Can you think of a business that runs without documents?
Even a small peddler needs to handle a bill now and then for the wares he buys. In the corporate world, we use documents all day and every day. Bits of critical information pass through these documents from person to person, desk to desk, department to department, office to office, and even from country to country. Bills, agreements, manuals, proposals, letters, brochures, policy documents, and many such documents help you communicate your information and ideas to your stakeholders within and outside your organization. What happens when you lose a document? In the best case, you lose a little time in searching or duplicating the work. In the worst case, your entire workflow can come to a screeching halt!
So the importance of efficient document management to a business cannot be overstated. It can make all the difference between a growing enterprise and a failing one! But why is document management so critical? Here are some major benefits that underline the importance of a proper document management system
1. Push in Productivity
When you and your staff don’t spend time searching for documents or re-creating them, there is more time to focus on your core activities. Effective document management improves workflows and reduces stress for your staff. This positivity has a cascading effect on all areas of your business like finance, workforce motivation, and operations.
2. Better Information Security
Imagine the implication that a breach of document security can have for your business! Loss of a big deal, loss of a great business idea, identity theft or several days and months of work nullified- It can be anything! That is why you need to spend effort and money in engaging a professional document management service. An efficient document management service is equipped with the technology and infrastructure for strongly securing your information. Most document management systems have inbuilt features to limit access to sensitive documents. Digital document management also protects your documents from physical damage by fire, flood, chemicals or other natural disasters.
3. Cost savings
A professional document management service using digital documents can cut costs for you in a number of ways.
Storage infrastructure: When your documents are in paper format, you will need storage rooms, cabinets, and lockers for storing and safekeeping huge volumes of documents.
Printing stationery: If you follow paper-based document management you will be spending on printing stationery like inks, paper, files, paper clips, and others.
Machinery: Buying and maintaining machinery like printers, scanners and copiers can be quite a drain on your resources
Personnel: Physical document storage may necessitate employing staff for handling storage, maintenance, retrieval and distribution of documents. With digital documents, you can reduce the costs you incur in hiring and retaining the additional personnel.
Distribution costs: The costs of sending physical documents through postal or other delivery services to distant locations can be avoided with digital documents. You and your staff can create and share documents instantly.
Relocation costs: When you have hordes of documents physically stored in your office, then when you have to relocate your office, you have to spend heavily on labor and transport to haul those document storage units and set them up in the new place. Digital document storage will spare you these costs.
4. Improved Collaboration
An efficient document management system facilitates better collaboration between your staff located in different geographies. They can co-author, share and review documents even when they are separated by miles and time zones. In today’s globalized business environment, achieving this kind of synergy is essential for growth.
5. Improved Decision Making
A digital management system means that businesses have a single digital platform for hosting all documents and information as and when they are generated. This benefits them in the following ways
- It enables them to track and measure their progress.
- It helps them identify and remove the bottlenecks in their processes
- The management can easily access reports and data for analytics. These reports will aid them in making informed decisions about their business and arrive at winning strategies
6. Easy Compliance
Compliance is a serious concern for a business because the cost of non-compliance if discovered can be quite high. The implications will not only be in monetary terms but also in trust and goodwill that can prove to be ruinous for the business in the long run. An efficient document management service increases transparency in operations and reduces the efforts needed for compliance.
7. Fosters Innovation
Another intangible yet important benefit of professional document management is that it fosters innovation. Improved workflows, less stress, a collaborative work atmosphere and better access to information sets the base for whipping up creative ideas. When an organization manages to create such a climate of enthusiasm and innovation then growth and success can’t be far away.
In conclusion, we can say that document management is not just important for a business, it is imperative! A business cannot survive competition if it sticks to outdated and chaotic paper-based document management systems. A digital document management service, on the other hand, will hasten a business firm’s digital transformation and push it ahead of the pack! Rannsolve offers the best in class document management services at affordable rates. Contact us today for more information.