Inneficient Document Management Wastes Tiime and Money

A recent study conducted by business management prof Dr. Peter Richardson found that nearly (and in some cases more than) half of most offices managerial time is spent dealing with managing electronic and hard-copy documents. According to the study, poorly managed document flow is one of the number one causes of wasted time, energy and lost capital at a business. That being said, investing in a professional document management facility like GRM or our new EDM division is a sure-fire way to streamline your company and save countless money.

From the start of an article on the study on ITWeb.com:

"Business management professor Dr Peter Richardson has discovered that as much as 50% of managerial time is devoted to document management. That amounts to more than four hours per day, or more than 120 days each year. Inefficient document management can impact companies' performances and lead to their failure. Dr Richardson, who is based at Queen's School of Business, in Ontario, Canada, points out that 40% of the time that business people spend on documents delivers "little or no value". He estimates the time spent finding, reviewing, writing, editing and sending documents costs businesses about $50 billion each year in lost productivity in Canada alone."

DAM vs. WCM

This morning I stumbled on an interesting (and oddly entertaining) article on the differences between digital asset management and web content management - neither to be confused with online document management. It points out an important thing, which is that many business owners can be confused, and subsequently put-off by EDM and similar practices because it all sounds too techy.

Here's a clip from the opening, but follow the link for the complete article:

"To begin, digital asset management (DAM) is too often mistaken as just a more elaborate form of document management or Web content management (WCM). Part of the confusion comes from WCM and enterprise content management (ECM) vendors who promote their systems as DAM tools, when really all they offer are generic repositories for binary files. For some customers, this “DAM-lite” approach might work, but enterprises that need to carefully manage rich media assets will require something much more specialized— which is what DAM provides."

Online Document Storage

One of the recent trends in document management is online document storage. These services and programs offer some of the benefits of traditional document storage centers, minus several that are crucial to most businesses. Although employing an online storage service or particular software that organizes and backlogs your files can be helpful, these programs still do not eliminate the problem of the massive amounts of hard copies most businesses still produce on a day to day basis.

One may consider using an online document storage program in conjunction with a more traditional storage center, but using a storage facility that offers scanning services and digital delivery effectively cuts out the need for both.

Environmental and Cash-Flow Benefits

According to a new report out of the UK today, employing a good document management program can afford your company both environmental benefits and increase cash flow. The article, which was published on OneStopClick's website, addresses why an office manager, corporate executive or small business owner should want to invest in a document management program. Reducing your companies carbon footprint is a great thing, but I imagine that the financial benefits offer even more appeal.

From the article:

"According to IT industry analyst Gartner, the technology can also decrease costs by reducing paper-based processes.Mark Gilbert, research vice president at the group, said energy savings can also be achieved through diminished paper production, distribution, usage and disposition, and transit through the postal system."Organisations are realising that process improvements and the move away from paper to electronic processes can also bring green benefits," he commented."

Comprehensive Media Storage

Keeping a back log of your company's important files and information is becoming more important with each passing year. Using an external hard drive is an easy and convenient way to back up all of the digital information in your office, but what is the point if a fire or natural disaster strikes your building? Keeping your backed up data in the same space as the original copies doesn't make sense, and document management centers provide a solution. Find a company that offers secure, off-site media vaults in which you may store older external hard drives and other back-up materials.

GRM's media storage program is one of the very best in the New York Tri-State. We're set-up to handle all forms of multi-media storage, and have proudly worked with production companies of all shapes and sizes. Our vaults not only offer the protection of being in a separate location, but also provide a far healthy environment for electronics than any office space. With computer controlled temperature and humidity and a minimal amount of dust and dirt - why would you trust your data to be stored anywhere else?