In today’s workplace, the inefficiencies of moving paper and employing manual processes may mount up. The conventional corporate practice of physically filing papers and generating paper trails significantly hinders an organization’s capacity to compete with the need for information—contracts, forms, approvals, and invoices—to be both accessible and secure.
Document management software exists to help businesses make the most of their most valuable assets: time and money.
Organizations can benefit from document management solutions in the following ways:
1. Improve Process Efficiency by Automating Tasks
- With rapid access to information, document management software may help staff operate more efficiently. This sort of software also allows businesses to automate workflows, which speeds up reviews and approvals and keeps corporate operations flowing.
- Furthermore, a document management system may assist companies in the following ways:
- Make use of clever search tools that allow you to search using any criteria.
- Improve accountability by streamlining document delivery with automated process routing and notification.
- Automated optical character recognition and indexing save labor and clerical errors.
- From a desktop computer, you can better manage your organization’s archives.
St. Louis Public School District has digitized its archives and active paper storage to simplify staff requisitions, and new employment was swiftly automated. The area employs 47,000 people and houses more than 4.5 million papers.
Staffing requisitions are now completed in three hours instead of three weeks, according to Clarissa Buckley, the district’s HR Information System Coordinator. As a result of the increased efficiency, the district can invest resources in new ventures and explore new possibilities.
2. Enhance communication between departments & throughout the organization.
- Whether you’re at the office or on the move, document management solutions make it simple to exchange papers electronically with colleagues and clients. A good document management solution can: be accessible remotely or online, allowing you to view and retrieve documents from anywhere you have internet access.
- Integrate easily with your website, giving consumers a consistent experience and allowing you to share read-only documents with the public in a safe manner.
- Maintain rigorous control over which papers are available to staff and the general public by balancing accessibility and security.
- Web browsers, smartphones, tablets, operating systems, and hardware allow you to work from almost anywhere.
Oakland County, Michigan, is home to more than 60 cities, villages, and townships, with a population of over 1.2 million people. The county hopes to empower government personnel to simplify operations and improve public services by digitizing information and automating procedures. Bill Jobes, Oakland County’s Program Manager, says, “We aim to make procedures more efficient, more automated, and better for the public.”
Through internet portals, they may now provide authorized government personnel and people more access to information. To keep residents informed, the county has improved procedural transparency. “We need to adopt innovation to grow,” adds Jobes.
3. Change your focus from document filing to business-critical objectives.
- An organization can make better use of time by using a document management solution.
- Employees may get documents and important information without having to leave their desks.
- To keep a track of documents that need to be viewed and signed by personals.
- Meeting with clients and completing transactions
- To avoid call-backs and phone tags, immediately respond to information demands from auditors and clients.
- Respond to client inquiries more promptly.
- Provide excellent customer service, which leads to increased profitability.
Halquist Stone, one of the Midwest’s major stone quarries, obtains sales orders that necessitate the collaboration among several departments spread over seven locations. The supervisors “were devoting two to three hours a day manually entering data,” according to Wade Balson, CFO of Halquist Stone.
Supervisors now input orders on iPads, and the data is immediately sent to the appropriate departments for processing. “Right now, we’re automating processes,” Balson explained. “That just tremendously increases my profit.”
4. Increase Bottom-line benefits by reducing paper, office, and additional recruitment costs
- Implementing a document management system necessitates an initial outlay of funds. Nonetheless, several market research and case studies have demonstrated that it does result in long-term savings. Organizations can save money in the long run by doing the following:
- Off-site storage expenses are reduced by eliminating the need for filing, duplication, and retrieval.
- Reduced downtime for organizations in the occurrence of calamities such as floods, fires, or theft
- Increasing the number of workstations or other active revenue-generating activities to replace paper storage space
For example, the Arkansas Department of Labor recently converted its manual system to enterprise content management to assure workplace safety for 3 million residents each year. Staff developed an electronic form that allows any citizen to file a salary claim online. Inspectors can quickly view the claims since they are kept in a digital repository.
The department can process wage claims in around a quarter of the time, saving the agency $60,000 per year and generating a strong ROI for the use of government funds. Their investment in technology will benefit citizens long after it has been implemented.
Bottom Line
Document management services are a technology that has the potential to replace manual procedures. Organizations can minimize paper storage, expedite processes, and increase communication by digitizing papers and managing electronic documents. Organizations will profit from this increase in efficiency by moving resources away from clerical tasks and then into revenue-generating jobs.
A tiny microscopic virus has precipitated a crisis of such unimaginably large magnitude that it has affected almost every aspect of our lives – health, travel, social interactions, work, and business.
The effect of this crisis is sure to be particularly long-lasting in the business sector where experts say that the reverberations might be felt for months or maybe even years.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has released a research report on disaster preparedness which says that 40 % to 60% of small businesses affected by a disaster never re-open!
Documents are critical assets that are of immense value to any organization and losing them or not having access to them during a crisis can bring business operations to a grinding halt.
Paper-based physical document management systems are more likely to put your business at such a risk.
A professionally managed digital document management system, on the other hand, makes it easier for you to recover from the crisis.
