A Way to Green IT

There's an interesting article on SeaCoastOnline today discussing the many ways managers can green a company's IT. The author proposes a number of techniques, including recycling your eWaste, virtualizing your server structure and, most importantly in our case, introducing a comprehensive electronic document management system. GRM offers clients the benefit of dependable EDM services, and we've also virtualized our own server systems. If one of your primary goals is reducing your carbon footprint, we've got the means and the technology to make that a possibility.

From SeaCoast:

Document management technology, sometimes referred to as paperless office, also offers a very cost-effective way for a business to become more green. How much paper is wasted in your office? How much paper is stored in your office, year after year? That storage has a cost. If you use a records management service, there is a potentially large monthly cost associated with keeping your paper at a location other than your own office. If you use an efficient document management system, they can all become electronic, which can also be made more secure than paper, costs less to store and generates less waste.

Document Management in India

It's always interesting to get a look at what you're industry is doing in foreign markets. I keep extremely close tabs on news within the document management world here in the states, but every once and awhile some info pops up on trends in the UK or Asia, and today there's a great article on the state of the industry in India. The Indian website, NetworkComputing, has an excellent Q & A running on their site with a leading professional. In it he discusses the DM trends within the Indian business world, as well as what seems to be driving those trends.

From NetworkComputing:

Companies in India are phasing out conventional imaging solutions and adopting one vendor approach that can help consolidates their content and tag compliance based document lifecycle. They are looking out for a software solution where digital rich media, user desktop folder, office communication, customer documents and also digitized customer papers are stored in a searchable robust eFolder. Another trend is data archival, which otherwise was untapped by Enterprise Content Management (ECM) vendors or the older imaging solution providers. The financial services and telecom industries have already started to deploy enterprise content management solutions primarily because of the large volumes of data they have to secure and update. Now, even the government and manufacturing sectors are realizing the need to automate and access their content.

Certified Hard Drive Destruction

One of the most overlooked services GRM offers our clients is certified, secure and environmentally friendly hard drive destruction. It's a service that most companies need, yet very few actually invest in. Consider this:

- 235 million Electronic Units have accumulated in storage over the past 20 years

- Approximately 40 million computers became obsolete in 2007

- The majority of computers that are "recycled" are actually outsourced to other nations

All of these figures highlight the need for every business to find greener, more successful ways to dispose of their office electronics. GRM's definitive hard drive destruction process both gets rid of your old hard drives and ensures that the sensitive data within will never fall into the wrong hands.

Government Exploring Green IT

In a fascinating article from Baseline Magazine, one author takes a closer look at the current trends in government agency information management. The main findings show that more and more government departments are moving toward greener IT, which definitely means that electronic document management is on the horizon. It only makes sense, since efficiency and security are both such huge concerns in government.

From Baseline:

The National Association of State Chief Information Officers, an industry association based in Lexington, Ky., indicates that IT consolidation, security, resource sharing, Web 2.0, e-records management, and data and document management will be among the top priorities for its membership in 2009. Spending increases in the federal IT market are expected to slow down in the next several years—to just under 4 percent annually—after experiencing an average of 7 percent growth a year for the last two decades, according to INPUT, a market research firm in Reston, Va. INPUT projects that federal government IT spending will increase to $83.4 billion in 2009, up from $80.8 billion in 2008.

Visit our eAccess Digital Tour

In an effort to educate potential clients on the ease with which they will be able to navigate our eAccess program, GRM has posted a 4 minute showcase of the program on our website. Available through a link on our home page or directly through GRM University, the video highlights the finer points of eAccess, allowing you to see the benefits and ease of use of it's functions.

If you have contemplated utilizing a digital document management program in the past, this tutorial is a strong indicator of how convenient EDM can be. Many potential clients would love to introduce EDM, but are afraid the technology will be too difficult to use. Our eAccess center is so easy to navigate, all you need is computer access and a basic working knowledge of a PC or web browser. Just follow the link, watch the video and see for yourself how simple digital content management can be.