Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is becoming the buzzword heard throughout offices worldwide.
Enterprise Content Management
ECM is proving to be a new means of increasing workplace efficiency and also decreasing operational cost. Finance Directors, IT Managers and end users alike are drawn to the many benefits of implementing an ECM solution.
ECM software is being implemented across sectors including small businesses, new start-ups, local authorities, education, legal, customer service and the public sector. One benefit of ECM software is optimising document storage.
According to aiim ‘The Global Community for Information Professionals,’
“Enterprise Content Management is the strategies, methods and tools used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to organizational processes. ECM tools and strategies allow the management of an organization’s unstructured information, wherever that information exists.”
Document storage has always been a vital aspect of all organisations. Previously, documents would be printed and stored in filing cabinets, then transferred to storage warehouses for the archive. This is a very costly aspect of business operations. Financial costs include filing cabinets taking up expensive floor space and also storing documents offsite. Opportunity costs include no longer having access to information within the file, increased chance of human error, whereby documents are misfiled, and causing information to go astray.
A startling 70% of businesses who have not implemented Enterprise Content Management fail to operate after experiencing a fire or flood. All of their vital information used in day-to-day operations is lost and unrecoverable.
One of the ECM software solutions available is Laserfiche
Laserfiche is a document storage solution that allows documents to be stored on a server, and easily searched and retrieved by all permitted users. So documents can be found immediately.
Having documents that can be easily retrievable from ones PC allows for employees to handle questions and problems immediately rather than taking time to look up the paper file. Electronic document storage takes the ‘guess work’ out of filing. Laserfiche can ‘read’ the document, and pull keywords to identify which kind of document it is, and where it should be stored. Again, storing documents electronically eliminates the need for filing cabinets and also external storage.
When thinking about Enterprise Content Management, consider your office environment:
- which items and/or processes have evolved in the past couple of years? Your phone system has been upgraded, computers operate quicker and also workstations are ergonomically suited for each individual.
- Now how about your filing cabinet; the large piece of metal taking up a good portion of your floor space? Has that evolved? In the past, this was the only way to store documents.
In addition, technologies have evolved here as well. No longer do you have to spend time painstakingly searching for a document, only to realise it’s been misfiled. Once again, this causes stress, expense and lost time. These are all things that can be prevented by implementing an electronic content management system, such as Laserfiche.
Posted in Control Costs, Document Management Solutions, Laserfiche
