has previously been widely represented by Russian products and competed well with foreign solutions, standing out for an attractive price for customers. And now, during the crisis, the natural demand for Russian software products has become even greater: they are cheaper, more convenient, more understandable. 'Ruslan Shakirov, CEO of MaiTek

{{quote 'author
= Alexander Bader, Director of ECM at TerraLink|The impact of the trend on import substitution of software for end users is rather negative. The level of software used has noticeably decreased, the chances of creating competitive promising software remained the same, and, taking into account the new economic reality, in fact, sharply decreased.

The impact of the trend on import substitution for Russian developers is undoubtedly the most positive, although for me personally, nevertheless, questions remain as to how much growth in their production can be converted by them into an increase in the quality of their software.

Since, alas, we will definitely not be able to catch up and overtake America in terms of software in four years, and the need for high-tech software will not go anywhere, such, say, centaurics, Russian coloring and with a completely American filling inside will appear on the market. That is, we will get something like Belarusian shrimp.

The end-user economy will suffer. Although the purchase price will be minimal, this will result in sharply increased additional costs for support and support. And if you also calculate the loss of time and nerves of users in anticipation of the reaction of the system and/or the restoration of lost documents, it will become clear that import substitution in the form in which it is promoted is a frank regression.

The use of open source systems will expand, which will further worsen the technological and economic indicators of ECM projects. Moreover, which is significant, just under the guise of lowering their price and promoting promising technologies. It's time to recall one ambiguous bard: "Ah you poor stupid people, how easy it is to buy you for happiness...."

I emphasize that this applies only to the production of software, and not medicines, potatoes and, say, furniture.}}

{{quote 'author
'= Victor Weinstein, CEO of Logic of Business (AiTi Group of Companies)'|The regulatory design of the import substitution trend in IT in the form of a register of Russian software had a great impact on the market. After all, the presence or absence of the company's products in the register of Russian software has become a serious market differentiator. If the company does not have its own products at all. tenders. So the register and its presence in the tender documentation serves as both a barrier and a business driver for those IT companies that have their own products included in the register. That is, as already mentioned, a market differentiator.

It seems to me that the initial shock impulse from a hard turn on import substitution (the introduction of the register of Russian software) has already passed. But over time, derivatives of higher orders may appear, so to speak, modes of higher orders - too powerful and complex an impact was exerted on the Russian IT market so that it quickly resolved.

But it's not just the emergence of a forced barrier. In my opinion, the creation of the register of Russian software has become the trigger that made corporate customers think about which IT products they are better to use and what can become the basis of their corporate information systems. The maturity of domestic products led to the fact that as soon as customers began to look around, they realized that domestic IT products have non-obvious business benefits related to the cost of creating and maintaining IP.}}

Companies in the domestic market began to choose solutions from Russian vendors or pay attention to solutions on open source. As a result, some systems have already won several major projects. A good example is the Russian Post system based on the 1C platform. I am sure that in a year or two we will be able to evaluate the results of implementations, and there will be much more successful examples. In the next couple of years, the leaders of the EDMS will be platforms capable of providing high performance in enterprises with a large number of users (more than 10 thousand). 'Oleg Pashinin, ECM Practice Director, AT Consulting '

Of course, the import substitution policy had its impact on the Russian EDMS market and led to an increase in demand for domestic solutions. The process is underway, although, perhaps, not as actively as Russian vendors would like. The number of requests for the introduction of Russian software or for migration from foreign EDMS has grown primarily in corporations and companies with state support. However, as for the commercial segment, most customers do not want to change the existing EDMS, explaining this by the unwillingness to lose their already invested investments in software. The same customers, who have just faced the question of automation of document flow, are certainly considering Russian developments. 'Alexander Nevinchany, Director of the Portal Solutions Department of KORUS Consulting GC

We see that the import substitution policy has not yet had a significant impact on the choice of customers, the only exception was the public sector. When choosing a system for managing document and information, customers are still more concerned about the functionality and capabilities of the solution, usability, cost of ownership, flexibility to configure, and compatibility with other applications. Svetlyn 'Savov, Development Director of FTS Russia '

The prevailing impact on the market in the current conditions is mainly not import substitution, but still a factor in the rapid payback of solutions in the field of EDMS and ECM, as well as the possibility of real cost reduction and optimization of key business processes. 'Dmitry Shushkin, Deputy General Director of ABBYY Russia '

See also

• Overview of Electronic Document Management and ECM
• EDMS (Russian market)
• Trends in the Russian EDMS/ECM systems market
• Geography of EDMS/ESM projects
• EDMS in Russia: industry specifics