The Benefits of an Electronically Managed Document Environment
Have you ever wondered how many paper-based documents – notes, memos, letters, faxes, reports, proposals, photocopies, presentations, etc. – your organisation produce everyday? You probably have no idea.
Without any form of electronic or digital document management system, you’ll have mountains of paper files and probably run out of filing cabinets to store them.
An Electronic Document Management System (EDMS), commonly referred to as Document Management Software is a solution used to track and store electronic documents.
Document Management provides a simple and efficient way to input, retrieve, manage revisions (managing multiple versions of a document), collaborate, track and retain all of the unstructured data that doesn’t already exist in your organisation’s enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), and other computer systems.
Today’s businesses are continually looking for efficiencies and cost savings. An end-to-end document management system can provide your business with a solid continuity plan, more efficient use of space and time, as well as enhanced customer support. With little to no disruption to the business and a justifiable cost of entry, an electronic Document Management solution is a highly efficient platform that provides an impressive return on investment and lets businesses focus on what’s important – the bottom line.
Below are five positive changes that can come from adopting digital document management, plus a handy guide to calculating the figures for your own organisation. (Via Laserfiche ECM Blog)
1. Freedom from pricey paper
This is a great starting point for ROI calculation as the results can be quite accurate. Paper-related costs can be tallied by analysing the following expenses:
- Rent for offsite document storage
- Filing supplies, such as cabinets and folders
- Shipping of documents to clients, offsite departments, etc.
- Ink, toner and other printing costs
- The cost of paper itself
2. Time is on your side
A recent report found that information workers spent up to 20% of their time filing and searching through paper documents. On top of that, they wasted over 10 hours a week searching for, but not finding, documents, recreating lost documents and other time-consuming tasks. These figures can be attributed to the problems inherent in hard copy document management.
By implementing document management in a digital format, companies can allot more time to using information and less time to finding it. Instead of wondering who has a report or combing through archives for hours, employees can instantly retrieve documents within a digital repository through a simple search.
3. Data safe, boss happy
If you think losing one file is frustrating, imagine losing thousands of them in a flood, fire or other disaster. Rather than cutting back on current unnecessary expenses, a disaster recovery plan is all about avoiding future ones. Ask your superiors if maintaining rooms full of paper documents is worth millions of dollars in restoration costs.
4. Bye-bye busy work
What can you do with all the time saved through digital document management? More work, obviously! By spending less time on processing contracts, invoices and customer inquiries, companies increase their work capacity and potential for growth.
5. Space, not waste
We’ve just gone over what to do with extra time, but what about all that extra space? Look around your office and imagine what it could look like without all the file cabinets and storage rooms. All of that space could be used more productively. Just remember, a productive environment isn’t solely about rows and rows of workstations!
Document management software (DMS) came about to provide an automated way of organising, capturing, digitising, tagging, approving, storing, accessing, and completing tasks involving your business files and documents. Cloud-based document management software will even provide you a secure, central online repository of your documents where you can easily search and retrieve files and share with others. All these translate to efficiency, productivity, and savings. And you contribute to the paperless movement that’s good for the environment.
DMS functionality often overlaps with those of content management systems (CMS), digital asset management (DAM), and record management systems. These systems have specialised functions with features for their specific purpose, although DMS by the nature of its function has grown to encompass capabilities and tools for collaboration, security, workflow, auditing, and for managing electronic documents.
