Do You Need A Document Management Solution?
Five Always Worthwhile But Sometimes Painful Questions.

by Derek Carbonneau

Every business has a document management challenge and every business has developed, over time, ways to cope with that challenge. Whether your current document management solution looks like rooms scattered around the country filled with filing cabinets and armies of clerks, or as simple as stacks of cardboard boxes piled around the perimeter of your office, there are affordable, realistic, and functional solutions available to help.

To help you decide if your company has outgrown your current methods of dealing with your document management challenge I have come up with five simple questions to access your needs.

Q: Does filing, retrieving and storing paper documents consume human and monetary resources that could be better used elsewhere?

A: If you currently have staff members that are dealing with paper filing and duplication tasks whose time could be put to better use then you are missing a major opportunity. It’s not uncommon to be able to shift 2/3 of resources dedicated to paper handling to other tasks after implementing a solid document management system. On top of the time saved a recent Price-Waterhouse study estimated average storage, cabinet, and paper costs to conclude a lifetime per-page cost of 25¢ to store paper; costs that are completely eliminated by going digital.

Takeaway: Whether it provides the ability to scale your business without additional hires or the option to reassign resources to more valuable tasks a document management solution should be in your plans.

Q: Does your company have compliance standards or regulatory oversight that must be adhered to?

A: If you’re a public company, Sarbanes-Oxley makes the answer an automatic yes but even small and medium sized privately owned business face OSHA, taxation, employment and other federal guidelines for document storage and security. Depending on you particular specialization your business probably also faces requirements associated with HIPAA, ISO, FDICIA, the USA PATRIOT Act, or a host of other rules and standards. Even public schools must comply with FERPA document arbitration and handling procedures. When faced with facts like, 2-4% of all documents are misfiled and 7.5% are completely lost, the possibility of non-compliance is high.

Takeaway: Document management systems do away with the risk of misfiling or losing documents meaning you can always produce the document that your auditors are requesting.

Q: Is there gap between your paper information and your enterprise data?

A: Even after implementing CRM, BPM, and ERP systems a huge portion of your corporate knowledge still exists only in paper form. Vendor invoices, bills, P.O.'s, quotes, fax orders, and packing slips (to mention a few) are still filed, duplicated, passed around, and inevitably lost. Many businesses also have repositories of technical information or historical reports that are only available as paper at a single geographic location - not to mention the documents stored on desktop hard drives and personal filing cabinets. Ask any business affected by hurricane Katrina just how large this gap is.

Takeaway: A document management system that is integrated with your enterprise software allows you to access your entire business knowledge storehouse from your desktop with security settings, back-ups and disaster recovery safeguards.

Q: Do you have paper-intensive processes that create delays or lack oversight?

A: Another study estimated that 90% of all paper documents passed around an organization on a daily basis are merely shuffled and that no significant information is added or decisions made – sound familiar? It is also said that corporate professional staff spend 40-60% of their time processing paper. Ensuring that each step in a process is completed correctly before being passed on can cut processing time by as much as 50%. Add the efficiencies of completing these approvals online, without geographic barriers and automating a few key processes can turn into a serious competitive advantage.

Takeaway: A document management solution with a workflow process lets you recreate cumbersome paper processes online allowing you to speed approvals and giving you the oversight you need to determine where these processes are breaking down, stalling, or working smoothly.

Q: Do you have multiple departments, sites or remote employees that need access to the same content?

A: If you have multiple sites or remote sales representatives a document management solution can almost certainly increase collaboration and speed document processing. In some cases the cost of physically sending packages between sites may pay for a significant portion of the system!

Takeaway: Whether it is allowing sales people to remotely submit expense reports and project quotes or the power to reorganize your A/P processes to allow for central processing the ability to share knowledge, route information, and silo responsibilities across multiple sites will save your business money and promote efficiency.

If you have answered yes to even one of these questions then implementing a document management strategy for your business can streamline operations, encourage cooperation, and enforce security & compliance – giving your company a competitive advantage.

© docAssist, Inc 2006