Medium-to-large organizations recognize the need to improve employee productivity and the quality of products and services produced. They know that in good times it could help them gain an edge over competitors. In times of recession, it could spell the difference between staying in business and going out of business. If yours is one such firm, then you’d know that management is always on the lookout for tools that help keep the firm’s operations in top shape no matter what the economic conditions are. Documents being the lifeline of any business, one such tool that helps your firm is electronic document management software.

Document management software covers the entire spectrum of document digitizing and process automation activities; e.g. scanning the files, indexing and organizing them for quick retrieval, storing them in a centralized repository, securely sharing them, collaborating on documents, editing them, automatically routing them for review, approval etc. as well as keeping an audit trail for compliance as well as security reasons. The first part of digitizing activities is known as “scanning and capture” – if your documents are not scanned and captured electronically (e.g. using document management software), it is not possible to automate your document based business processes.

“But is it worth investing in scanning and capture?”

In earlier blog posts, we saw that electronic-only filing would halve the storage space needed for paper in 5 years and that the consumption of paper and the number of photocopies is decreasing in 35% of organizations (Source: “The Paper Free Office – dream or reality?” © 2012 AIIM – The Global Community of Information Professionals). The same survey report reveals that 42% of users have achieved a payback period of 12 months or less from their scanning and capture investments. This is good news for organizations who are considering whether or not to invest in such solutions.

“But how can it improve our profit margins?”

When you implement a document management system, the following things happen (or are done):

• Scan your paper based documents into the software and import existing electronic documents too
• Create all new documents in digital formats, as far as possible
• Index and organize documents in multiple, search friendly ways
• Your staff can retrieve files within seconds – potentially save hours every week
• This leads to achieving goals quicker, with minimal chances of human error
• Reduces costs of office supplies to a bare minimum; e.g. paper, cartridges, folders, boxes etc.
• Save on storage space
• Reduced costs and increased output result in higher operating profits/gross profits
• Cost and time savings let you serve more customers, further contributing to higher profits.

Once the cost of document management software has been recovered, this cycle keeps repeating itself. Other things being equal, this means your business continues to be profitable in the medium to long term. But the first step in this direction can only be taken by investing in a scanning and capture solution, like Globodox enterprise document management software. Globodox caters to all your document management needs. Learn more about it at the Globodox web site. You can also get our Free White Paper titled Measuring ROI on a Document Management System that discusses this further.

Measuring ROI on a Document Management System
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