Despite a tight economy where businesses are under pressure to drive down costs, there has actually been a growing customer interest in document management solutions (DMS) for their ability to save time, boost productivity and achieve cost savings. Companies are looking for more creative ways to save money and to do business more efficiently. DMS technology promises to do both.
The case for Document Management Solutions
We are finding that customers are increasingly acknowledging the substantial hidden costs of lost productivity in areas such as document management. While these expenses are not reflected on the balance sheet, the fact is companies today contend with an overwhelming number of documents within their organisations and employees waste hours searching for critical documents in both physical and electronic filing systems and e-mail software. Efficiency drops. Additional work is generated including follow-up calls or alternate plans. Customer service suffers. Business literally stops for as long as it takes to find the elusive document or the person simply gives up.
But DMS changes all of this by making every document within an organisation searchable by name or keywords contained in the document. And the search process is fast - very fast. Different versions of the document are automatically generated every time a change is made and every version is checked in and out of the system, carefully categorised and saved, so everything is always accessible, traceable and auditable. Over the past year of the global economic crisis, we have received a marked increase in queries about DMS systems.
Document Management Solutions - MFP partnership
With the addition of linked multi-functional devices (MFDs) to the system, every paper-based document within an organisation's workflow process can also be scanned and saved within the document management system. What this means is that every document relating to the business - whether it is internally or externally generated - can be stored on the system and is easily accessible at any point in time. And with Optical Character Recognition (OCR), even externally generated, handwritten documents can be understood by the system's intelligence.
Scanned documents are automatically sent to the correct departments within the business. For instance, Document Navigator, a document management solution that Itec distributes, works as follows. Instead of scanning a signed leave form and sending it to human resources yourself, a pop-up option displays on the MFP asking you to identify the form you are scanning so it can automatically send it to the appropriate department. Humans are easily distracted and it can happen that a document is sent somewhere else than to HR, so DMS helps reduce human error and decreases admin. The intelligence goes a step further. The system then extracts the relevant details and updates the company database. No one has to manually capture the details and assign leave to a particular employee. The DMS does it all for them.
In the case invoices, there are additional legal steps that need to take place. For example, the original supplier invoices need to be stored for a year, and can then be captured electronically after that. However, it is not enough to merely scan and save the document - there has to be a complete audit trail of when the document was scanned and who had access to it along the way. The DMS keeps track of all of this through the same simple process of pop-up screens, providing lists of suppliers, allocating documents to the correct folder, and saving them according to a set of pre-defined rules.
The same can be done with any forms - such as waybills, forex exchange forms or purchase order requests.
Time and money investment
Obviously, routing documents to the correct destination requires a thorough evaluation of the document workflow within a company to gain an understanding of who does what with which kinds of documents.
This consultation is labour intensive, and companies such as Itec partner with consultancies to provide these services to customers. In our case, both companies benefit from the arrangement because we have a large base of clients, 90% of whom run scan-enabled MFDs, all of which are able to connect to document management solutions. Our core business is still the hardware, but we aim to provide a complete solution to our customers.
While there is an upfront investment in the DMS consultation and implementation, most document management systems pay for themselves within the first few months. The boost in productivity is quickly evident.
However, unlike most system implementations, employees require virtually no training for routing documents correctly because the MFD by the means of Document Navigator provides users with simple clear directions and knows what to do with the data. This saves time and reduces the overall project cost.
Who needs Document Management Solutions?
No matter what industry you are in, you need to access information quickly. Historically there was greater demand for DMS from the banking and insurance industries given the large number of processes they need to manage and unsurprisingly, these implementations were very costly. But now, with DMS being highly scalable, any organisation can afford to implement a document management solution.
In addition, companies that want ISO certification also need a DMS solution because it provides a complete audit trail of all processes in the organisation. In the ISO auditing process, the company will be checked for documentation of all important processes, and whether they are followed by their employees. The DMS would create an audit trail, keeping track of who has worked on what and when. The same level of workflow management could take place in a paper-based environment, but it would need an army of clerks to keep it under control.
Customers are asking for these solutions and the demand is certainly there. While the challenge lies in developing the workflow rules, once done, the workflow cannot be destroyed because tight security measures are put in place. This adds value to the company and makes life easier for most of the employees, as well as saving money and time.