Benefits of Document Management - 3

Today we come to benefit number 3 of an Online Document Management system: Reduce the business risk of keeping just one copy of files.

I mentioned yesterday the problems that multiple copies of the same file can cause: Which copy is correct and up to date? How do we know? In this blog I just wanted to emphasize the business risks that can ensue if there is no control of documents where duplications are concerned and in not implementing a structured database in which to keep critical business information, sometimes referred to as Business Intelligence.

I am sure that everyone will agree that risk is inherent in every decision made within an organization; when things are going well allowances can be made for misjudgment but when things aren’t so good we tend to be a little more exacting. That’s why, in the leaner times such as many of us are experiencing now, reducing risk becomes more of a necessity.

One of the biggest risks to any organization is an incident that exposes them to loss, whether of data, service, knowledge or any combination of the three. This presents not just the obvious risks to security it also affects the ability to recover, to a lesser or greater degree.

Often information is fundamental to a project so no organization can afford data loss; the job of having to recreate documents or databases is an inefficient use of resources and can have serious knock on effects for our business. An Online Document Management solution can help reduce that risk and meet government and industry compliance standards that it seems are being imposed on us from all directions.

Document Management can also help reduce the risk of data loss by managing information that is deemed unstructured, that is information that is not part of a database but nonetheless is crucial to the daily running of the organization. Obviously that includes hard copies of files, files that are stored on our servers and workstations in the windows file system, files that we copy to CD or memory sticks, files that we print and take home to read etc etc. In these situations duplication and/or loss poses a real risk. If information is confidential, reducing this risk is paramount. An online document management system allows you to Capture, store and preserve data in a scalable, secure environment and significantly lessen the risks of data loss and the need for duplication, I.E. keeping just one copy of business critical files.