Document Management vs. Classic Paper Routing

Document management has several advantages over traditional paper routing. It allows for increased productivity, cutting costs, and gives an organization the ability to respond dynamically to external changes. It costs a typical company 10 - 20 times more in form usage than the cost of paper itself.

To give a more detailed account of the actual cost of paper processing, you need an understanding of how much time and money is spent in each process. During the labor process, which can account for such tasks as loading, bursting, copying, collating, folding, and accessing papers, it can take approximately 10 minutes for the average employee. At a labor cost of $15.00 per hour, then one can say it would cost an additional $2.50. That small amount can easily add up over time, even in one week. Waste and inventory are two other processes involved. Waste is produced in the loading and printing stages. In most cases, no less than 2 forms are wasted in every print run. Inventory is of course the storage of paper, which can take a considerable amount of time if the inventory is fairly large and complex.

Another notable advantage of document management over paper routing is retrieval of documents. This is by far one of the most significant differences. The time it takes to retrieve a document by hand can vary on the size of the inventory, but is ideally slower than finding it electronically. Since many documents are filed according to an index number, a simple search for a particular document can take nearly seconds. Let's say a purchasing department is looking for an invoice by a certain invoice number. A simple search by that number can retrieve the invoice very quickly. Doing this same process by hand could mean looking through several different categories before the invoice number would be accessible. Typical case would be by company, then contact or manager.

Clearly there are advantages using document management over paper routing. How are you currently using this system or think it might improve your processes if you were?

October 5, 2005 | Comments (0)
Posted by Kenny

The Cure For Missing Document Syndrome

If you move paper items like most companies you've probably encountered missing document syndrome. Documents occasionally disappear without a trace. Missing documents not only cause headaches for everyone involved, but also cost companies money in lost productivity. If the document was never lost to begin with, man hours would not be spent searching for the document or recreating the data. The problem lies in the fact that people forget things. Everyday people forget their keys, wallet, purse, etc.. so why would documents be any different? The fact is they are not any different, but there is a solution to missing document syndrome: Proper Electronic Document Management. When a document is inserted into an electronic document management system, it is stored in a central area that is accessible to those who need access to it. It also shows a 'paper trail' as to who has read, modified, or commented on the item. This cuts down dramatically on the need to search for lost items since users who need access to the documents have access. Items can even be set so that it is impossible for the user to delete it, making sure the document doesn't get removed from the system prematurely. Managers can also see who has signed off on the document and where it is in a business process allowing them to manage the process resources effectively.

Don't look for your documents, manage them!

September 21, 2005 | Comments (0)
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Physical Disaster Without Data Disaster?

Nobody thinks a disaster is in their future. In fact, most companies think they are immune from disasters. After all, very few companies are making proper backups. Of course, a backup is no good if the medium can not be accessed or the data becomes irrelevant before being recovered. What's the solution? Simple! Proper off site document/information management.

With a good document management system in place, documents (read: data) can be held in a safe off site location. The majority of colocation companies today have many safeguards in case emergency situations arise. I recently took a tour of a colocation facility which housed servers controlling content for many different companies. Not only could the location promise no downtime in the event of a hurricane, they also had safeguards in case of earthquake, fire, long term power outage, heat wave, looting, etc.. They also, of course, had video cameras everywhere, a multilevel physical access system along with locked cabinets in server cages for security. Picture having your information managed off-site knowing they had that kind of protection! With the document management piece running on the server you can be assured your documents can be searched, retrieved, and worked on in a timely, cost sensitive manner.

With a server in place with a protected colocation service as well as having a good document management solution in place your company can continue or resume working prior to the disaster. If a disaster were to hit tomorrow and your business was destroyed, could you resume business in another location tomorrow? How long could you afford to be closed?

September 14, 2005 | Comments (0)
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What the Morgan Stanley Judgment Means

Many industries have had notable tipping points. The point at which everybody woke up and said, 'we have to pay attention to this'. Some within the records retention and document management sector say the recent $1.45 billion judgment against Morgan Stanley is that tipping point. A big number like that will get the attention of CEOs, COOs and general counsels.

Have we received more calls or questions from clients? Not really from our existing base but we do believe decisions to purchase are being made much faster because the ROI regarding legality is obvious.

Records retention issues related to Sarbanes-Oxley and previous regulatory rules has thrust EDM and ECM to the forefront for a while, but we've always been here. EDM and ECM shouldn't be viewed as a way to 'comply' with regulations, it should be a way to operate more efficiently. Managing your information from the beginning means compliance isn't such a scary thing after all.

The clients we do get because they are looking for compliance only are amazed at what we can offer them. They think compliance means putting all the documents in a repository. Anybody can store documents (or maybe not in Morgan Stanley's case), it's the intelligent retrieval that's the trick. It''s not the technology, it's the correct application of technology that creates the efficiency.

When we meet with a compliance-seeking client we start by asking how the documents might be searched for or the paths that they may take to multiple people. Often they don't want to go down this road, they think we're trying to 'pad' our proposal. After discussing the matter a bit more they realize that there is value in the solution and the 'proposal padding' is going to save them time and money.

What does the MS judgment mean? For the less-than-ethical sales people it's a great F.U.D. headline. For us it is an opportunity to switch the conversation from compliance to efficiency

On a related note, PR blogger Neville Hobson talks about some other issues related to Sarbanes-Oxley.

June 13, 2005 | Comments (0)
Posted by DocuVantage