The success of document management is integration

Ashley Ellington, Divisional Director, Softline Enterprise, says that today it is important for any organisation to operate efficiently. Although CRM and ERP applications provide the core functionality of most business, it is essential that the organisation’s information is securely stored and immediately accessible. Document and record management therefore need to be a tightly integrated into your business solution.

He says that records management can be a monumental and expensive part of doing business - with or without a document management system in place. While deploying a document management system involves changes to business processes and even job descriptions, if it is tightly integrated into your business processes the ROI can be extremely high.

A full-featured document management system not only manages a variety of corporate documents, but also includes comprehensive integration with workflow, project management, content management, and financial systems. The benefits of using a document management system as a sort of middleware to bridge the differences between the various corporate information systems include cost reduction, time savings, and substantially improved availability and transparency of corporate documents.

Dramatic savings of time and money are achieved by eliminating the printing and filing of outgoing and incoming documents. Authorised users can retrieve documents from anywhere on the network, either through a configurable enquiry screen or by drilling down through their business application software.

The savings in stationery, labour and storage costs relate to an immediate, tangible saving, while savings of time and money are achieved by eliminating the printing and filing of outgoing and incoming documents. As these archived documents can now be accessed in seconds, productivity is greatly improved, and by totally removing the need for traditional paper-based document storage space can be more effectively utilised.
 
Outgoing documents from your CRM or ERP applications are automatically archived, compressed and indexed for easy on-line reference and incoming documents, such as purchase invoices, proofs of delivery, etc, are easily stored. These documents may already be electronic images or they can be scanned in if received on paper. This does not only apply to all business documents, but also allows for the archiving of any document relating to customer contracts, correspondence, product literature, and certificates of conformance, for example.

“Success lies in getting the business to utilise the document management system to its full capacity. Building a good records management system is a complex undertaking. But, with proper preparation and focus on customer acceptance, an effective records management system will contribute substantially to an organisation’s efforts to streamline business operations and reduce operational costs. As with any large database system - and a document management system is a form of a database - the better the business requirements and processes are predefined and mapped before a system is chosen, the higher the probability of a successful deployment,” Ellington concludes.