Document Management System Vs Cloud Storage

As your business grows, you have a huge influx of company data, like documents, spreadsheets, employee information, pricing modules, media files, and so much more. Now you will be facing the dilemma of securing this critical information safe from unauthorized eyes.

A lot of companies face this dilemma and approach us for a solution. When we suggest a document management system to them, the first question that we are asked is what is a document management system? Isn’t it a file server or a cloud storage system like Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, or iCloud with some cool features?

To answer this question, yes, you can absolutely use a file server or a cloud storage system to backup and store your documents and data, but that’s all you can do.

This article tries to explain the difference between a document management system and a cloud storage system so that you can better understand what your business needs to keep up and protect your confidential company, employee, and customer information.

Before proceeding further, you need to ask yourself the following 5 questions:

1. How important are the documents you’re dealing with each day and can you afford to lose them?

2. Does your daily operations in a business context revolve around your documents?

3. Do you have people outside your company who count on you to maintain those documents?

4. How fast can you find those documents regardless of the volume?

5. Do compliances like FDA, ISO, HIPAA, FINRA, and SEC mean anything to you?

If your answer to the first question is “very important that cannot be lost”, the second and third questions are “yes”, the fourth question is “takes a long time to find” and the fifth question is “very important” then definitely you require a Document Management System and not a Cloud Storage System.

Essentially, the cloud’s core function is?storage. A document management’s core function is?organization, operation, and preservation.

Some of the most noticeable differentiators between Document Management and Cloud Storage that will help you make a more informed decision for your organization are:

Key Differentiator 1: Integration

Using a Document Management System, you can seamlessly capture, store, edit, approve and retain documents of all formats in a single platform. Additionally, a Document Management System provides collaboration, version control, and workflow with electronic signatures for document approvals. In other words, you can track the complete life history of a document in a Document Management System while in a Cloud Storage System you can only store the documents.

Key Differentiator 2: Workflow

The well-oiled workflow processes of a Document Management System ensure that the?right people receive the right document at the right time and can collaborate on, edit, and sign it in real-time to guarantee increased efficiency and compliance. This is not possible using a Cloud Storage System.

Key Differentiator 3: Retention

Document Retention rules can be set in a Document Management System. This ensures that when a document reaches its end of life, the Records Managers are alerted to purge the expired records.?This structure helps to increase productivity and reduce costs. This is not possible using a Cloud Storage System.

Key Differentiator 4: Security

The access control features of a Document Management System based on their roles safeguard your critical business documents and safeguard them from unauthorized access. Moreover, a detailed audit trail of a Document Management System helps track all the activities done on a document. This ensures that the security of the document is never compromised. This feature is not available in a Cloud Storage System.

Key Differentiator 5: Compliance

In case you need your documentation process to comply with regulatory compliances like ISO, FDA, HIPAA, FINRA, and SEC that have very strict requirements of security, password aging, audit trail, version control, approval, etc., you will need to have your documents stored in a Document Management System and not a Cloud Storage System because you should be able to provide the right document immediately during compliance audits. This is only possible using a Document Management System where you will be able to retrieve documents almost instantly using various advanced search techniques.

Thus, you can see that there are quite a few noticeable differences between a document management system and a cloud storage system.

If you take nothing else away from this article, just remember: the cloud is about storage, and document management is about organization, operation, and preservation.