Over the past several decades, document management has been changing from pen and paper to fully digital and file cabinet storage to cloud storage. Outdated document management processes and lack of trust in cloud technology have challenged many business’s ability to implement modern document management processes and adopt to the cloud. Now more than ever, document management processes and cloud technology pose the biggest gains to employee efficiency and business productivity.
Here are four common document management pain points that many businesses face today.
1. Content spread across disparate repositories
Documents that are not properly stored and organized can be almost impossible for employees to locate, especially when there are years of organized business documents among multiple repositories. When businesses neglect to implement document retention practices and policies, employees, on average, spend up to 50% of their time searching for information on a document and 18 minutes to locate the document they need.[1]
2. Antiquated technology and widespread use of file servers
File servers are the most common customer repositories; however, most of these lack the technical features and functionality that enable employee productivity while mobile. Because of a poor user experience and convenience, employees will often turn to email for collaboration and content sharing. Email lacks the versioning and security required to protect confidential information. By turning to email for collaboration and content sharing, you are putting confidential information at risk.
3. Inability to locate content
Thousands of emails, spreadsheets, proposals, reports, and notes are created every year employees. Creating and saving content has never been easier. However, when content is saved and stored in multiple places like external hard drives, on premise systems such as SharePoint, and consumer cloud services such as Dropbox, finding the content becomes nearly impossible. When you neglect to enforce a tagging strategy or content location strategy, your content can end up anywhere, including outside your business.
4. Cloud misconceptions and under-use of cloud storage
Although there are many advantages to storing content in the cloud and using file sharing applications, it is hindered by the difficulties that come with initially moving all your content to the cloud. Security issues in user behaviors can be carried into the cloud, leaving content exposed to uninvited users. Trust in the cloud is one of the main barriers that keep businesses from adopting cloud storage.
SUMMARY:
These four document management pain points are just a few of the pain points that keep employees and businesses from adopting new document management policies and the cloud. The key to addressing and solving your document management pain points is to develop a document management strategy. Without a document strategy, it is unlikely that your pain points will be resolved.
Partnering with the right organization for your business’s cloud solutions is the best way to ensure that your document management pain points are addressed and resolved and that you get the most out of your cloud investments.
Our team of document management experts are ready to talk to you about your document management challenges and needs.
[1] http://www.m-files.com/Content/documents/en/res/ECM_Stats_White_Paper.pdf