How heavily is your office reliant on paper for everyday operational processes and communication? Haven’t you made the switch to digital corporate document management yet?
If you’re still reliant on old-school practices, you’re engaging in something that’s both costly and counterproductive.
Paper-intensive processes are expensive in terms of the actual supplies themselves, as well as in terms of productivity losses. Misfiled or wrongfully destroyed documents can slow down operations, decrease the quality of customer service and cost the organization both directly and indirectly.
Financials, however, are not the only consideration. In addition to those, businesses have to consider some of the dynamic changes in today\’s workplace environment.
A Gartner study shows that 41 percent of employees are likely to continue working remotely to some extent even after the end of the business digital transformation after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Processes that are based on paper will make collaboration in such instances pretty difficult.
If you are considering a switch toward digital corporate document management, you’re on the right track. Still, you may be worried about the cost of introducing such a solution. Digital document management happens to be one of the most affordable choices you can make for your business. On top of that, it will yield a high return on investment (ROI), delivering results for years to come after the introduction.
Can Digital Corporate Document Management Be Cost-Effective for Every Business?
The short answer to this question is yes.
Even small and medium-sized companies operating on a tight budget can benefit from the introduction of digital document management.
The easiest way to determine the cost-efficiency of such digital solutions is to compare them financially to the type of document management you are utilizing right now.
What is the cost of creating a new document, sharing, modifying, and storing it right now? How much are you spending on office supplies and on other essentials like hardware (printers, servers for storage purposes, external hard drives)?
Once you have the answers to these questions, you will need to determine which parts of the process will be eliminated through the adoption of digital corporate document management. Chances are that the right solution will get rid of several steps, as well as the associated with those supplies. This is one of the first ways in which digital document management will help you save some money.
You should also understand the fact that digital document management is very user-friendly. As a result, the introduction of such a solution will easily contribute to a productivity boost. When employees are getting the job done quickly and efficiently, you’re making more money.
Initial Cost: Not the Most Prominent Factor
Choosing the right type of document management solution on the basis of the initial cost is not the right approach.
Most digital corporate document management solutions are pretty cost-effective. Cloud-based solutions tend to be a lot less expensive than buying servers and maintaining your archive locally.
Still, the initial cost is a misleading factor.
When making long-term decisions for your business, you have to go into deeper consideration. Will the new system help employees save time on some common processes? How effortless will the implementation of the new solution be? How about maintenance, support, and scaling up or down in the future?
Your company’s momentary state isn’t a predictor of the future. The same applies to the cost of a document management solution itself. Many other factors can contribute to making the respective platform cost-efficient or unattainable for your business.
If you don’t know how to focus on such long-term considerations and calculate costs, do get in touch with professionals in the field. A reputable document digitization company will give you a good idea about the solutions that make the most sense for your enterprise and the associated costs.
Competitive Advantage Is Priceless
There is one final very important consideration you have to make before making the switch to digital corporate document management. That consideration examines the competitive advantage you will gain by making the switch.
A digital transformation gives you one of the easiest, readiest to implement opportunities for outperforming the competition. When you opt for such solutions and platforms, you create a level playing field. The right technologies maximize the customer service capacity of even the smallest brands. When the solutions are stellar, the small player can easily outperform the well-established corporate giant.
According to statistics, 72 percent of companies have already established paperless operations to some extent. Digitization is considered a primary contributor to progress. As a result, the vast majority of strategic teams are prioritizing digital transformation.
Digital document management improves collaboration and speeds up interactions between departments. Multiple reports suggest that effective collaboration is one of the prerequisites for business success in today’s world.
Not only that, but digitization also simplifies the processing of large volumes of data. You can learn everything there is to know about your customers and you can put this information to good use. When you know the types of people you’re working for and the ones that you want to reach, you can make your solutions much more tailored and approachable than those of competitors.