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In today’s era of economic uncertainty, most businesses are looking for ways to introduce greater efficiencies across broader swaths of their operations. Whether business leaders can make things more efficient, they stand to gain cost savings that strengthen their bottom lines and create resiliency against sudden change.
Manual processes are the most significant places organizations can drive efficiency. With so many technology solutions available on the market to automate what once was manual, businesses have their choice of where to start. When considering automating manual work, it’s best, to begin with, document management.
For three primary reasons, automating document management with a document management system can drive dramatic efficiencies across the board. Learn more about what they are below.
Streamline Processes
“Streamlining” encompasses saving time, making things easier, speeding up work, and removing bottlenecks. A document management system helps organizations achieve all of those objectives.
As a single place for your documents to live — either in the cloud or on-premise — your system saves employees time by eliminating tasks to sift through file folders or even digital ones when they can’t recall what they named electronic documents. Easy search-and-retrieve functionality makes finding documents simple.
Employees will work faster as they’ll benefit from greater content and collaboration tools with centralized access to documents. Bottlenecked processes that are commonly associated with manual paper-based operations will smooth out as tasks like reviewing, approving, and editing documents can all be done and tracked from one place. Automation in a document management system means no more manual transference of files from desk to desk, and it also means automatic storage with the right tags.
Even if your organization is already paperless to a degree, you still need a document management system to merge your files and break down any remaining siloes among people or departments. Information locked behind someone’s computer is of little use to your business if that person leaves. You’ll streamline information sharing in this way as well.
Reduce Risks
Paper poses a big risk to your organization until it can be electronically transferred to a document management system. Physical files can be stolen, damaged, or lost — anything from a coffee spill to a hurricane is a threat.
Aside from the inefficiencies introduced if the paper is lost or damaged, paper files also pose financial and cybersecurity risks. Any confidential or sensitive information on paper has a little barrier between it and a malicious actor other than a filing cabinet door. If your organization has already gone digital with some documents, they can still easily fall into the wrong hands if an employee unknowingly compromises their devices.
A document management system brings efficiency in the form of vigilant security to your organization. With permissions that can be set so only the right employees and parties gain access to the proper documents, you’ll know no prying eyes can infiltrate your files. The right solution and vendor should demonstrate its compliance with certifications and offer firewall, intrusion protection, antivirus, and other security tools.
You also run a significant compliance risk without a document management system. The right system will help you keep a trail of where a document has been, who interacted with it, what each version looked like, and more. These are essential components for demonstrating compliance, and depending on your industry, you cannot afford to run afoul of regulatory bodies. Nonadherence can result in fees and brand reputation damage.
Increase Productivity
A major way document management systems increase productivity and efficiency is by giving all relevant and permissible employees centralized access to documents. Without a centralized system, your documents either live in paper folders in physical filing cabinets only accessible to a person who can physically retrieve them, or they live in electronic repositories in individual computers or digital folders that are hard to find.
A document management system introduces a way for all appropriate parties to have easy, instant access to the files they need digitally. With a single platform housing all documents, your employees can find things faster — accelerating their work. They no longer have to sift through folders or ask around to see who has the document stowed on their computer. They’ll be more productive by not spending precious labor hours waiting for workflows to continue.
Providing this access also de-fragments your organization, so knowledge circulates better, and you remove the risk involved when someone leaves your company. Employees that have documents individually stored on devices pose risks if they terminate employment without handing that information over. A document management system ensures all current employees have access to the same data (if they’ve had the right permissions set) so everyone is on a level playing field when it comes to knowledge access.
Save Time and Money With a Document Management System
With your newfound efficiencies, your business will see a stronger bottom line. Employees will be more productive, documents will be more secure, and you’ll optimize your operations. Explore document management today to see how it can introduce and support efficiencies throughout your organization.
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