It’s that time of the year here in the Midwest, when we are on alert for inclement weather. If you have seen the movie Twister you know what I am talking about. The dark clouds that produce rainstorms and damaging hail and ultimately tornadoes and potentially mass destruction. We have all seen the newscasts where entire buildings and even cities are wiped out is the matter of seconds. This should get you thinking about how secure your documents are. Are you protected if something were to happen to your paper and electronic documents? You back up your digital files, but are there redundant backups? Are the backups in a different location, in a different city or in a different state? If you are not sure, or if the answer is no, you should consider the use of a document management system to protect your valuable records.
Not only is a document management system a wise choice for eliminating paper, but it also provides workflow tools for improving processes. As an added bonus, it also provides backup of your most critical documents. Documents that if you suddenly lost could be catastrophic for your organization. In fact, the Gartner Group reports that 43 percent of companies were immediately put out of business by a significant loss of their records and another 51 percent permanently closed their doors within two years. That totals a staggering 94 percent.
It is hard to process those numbers, and yet many companies completely ignore then. What is strange about this is those same companies would never think about not having the proper insurance for business interruption from cyber-attacks, fire or theft. Yet something as simple as a cloud based document management system can provide real peace of mind, and allow you to continue to operate your company after a catastrophic event.
The use of cloud based imaging solutions also dovetails nicely with Office 365, cloud based CRM and ERP systems and cloud storage for other digital files. But a cloud based documents management system goes well beyond simple cloud storage. The use of a database and structured indexing provides consistency when storing and retrieving documents. Relationships that link documents such as invoices to purchase orders and receivers are standard components in most systems. Add to that e-forms and workflow and suddenly you have a solution that not only provides the peace of mind that your documents are safe, it also provides the added benefit of streamlined processes and efficiency gains.
Don’t wait for a rainy day before deciding to implement a document management solutions. If you do it may be too late.
Jack Arnston is a Principal at The Priton Group. He can be reached at jarnston@pritongroup.com.