The Top 5 Reasons Organisations Decide to get a Document Management System

I’ve cheated a bit with this list as there are five top reasons which are consistent and, as with so much in the world right now, one which is COVID-inspired.?However, even though it’s inspired by COVID, point six is not going away?…... kind of like the virus itself!

As we get settled into 2022, more and more businesses are prioritising the digitisation of their paper archives and document-based processes.?

Prospective clients contact us for a variety of reasons but there are some common themes that come up again and again.?

I have compiled a list of the most common reasons and, if you read through this list and it starts sounding familiar, it’s time that we had a conversation.?Don’t let another year pass thinking “I’ll do it next month” only to find yourself paying the price of inefficiency and error-prone processes for another year.

1. They are getting busier and busier and their team can’t keep up?

Prospective clients come to us when they realise there aren’t enough hours in the day to do all the work which is needed.?

There is a misconception around automation that the main result is that people lose their jobs.?

That’s not what we find at all.?

More often, people automate processes because their businesses are growing and they need to help their team, not replace them.?Rather than adding more bodies to do more manual data entry and processes, they can implement a Document Management System which gives them time to focus on more valuable, profit-making tasks.

Savvy leaders will know the value of their team and that they are worth more than tapping words and numbers into a database all day.?

A Document Management System automates manual data entry which drastically reduces the time spent processing documents.

When hiring a host of new employees is the alternative, the ROI is clear to see.

2.??They can see their inefficiencies

We’ve all heard the phrase “work smarter, not harder”.

Those who contact us have often taken a step back.?They have looked at their slow, cumbersome processes and they know there must be a better way to achieve their goals.?

Rather than thinking “that’s the way we’ve always done it”, they look at what other businesses are doing and what solutions are on the market to make improvements.?

We frequently work with businesses in sectors such as Manufacturing and Engineering where “continuous” improvement is a core value.?Refusing to rest on their laurels they understand that improving processes and implementing new systems is key to customer service and differentiating themselves from their competition.

A Document Management System?is the next step in document control when you’re tried paper, network folders and emails in the past.?With a wide range of functionality, robust security controls and flexibility to suit your business and your processes, they can save you the most valuable commodity of all – time.

3. The fall out from an audit

Sometimes when we’re contacted it’s more reactive than proactive.?Something has happened that means the organisation can no longer bury its head in the sand.

Often that thing is an audit.?An audit that didn’t go well.

There was a specific document they couldn’t find, or it took a lot of time and panic to find it.?

A non-conformity was raised as it was clear a document process wasn’t performed as it should be.

Either way, they finished the audit thinking “I don’t want to go through that again.”

By storing incoming documents with consistent index fields and using OCR technology, a Document Management System ensures you will never lose a document again.?All your documents can be located with a few clicks and with much less head-scratching.

Processes are automated so a step is never missed, ensuring your organisation conforms to its own business rules.

Bespoke access permissions mean only those with adequate rights can see certain documents.?All interactions and movements of documents are recorded to give a clear audit trail.

4. A relationship with a customer or a supplier has broken down

This also falls into the category of reactive rather than proactive.?

When you work with paper-based processes, or you manage everything by email, it’s so easy for things to be missed.?These methods can also be very slow and documents can be hard to track and monitor.

I spoke to a prospective client last year who nearly lost their biggest customer because the paper order form fell down the back of a radiator.?After some last-minute scrambling, and good account management, they managed to salvage the situation but it made them realise the amount of risk their processes were exposing them to.

The same applies on the supplier side.?Being a notoriously late payer erodes supplier relationships and can prompt them to stop your orders or change your payment terms to the detriment of your business.

In both instances losing documents or having slow approval processes mean your customers and suppliers pay the price making you hard work to do business with.?

With a Document Management System, you can never lose a document.?Using the search features, you can not only search by the recorded index fields but also search the body of the document. As long as you remember a word that might be contained within the document you can find it in a search.

Quicker and more accurate processing makes you easy to deal with, differentiating you from your competitors.?Make them wonder why everyone can’t be like you.

5. Reduced paper use and storage costs

Despite using less and less paper in our domestic lives many business processes are still very paper-heavy.?Printing out emails, passing paper around people’s desks and banks of filing cabinets are still common in the business world.?

At some point, every business working this way will realise it is time-consuming, costly and very risky.?External storage costs can also be a burden and if businesses are looking to move or downsize, removing and not replacing the paper archive becomes a priority.?

It seems like a no-brainer that digital documents should stay digital and when organisations come to that realisation, they contact us.?

Removing a huge historic archive and turning paper-based processes digital can be a daunting task for many businesses but we’re here to help with that.?Remember, if you think your set-up is bad, it’s likely that we’ve seen worse.

We can start small and gradually move the business from paper to digital in a manageable, phased way.?We’ve worked on projects like this before so can advise on the best way to approach it and with as little disruption as possible to your team.

6. The pandemic and remote working

One of the most common responses I get when I tell people what I do is “I bet you’ve been busy over the last few years!”.?Yes, we have!

The move to remote working seemed circumstantial in May 2020 but it’s the way of the world now.?Paper or server-based processes meant that staff couldn’t work from home or were limited by slow VPN connections.

The limitations of an office-based system became dramatically apparent very quickly.?Some knew they needed to change and came to us quickly.?Some adopted a halfway house approach and are now coming to us because they know they need a more robust solution.?

Everyone realises remote working is here to stay and offering it is the key to sustainability for businesses.?

One of the unexpected consequences of the pandemic has been retaining and hiring the best staff.?If you don’t offer flexible working, your best staff may leave to work for a business that does.?When you come to hire a replacement, the recruitment pool will be limited as not many will now be prepared to do a 100% office-based job.

Our systems offer access from anywhere with a web connection.?You can pass documents around an organisation regardless of the employees’ location to manage approvals, get signatures and collaborate on documents.??It was a short-term fix for many but now it’s a long term solution with countless benefits they hadn’t even imagined before the pandemic.

Do any of those triggers sound familiar to you?