Is your organisation working at the ‘speed of paper’?

speed of paper

The mass of incoming business information in an organisation is expected to grow 4.2* times the current volume in the next two years. What’s more, 60%* of this information is likely to be unstructured (like a conversation or an email) or semi-structured (like an invoice).

These figures should give you a pause, especially if you are in a department such as Legal, Finance or HR that faces an overwhelming number of documents, across multiple channels, every single day. If you are heavily reliant on paperwork, it’s time to get your business out of the box with enterprise class solutions that reduce paper handling and associated inefficiencies; and simultaneously improve office productivity and processes.

Curiously, more than 50%* enterprises view document automation as ‘highly important’’, and yet they struggle with document management. The question of what to adopt – i.e. DMS (Document Management System) or ECM (Enterprise Content Management) – adds to the confusion.

Let #BizOutOfTheBox set the record straight for you!

DMS is focused towards setting up a repository of documents within an enterprise. It is a software solution that allows users to scan, store, manage, share, track digital documents and is essentially geared at digitsation of documents. However, documents are generally stored in an unsearchable format and retrieval is an issue. DMS as a term has been slowly overtaken by ECM.

ECM is no one single technology. Rather, it is a customised solution of strategies, tools and methodologies that fulfill an enterprise’s requirements – from capture, collection, data extraction and processing to storage and delivery of information; integrating collaboration and search capabilities every step of the way. In other words, it is an organisational process methodology. ECM allows management of large volumes of structured, semi-structured and unstructured data including electronic documents, images, web content, media files and emails.

ECM’s biggest strength is the integration of a robust search facility (with OCR) that can search both structured and unstructured data within documents. When you consider 18 minutes is the average time spent looking for a document in a paper heavy office, finding the file you need in seconds makes all the difference.

If any of the above resonated with you, then it’s time to get your #BizOutOfTheBox and consider robust enterprise content management systems such as e-bizVAULT and FingerTips. Both give you the assurance of best-in-class security as creators can maintain watertight rules to ensure the right people see the right documents at the right time.

^* For all data points, refer the Intelligent Information Management (AIIM) website.