There’s no getting around it: The information your company uses and produces is only going to keep piling up. In fact, current research shows that the amount of digital data we create and copy is more than doubling every two years, according to IDC. To avoid sliding into data chaos, a document management system is essential.
By 2020, the digital universe — including your business information — is expected to reach 44 zettabytes, according to IDC. That’s 44 trillion gigabytes of data. It’s up to you whether your portion of that data is utter chaos, or tagged and analyzed in a way that helps your business grow.
Here’s one example of how a mid-sized company turned its document chaos into order:
Five years ago, the company’s accounting department consisted of about eight people working at desks in a large room. In between their desks were huge piles of printouts from different line-of-business systems. In order to create reports, these eight people had to manually combine, structure and condense the information hidden in those piles of accounting documents.
This slow, inefficient process created serious problems for the company, because the managers relied on these reports to make business decisions.
That’s when they decided to tame the document chaos. Five years later, all of those printouts were gone, and five employees could do work that once took eight people.
Bringing Order To Chaos With Document Management
If you’re ready to regain control, the first step is taking stock of the full extent of your document chaos. By “documents,” we’re really talking about business information, and that information comes in many forms: digital files, paper, emails and data.
That information may be hidden in a variety of places: One in four organizations have employees who are using unofficial cloud-based document sharing tools, according to AIIM, the Association for Information and Image Management.
Once you have a good understanding of your current situation, explore the advantages you’d gain by taking control. Using digital document management and a centralized content repository opens a variety of opportunities. To quote AIIM, “every content asset not managed is an opportunity lost for customer engagement and an opening for risk.”
Depending on your situation, these opportunities could include reducing risks and process costs, improving engagement with customers, employees and partners, and analyzing your business information to produce actionable insights.
As your business grows, your business information is only going to keep piling up. But even in the most chaotic office, you always have the option to turn it around.
To start improving your document processes today, download our free tip sheet, 7 Tips For Taming Document Management At Your Mid-Sized Company.
