Smart System Design: How to Get the Information You Need from Your Document Management System, Every Time

Have you ever planned a lengthy trip to an unfamiliar place? Even if you choose an ideal location, you’ll probably be disappointed unless you define your expectations. Typically, this involves doing thorough research, gathering and organizing the information you need, and creating a detailed itinerary that reflects your expectations. If your trip requires a significant investment, you’ll most likely work hard to ensure that expectations are fulfilled.

Likewise, to get superior results from an electronic document management (EDM) system, smart vendor choice must be matched with detailed planning and intelligent system design. Whether you tackle the challenge alone or hire your vendor’s services team to help, you should start by analyzing, streamlining, and organizing the structured forms that drive your daily business processes. Insurance claims, invoices, applications, and other standardized documents all have unique properties. Each must be understood thoroughly. By asking the right questions about each document initially, you’ll eliminate costly mistakes. You’ll also increase the likelihood your EDM solution will deliver the information everyone needs – swiftly, accurately, and consistently.

EDM brings all of your core business information – unstructured documents (such as email or voice messages) as well as structured documents (such as your core business documents) – into one place where content can be searched, viewed, and managed. To ensure quick and appropriate access, you must know when, where, and by whom the content will be needed. Each document must be:

• Captured correctly
• Indexed thoroughly
• Stored in a useful format

Capture, index, access – it’s actually pretty straightforward – but only if you ask the right questions.

Capture correctly

If you’re capturing core business documents digitally, you need a structured methodology. Choosing the best method for capture – scanning, online forms, bar codes, etc. – ensures your solution will be well-matched to the type of information you need to store, but it’s just the beginning. A smart system design – the set of parameters you establish to ensure the capture process is governed by clear and logical business rules – is equally important to your success. A thorough document inventory and analysis, coupled with an appropriate scanning file for each document type, will ensure consistency and accuracy as each document type is scanned for digital storage and use.

1. Conduct a document inventory

Understanding your documents starts with a thorough inventory and analysis of the documents you use in your business. Ask yourself:

• What forms and other structured document types do we use routinely?
• Are there structured documents with similar functions that can be combined?
• What are the logical categories into which each document types should be placed (departments or broad categories such as invoices or legal documents)?

Collect a sample of each document type and analyze it carefully. Determine which content must be discoverable in response to employee needs, regulatory requirements, or third-party demands. Whatever information is critical for locating your core documents – customer name, zip code, document type, account number, amount of sale, balance due, etc. – must be indexed for quick and successful document retrieval. Consider which content needs to be locked down for restricted viewing to satisfy regulations or internal policies. Determine which groups should be authorized to view, edit, or delete specific content (such as social security numbers, medical information, or account balances) so you can assign rights accordingly.

2. Determine appropriate scanning profiles

To ensure consistent, correct, and complete scanning of the document types that are processed routinely by your business, you need to establish scanning profiles for each. This ensures the person scanning the documents will automatically have the right setup for scanning when a document type is selected. Study each document type, asking yourself if each is:

• One-sided or two-sided
• Single or multi-page
• Black and white or color
• Scanned as a single document or in batches

Also ask:

• In which format should each document be stored (PDF, TIFF, etc.)?
• What security needs to be applied to each document type, i.e., which user groups will be permitted to access the document?

Configuring the right scanning profiles for each document type simplifies the scanning process for employees and significantly reduces the incidence of errors.

Index intelligently

1. Establish required metadata

In order for documents to be found by everyone who is authorized to access them, each document must be classified thoroughly using key words, phrases, and document codes that identify the type and content of each file. A robust EDM system allows detailed indexing that goes far beyond the simple sorting most hardware allows. If you follow best practices for indexing and consult the staff who need access to the documents for their work during the information gathering process, there is no reason any document should become irretrievable… ever. Make sure you:

• Assign metadata to important data (for example, “zip code” would be the metadata that describes the data “17406” and “city” would be the metadata for “Dayton”)
• Determine the format for data in each metadata category (i.e., zip codes must be numeric, names must be alpha, customer ID numbers must be alphanumeric with 3 alpha plus 5 numeric, etc.)
• Decide which information on each document is important to ensure thorough indexing – not just to you, but to others within your organization
• Evaluate whether documents that have similar metadata categories (such as ‘ship date’ and ‘shipping date’) can be combined as one metadata object or must be kept separate

Access appropriately

1. Decide who needs access

Security concerns have increasingly taken the spotlight in recent years. All the regulation in the world can’t guarantee honesty or obedience. EDM, however, can – and will – if you choose a robust system and configure it properly. Ask yourself:

• How can our business divide its workers into logical groups and subgroups – e.g., directors, marketing team, HR team, accounting?
• Which users should belong to each group?
• Which document types does each group or subgroup need to access?
• What are the routine business processes for which each document type is used, or the specific processes that should be initiated upon receipt (digital capture) of a specific document type?
• How does each group need to interact with each document type? What user rights does each group require, e.g., viewing, editing, deleting, indexing, re-indexing, annotating, forwarding via email, etc.
• What additional metadata filters need to be put in place to permit appropriate group rights (such as allowing accounting staff to view information about amounts due, vs. blocking the data from view by marketing and HR employees)?

2. Define search parameters

Take advantage of a flexible EDM system by configuring searches that are appropriate for each group’s needs. That way, you’ll make searches more consistent, efficient, and fruitful. How does each group of users need to search for business content in your organization? Do your users need to:

• Search for information by department (accounting files, HR, etc.)?
• Query by document type (invoices, purchase requests, resumes, expense reports, etc.)?
• Locate specific content within documents? (If so, make sure that content is indexed for optimal results.)

By defining the parameters and categories for search, you’ll ensure that your staff’s searches are guided and efficient, and will supply the information workers need to carry out tasks and make appropriate decisions. If you decided carefully during the indexing planning process which information each user type needs to find on each document and created searches to retrieve it, authorized persons should be able to consistently find your documents 100% of the time.

Onward and upward

Capture, index, access. It sounds easy, and with proper planning, it is. After you have a system design in place that delivers your documents any time and place you need them, you can let your imagination run wild. Capture and storage are just starting points for effective automation of your business, but it’s critical to get it right. Invest time in careful system design so you can turn your first steps of digital efficiency into a groundswell of success.

Davis Business Machines offers an integrated suite of imaging, document management, and workflow software. Follow news, photos and video coming from Davis Business Machines by subscribing to our news feed by visiting www.dbm.net/articles?rss or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/dbmnet. To learn more about our products and services, visit us at www.dbm.net or call us at 1-800-287-9326.

Canon U.S.A. Honored As One Of The Best Channel Vendors By Business Solutions Magazine

(Lake Success, NY) - For the second consecutive year, Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging and advanced office solutions, has been selected by Business Solutions Magazine (BSM) as one of the best channel vendors for the upcoming year. Working with Penn State University, BSM conducted a Web-based survey of their Value-Added-Reseller (VAR) subscribers to rate and rank their vendor partners in the following categories: Service/Support, Channel Friendly, Channel Program, Product Features, Product Reliability, Product Innovation, and Adequate VAR Margins.

"To be honored by BSM as one of the Best Channel Vendors for the second year in a row is a testament to Canon's commitment and dedication of meeting the diversified needs of our channel partners by providing them with the best in office solutions, services and support," said Jim Rosetta, vice president and general manager, Imaging Systems Group, Canon U.S.A., Inc. "We are very proud to receive this prestigious accolade and we look forward to continuing our tradition in excellence into 2010."

During the nearly month-long survey, more than 12,000 votes were cast, resulting in one of the largest and most detailed surveys of its kind. Scores were calculated by BSM editorial staff and Penn State University, with overall vendor scores determined by adding the cumulative scores of the seven categories and dividing that score by the number of VAR subscribers who rated them. Vendors were broken down into a variety of technology categories for the survey and those who received too few votes were excluded from consideration. VAR subscribers rated its vendor partners in a scale of 0 (worst) to 5 (best) in seven different categories. This year's results show Canon received higher ratings in every category compared to last year.

Canon works closely with the value-added-reseller channel to provide a wide variety of its imageFORMULA document scanners, network scanners, and check transports, as well as imagePROGRAF large format printers and imageCLASS multifunctional printers.

About Business Solutions Magazine
Business Solutions Magazine inspires executives of IT channel companies (VARs, integrators, and solution providers) to grow their businesses by teaching them how to sell new IT products and services, penetrate thriving vertical markets, and integrate complementary technologies. Business Solutions Magazine delivers its insight through channel success stories and advice from industry analysts, vendors, and our expert technology editors.

About Canon U.S.A., Inc.
Canon U.S.A., Inc. is a leading provider of consumer, business-to-business, and industrial digital imaging solutions. Its parent company, Canon Inc. (NYSE:CAJ), a top patent holder of technology, ranked third overall in the U.S. in 2008†, with global revenues of US $45 billion, is listed as number four in the computer industry on Fortune Magazine's World's Most Admired Companies 2009 list, and is on the 2009 BusinessWeek list of "100 Best Global Brands." Canon is committed to the highest levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty, providing 100 percent U.S.-based consumer service and support for all products. At Canon, we care because caring is essential to living together in harmony. Founded upon a corporate philosophy of Kyosei – "all people, regardless of race, religion or culture, harmoniously living and working together into the future" – Canon U.S.A. supports a number of social, youth, educational and other programs, including environmental and recycling initiatives. Additional information about these programs can be found at www.usa.canon.com/kyosei. To keep apprised of the latest news from Canon U.S.A., sign up for the Company's RSS news feed by visiting www.usa.canon.com/rss.

Canon Group Donates $200,000 To Haiti Relief Efforts

(Lake Success, NY) - The Canon Group, including Canon Inc., Canon U.S.A., Inc and Canon Latin America, Inc., today announced that they have pledged approximately $220,000 (20 million yen) to the Haiti relief and recovery efforts, following the devastating earthquake that struck the region, causing extensive destruction and loss of life.

The Canon Group is contributing to the relief efforts for victims of the earthquake through donations to Red Cross Organizations which will help to provide the people of Haiti with necessary supplies and services including food, water, temporary shelter, medical services and emotional support.

"The Canon Group would like to express its condolences to the people of Haiti and our thoughts go out to all of the people that have been affected by this inconceivable natural disaster," said Joe Adachi, president and chief executive officer, Canon U.S.A., Inc. "A tragedy of this magnitude requires support from the global community and it is our hope that our contribution, along with all of the aid coming in from around the world, will help the people of Haiti begin the rebuilding and healing process."

About Canon U.S.A., Inc.
Canon U.S.A., Inc. is a leading provider of consumer, business-to-business, and industrial digital imaging solutions. Its parent company, Canon Inc. (NYSE:CAJ), a top patent holder of technology, ranked third overall in the U.S. in 2008†, with global revenues of US $45 billion, is listed as number four in the computer industry on Fortune Magazine's World's Most Admired Companies 2009 list, and is on the 2009 BusinessWeek list of "100 Best Global Brands." Canon is committed to the highest levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty, providing 100 percent U.S.-based consumer service and support for all products. At Canon, we care because caring is essential to living together in harmony. Founded upon a corporate philosophy of Kyosei – "all people, regardless of race, religion or culture, harmoniously living and working together into the future" – Canon U.S.A. supports a number of social, youth, educational and other programs, including environmental and recycling initiatives. Additional information about these programs can be found at www.usa.canon.com/kyosei. To keep apprised of the latest news from Canon U.S.A., sign up for the Company's RSS news feed by visiting www.usa.canon.com/rss.

Canon Toner Cartridge Recycling Program Celebrates 20 Years

(Lake Success, NY) - Canon U.S.A., Inc., today announced that, in 2010, Canon Inc. will mark the 20th anniversary of the Canon Toner Cartridge Recycling Program, a zero-landfill program in which every component of the used all-in-one toner cartridges* that the Company collects is reused, recycled or recovered.

Canon Toner Cartridge Recycling Program: First-of-its-Kind
In 1982, Canon created the world's first personal copying machines incorporating replaceable all-in-one toner cartridges. These toner cartridges were then adapted for use in laser beam printers and rapidly gained in popularity. However, with this increase in popularity came an increase in the number of used cartridges. Canon's corporate philosophy of Kyosei – living and working for the common good – has constantly provided the company with a keen awareness of environmental issues such as a commitment to waste reduction and resource conservation.

In accordance with this commitment, Canon introduced the Toner Cartridge Recycling Program. First launched in 1990, the program has collected approximately 220,000 metric tons of used toner cartridges. The initiative, launched on a global scale by a single business group at no cost to customers, marked a watershed moment within the industry. The cartridge return program now operates in 23 countries worldwide, supported by four global recycling bases: Canon Ecology Industry Inc. in Japan; Canon Dalian Business Machines, Inc. in China; Canon Virginia, Inc. (CVI) in the U.S.; and Canon Bretagne S.A.S. in France.

Toner Cartridge Recycling in the U.S.
As part of Canon's Clean Earth Campaign and the Toner Cartridge Recycling Program, CVI opened Industrial Resource Technologies, Inc. (IRT), a toner cartridge recycling facility in Gloucester, Virginia, in 1996 to begin to reclaim all-in-one cartridges in the U.S. IRT has the distinction of being one of the few automated recycling operations for Canon worldwide and the only cartridge recycling facility within Canon Americas.

Continuing to improve and enhance its recycling capabilities in the region, CVI and IRT completed an expansion of its facilities in 2009, adding 770,000 square feet of space to accommodate both toner cartridge manufacturing and recycling. The expansion strengthens Canon's ability to utilize more recycled materials and reclaimed parts for manufacturing new toner cartridges.

Achieving 100 Percent Recycling and Energy Recovery for Zero Landfill Waste
Canon utilizes closed-loop recycling for its toner cartridges which includes the reuse of parts as well as the recycling of the toner cartridge plastic container shell to create new toner cartridges. As a result, since 2003, all four of Canon's recycling bases, located in Japan, America, Europe and Asia, have achieved a 100 percent recycling and recovery rate (i.e. generated zero landfill waste); by the end of June 2009, the company had reduced the use of new resources by approximately 140,000 metric tons and prevented 370,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions. Canon's recycling activities have earned it recognition in the form of a number of prestigious industry awards, beginning with the Grand Prize at Japan's First Global Environmental Awards in 1992.

About Canon Virginia, Inc.
Located in Newport News, Virginia, Canon Virginia, Inc. (CVI), serves as the lead manufacturing support center for Canon U.S.A. CVI uses world-renowned production systems and extensive technical and manufacturing expertise to offer manufacturing solutions, including injection mold tools, metal and plastic parts, product manufacturing and reverse manufacturing. From concept to completion, from innovation to delivery, CVI ensures the reliability of world-class quality and efficiency representative of the Canon name. For more information, please visit www.cvi.canon.com.

About Canon U.S.A., Inc.
Canon U.S.A., Inc. is a leading provider of consumer, business-to-business, and industrial digital imaging solutions. Its parent company, Canon Inc. (NYSE:CAJ), a top patent holder of technology, ranked third overall in the U.S. in 2008†, with global revenues of US $45 billion, is listed as number four in the computer industry on Fortune Magazine's World's Most Admired Companies 2009 list, and is on the 2009 BusinessWeek list of "100 Best Global Brands." Canon is committed to the highest levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty, providing 100 percent U.S.-based consumer service and support for all products. At Canon, we care because caring is essential to living together in harmony. Founded upon a corporate philosophy of Kyosei – "all people, regardless of race, religion or culture, harmoniously living and working together into the future" – Canon U.S.A. supports a number of social, youth, educational and other programs, including environmental and recycling initiatives. Additional information about these programs can be found at www.usa.canon.com/kyosei. To keep apprised of the latest news from Canon U.S.A., sign up for the Company's RSS news feed by visiting www.usa.canon.com/rss.

About Davis Business Machines, Inc.
Davis Business Machines, Inc. (www.dbm.net) has been an innovative leader in providing strategic business solutions and services to organizations since 1963. Davis integrates and applies industry-leading expertise and innovative technology to help companies meet today's complex information lifecycle management demands and prepare them for tomorrow's challenges. Their mission is to provide total customer satisfaction by helping customers efficiently manage the document lifecycle through superior products, solutions and services. Today, Davis is among the most successful business solutions providers in the Lehigh Valley, with a satellite office in Pottstown, PA to better serve their Montgomery and Bucks County customers. Follow news, photos and video coming from Davis Business Machines by subscribing to our news feed by visiting http://www.dbm.net/articles?rss or on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/dbmnet.

Canon U.S.A. Honored with Multiple Awards from Buyers Laboratory, Inc.

(Lake Success, NY) - Continuing its tradition for technological innovation and high-quality imaging offerings, Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging and advanced office solutions, today announced the Company has been honored with five Fall 2009 "Pick" and Outstanding Achievement Awards by Buyers Laboratory, Inc. (BLI).

"As a Company, we pride ourselves on developing and offering our end-users the most innovative solutions, and we are honored to have received these prestigious accolades once again from Buyers Lab," said Sam Yoshida, vice president and general manager, Imaging Systems Group, Canon U.S.A. "These awards are a testament to Canon's dedication of providing a robust line up of high-quality, affordable imaging and document management solutions."

Spanning across a number of product lines, including the Company's new imageRUNNER ADVANCE multifunctional products (MFP), scanners and software, each award-winning product was recognized as "Outstanding" in its respective product category by BLI. Honors included:

• Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE Series – BLI's Outstanding Achievement Award for Ease of Use & Outstanding Achievement in Scanning - The new imageRUNNER ADVANCE Series was developed to seamlessly bridge the distance between user and MFP to transform and advance one's business and digital communications. Incorporating sophisticated workflows and innovative technologies, the Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE Series is designed to address the ever-growing needs of users, administrators and business decision makers to better manage and customize workflows, while accomplishing more tasks in less time and achieving higher levels of quality.
• Canon imageFORMULA DR-6050C – BLI's Pick for Outstanding Low-Volume Production Sheet-fed Scanner - Boasting scanning speeds of up to 70 pages-per-minute (ppm) and 140 images-per-minuteI (ipm), the image FORMULA DR-6050C is a fast, reliable and precise solution for several types of business environments. Designed with Canon's unique feeding mechanism, the DR-6050C production scanner features Ultrasonic Double Feed Detection, Rapid Recovery and Staple Detection to help ensure reliable document scanning, and three-line Contact Image Sensors (CIS) and dust-free shading mechanism allows for outstanding image quality.
• Canon imageRUNNER DR-9050C – BLI's Outstanding Achievement Award for Exceptional Value - A high-volume, high image-quality document management solution, the DR-9050C can scan at speeds up to 112 ppm/225 ipmI in color, grayscale and black and white. The DR-9050C captures images and text with clarity using three-line Contact Image Sensors at up to 600 dots-per-inch optical resolution, and incorporates a dust-free shading mechanism for exceptional image quality. Developed with Canon's unique feeding mechanism, the DR-9050C utilizes Ultrasonic Double Feed Detection, Rapid Recovery and Staple Detection to ensure reliable document scanning.
• Canon imageWARE Secure Audit Manager – BLI's Pick for Outstanding Document Security Solution - imageWARE Secure Audit Manager is a robust and efficient information security software solution for document distribution oversight. This solution carves a new concept in the information security industry. It is the first product to provide capture, archive, and audit capabilities of Canon device activities such as print, scan, fax, copy, and send jobs. imageWARE Secure Audit Manager captures job attribute information such as time, date, user, as well as text and image data. After this information is captured, it's stored in a centralized database where it can be readily searched using one of three search features: full text search, attribute search, and image search. With this solution, companies and organizations can reduce risks and liabilities associated with the leakage of important and confidential information.

Twice a year, BLI, a leading independent office equipment test lab, rewards those products that have provided the most outstanding performances in BLI's exhaustive lab tests with its "Pick" awards. Testing requirements cover reliability, image quality, ease-of-use, productivity, multitasking abilities, print drivers, administrative utilities and a variety of network connectivity requirements. Typical testing lasts approximately two months and includes extensive durability testing where each unit is run at the manufacturer's maximum recommended monthly volume. To learn why BLI selected these models to win its prestigious awards, read the press releases on the home page of BLI's web site at www.buyerslab.com.

About Buyers Laboratory
For 48 years, Buyers Lab (BLI) has been the leading independent office-equipment testing lab and business consumer advocate. In addition to publishing the industry's most comprehensive and accurate test reports on office document imaging devices, each representing months of exhaustive hands-on testing in BLI's U.S. and UK laboratories, the company has been the leading source of competitive intelligence for industry professionals on copiers, printers, fax machines, scanners, duplicators, wide-format devices and multifunctional products. The company's databases cover over 12,000 products globally and have a long-standing reputation for being the industry's most trustworthy and complete source for specifications and side-by-side comparisons, all of which are available as part of bliQ, BLI's web-based encyclopedic resource. Subscribers also have access to BLI's renowned Lab Test Reports, First Look Reports, Solutions Reports, Environmental Reports, news articles and a complete library of manufacturer's product literature, as well as valuable tools including a Product Configurator and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Calculator.

Buyers Lab also provides business consumers with How-To-Guides, a Needs Assessment Wizard and Free Vendor Quotes via its Buyers Lab Advisor website, as well as independent purchasing advice and consulting from its Buyers Alliance procurement experts. Business consumers and manufacturers can also select from a vast array of confidential for-hire private testing services that include document imaging device beta and pre-launch testing, performance certification testing, consumables and print media testing, and software solutions testing.

About Canon U.S.A., Inc.
Canon U.S.A., Inc. is a leading provider of consumer, business-to-business, and industrial digital imaging solutions. Its parent company, Canon Inc. (NYSE:CAJ), a top patent holder of technology, ranked third overall in the U.S. in 2008†, with global revenues of US $45 billion, is listed as number four in the computer industry on Fortune Magazine's World's Most Admired Companies 2009 list, and is on the 2009 BusinessWeek list of "100 Best Global Brands." Canon is committed to the highest levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty, providing 100 percent U.S.-based consumer service and support for all products. At Canon, we care because caring is essential to living together in harmony. Founded upon a corporate philosophy of Kyosei – "all people, regardless of race, religion or culture, harmoniously living and working together into the future" – Canon U.S.A. supports a number of social, youth, educational and other programs, including environmental and recycling initiatives. Additional information about these programs can be found at www.usa.canon.com/kyosei. To keep apprised of the latest news from Canon U.S.A., sign up for the Company's RSS news feed by visiting www.usa.canon.com/rss.

About Davis Business Machines, Inc.
Davis Business Machines, Inc. (www.dbm.net) has been an innovative leader in providing strategic business solutions and services to organizations since 1963. Davis integrates and applies industry-leading expertise and innovative technology to help companies meet today's complex information lifecycle management demands and prepare them for tomorrow's challenges. Their mission is to provide total customer satisfaction by helping customers efficiently manage the document lifecycle through superior products, solutions and services. Today, Davis is among the most successful business solutions providers in the Lehigh Valley, with a satellite office in Pottstown, PA to better serve their Montgomery and Bucks County customers. Follow news, photos and video coming from Davis Business Machines by subscribing to our news feed by visiting http://www.dbm.net/articles?rss or on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/dbmnet.

Why Businesses Should Utilize an Electronic Document Management System

In today’s business world, the amount of paper a business manages can be endless. With each piece of paper, someone needs to file it, space must be used to store it, and on multiple occasions, someone needs to retrieve it. When you are talking about thousands and even millions of pages of paper, this can be a very time-consuming task, and therefore a very costly task. The costs mount up quickly, in the areas of wages for employees who are responsible for filing and retrieving documents, and the areas of storage space required to house the massive amounts of paper files.

It is also an on-going, never-ending task, requiring the time of countless employees. This is time that could be better used performing the tasks that they have their personal expertise in. The opportunity costs for using a paper filing system include wasted time, delayed customer response time, and wasted floor and storage space. In other words, the efficiency of a business is very much hampered by continuing to utilize a paper filing system.

The benefits of an Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) are countless. With an EDMS, you will be able to take all of paper files, put them through a scanner, and them throw them away, or if your too skeptical to toss them, you can store them in some off-site storage where you will hopefully never have to look at them again. All of your files will be stored electronically, accessible almost instantly by any computer within your office at anytime. You do not have to worry about misplaced files or somebody else already having a file at their desk.

The initial cost of converting to an EDMS is usually what keeps people from doing it. This cost consists of the time and money it takes to scan all of a company’s existing files into the system. To save time, a company can pay a scanning service bureau to scan all their files for them, and this will sometimes be the cheapest method as opposed to paying an employee, who is likely less efficient, to scan the files. Whatever the method chosen, the first year cost might be heavy, but these costs should be offset within the first couple of years.

Another route that a lot of companies take is not to scan all of their backfiles into the EDMS, but to start scanning files today as they come in, and leaving all previous files as they were. This allows the company to bypass a large part of the initial costs, while still enjoying the benefits of the electronic file storage. As time goes by and the companies appreciation for the system grows, they will slowly convert their older files into electronic images, allowing them spread this cost over many months or even years.

Once a company is completely paperless and utilizing an EDMS, their efficiency is greatly increased, their response time for customer support is drastically reduced, and their overall office clutter is eliminated. These improvements convert directly to more business and higher profits.

If that’s not enough to convince you, then this will. The company is no longer at risk to having their critical business information stolen, lost, or destroyed due to some unforeseen circumstances, such as Hurricane Katrina that destroyed thousands of business’s paper records. The EDMS can backup your files offsite so nothing will ever be lost, plus its security features will prevent unauthorized individuals from accessing the documents that they shouldn’t, a very difficult task with a paper filing system.

Document Management Systems Can Enrich The Bottom Line In A Down Economy

In these undecided economic times, countless companies are faced with the challenge of how to maximize returns on stretched budgets. It's a do-more-with-less strategy that requires business operations be optimized now to meet existing economic realities.

One area to consider for improving the bottom line is to look at how information is managed throughout the organization, particularly document management. This involves all the content, things like documents, invoices, etc.; all the actions, things like reviews, and approvals; and all the processes, these are the repeatable steps that drive the flow of information. Improving how information is managed, the content, actions, and processes, will improve efficiency, reduce risk, and lead to cost savings.

There is another benefit to consider with this as well, and it's a silver lining. With any change comes opportunity, and the right kind of change now can position an organization for even greater success long term.

There are least seven ways that improvements in how information is managed can influence the bottom line in terms of efficiency, risk and cost savings, and here they are:

1. Make information findable so people can find information, instantly, every day.
   Studies have shown that among those who are involved with the flow of information, about one-half spend two hours per day looking for what they need to do their jobs. This can translate to hundreds of thousands of dollars in unproductive cost per year. The aim is to cut down on the time it takes for people to find information, making them more efficient and able to complete their tasks much faster.
2. Automate business processes
   Manual processes, especially those that involve paper, have a real propensity to breakdown. As information is routed in steps, for example in review or approval cycles, it's often delayed, there are interruptions, and any number of user-influenced errors can occur. These practices are a real challenge to manage for accountability. At any point in the process, it's difficult to identify at which step the process is currently in. And looking back at completed processes, it's very difficult to identify who did what and when. Consequently, business processes tend to be slow, taking days or weeks to run their course. And it's this lack of speed, not mention the errors, that are the real burdens on efficiency. Automating processes using workflow eliminates the need for people to manage processes and allows people to focus their expertise on making decisions and adding knowledge. The flow of information is handled automatically, which not only establishes consistent processing of information, but also shortens cycle times, increases accountability, and leads to greater quality and accuracy of repeatable business process.
3. Improve collaboration
   A large number of companies still use shared file servers to store information, email to share it, and sometimes FTP to exchange files back and forth. But here's the problem: these methods are unstructured and disconnected. Managing information in this way lacks the necessary controls and collaborative tools to make the most efficient use of corporate knowledge. Files are easily duplicated or lost, information has to be re-created, and versioning is ad-hoc at best. Even worse, in some instances files are silo'd into line-of-business applications, for example a project management application that is only accessible to a few in the company. The answer to improving collaboration is creating a unified, enterprise, work environment where people and knowledge are connected company-wide. This allows all employees, no matter what area of the business they are in, to leverage the collective intelligence of an organization.
4. Capture a record of every change.
   Without a system to manage files as they change, it is virtually certain that information will be lost, it will be difficult to reassemble later on, and there will be confusion surrounding which are the correct versions of files. Documents are not static. They change over time. Automated version control offers a standardized way to capture and organize information in what would otherwise be a chaotic and uncontrolled process. People are more productive and the risk of information loss is greatly reduced. Plus, with version control, everyone immediately knows which is the current version, while previous versions are always retrievable. Another plus of version control is that it can reduce risk. Version control eliminates the potential for losing content in prior versions and importantly, it allows for visibility over content history, for example who approved a document and what did the content look like at that time.
5. Reduce the risk of email.
   Email may be fast, cheap, and convenient, but it's a mistake to believe that it's an informal mode of communication. Email is more and more falling under the scope of regulations such as eDiscovery. For this reason alone, it's important to view email as business records. But even beyond regulation, there are other aspects of how we use email today that make it more and more essential to consider when reducing risk factors. In many cases emails are used as a principle means of communication among employees, as well as with people outside the company, like customers or vendors. The content within emails, and files attached to them, are often times the most complete and thorough record of history over time. Your ability to quickly research and retrieve information from an email archive not only improves your chances of successfully complying with regulations and legal requirements, but it also helps with matters like researching and exchanging knowledge in hand-offs between people, say for example in times of employee transition.
6. Maintain compliance with regulations
   As with email records, some companies also face regulatory requirements that affect all types of information. Information itself can be a liability if it is incorrectly managed. Studies vary widely, but some have indicated that as much as 80% of documents reside on user's desktops, beyond the control and management of a structured document management system. Government regulations, quality standards, and legal requirements are an increasing challenge, and programs that manage for compliance by documenting policies and procedures, applying consistent business processes, and securing information are necessary to reduce exposure to risk. Where quality standards and compliance exist, such as ISO, FDA, and Sarbanes-Oxley, regulated content and processes must be managed using records management.
7. Eliminate paper storage costs and go Paperless.
   Long established storage of paper documents in filing cabinets, archive boxes, and off-site warehouses is a no-value solution. The expenditures of all that paper storage - the space and money spent on it - offers no return in value to the company. It's an unnecessary operational cost. Filing cabinets eat up valuable office space that could otherwise be used for meaningful and productive work areas; and money spent on off-site storage in warehouses could be invested in areas of business that actually have a positive return on the bottom line. When documents are stored electronically, however, there's an added value because information can be filed, searched and retrieved instantly. This is a big factor in terms of process efficiency. And there are other areas to consider as well: electronic document storage makes information more accessible, including even outside the office for employees who might be traveling, working at home, at satellite offices, or perhaps even vendors and customers. When documents are accessed, changed, or approved, everything is recorded in an audit log. Electronic document storage also makes it easier to plan for business continuity, so records can be restored quickly and the business can get immediately back up and running. And finally, electronic document storage is a greener, paperless approach that not only reduces storage and its associated costs, but also cuts down on the need for paper and printing.