6 reasons your business needs enterprise content management
The paperless office is an ambitious concept. So many critical business processes rely on the use and transfer of paper documents. This is why we believe in trying to use less paper instead of going paperless. Eliminate paper where it isn’t necessary and optimise the parts of the business where it’s necessary, so its use is more cost-effective, organised and productive. So how do you do this?
The first thing you’ll need is an enterprise content management (ECM) system that will help you govern how paper and electronic documents are kept, transferred and archived. Here are all the benefits your business might be missing out on.
- Increased productivity
McKinsey reports that employees spend an average of 9.3 hours a week looking for information they need to complete their jobs. ECM software makes information easy to retrieve by using smart indexing and storing documents in an easily accessible central repository. Employees spend less time finding information and more time using it.
- Consistent compliance
You can maintain all your business’s document policies and stay consistent with document management best practices, thanks to the security features provided by an ECM system. It can help you decide for how long documents should be stored and control individual permissions to view, access and edit documents.
- Improved customer satisfaction
Working in a highly optimised document environment empowers your employees to respond to customers without having to sift through mountains of paperwork or spend time on data entries. This level of efficiency will impress your customers and increase the chance of return business.
- Consistent organisation
An ECM system establishes a systemised order for your business’s document environment. This includes naming conventions, version control and the categorisation of data. In this way, you and your staff will always know your way around company documents, even in the absence of administrative staff.
- Improved cost benefits
ECM comes with several cost benefits. You cut back on document processes that don’t have to be paper-based and can be digitised. You also save on consumables such as ink and toner when you print and copy fewer paper documents. Finally, the increased productivity saves you time which, invariably, saves you money.
- Exposed inefficiencies
You will gain visibility of your business’s entire document environment. You will see how workflows proceed to the next level and potentially spot bottlenecks, redundant operations and other areas of inefficiency. These insights go a long way to boost the overall performance of your business just by tightening workflows.
Enterprise content management takes your business further by ensuring that your paper-heavy document processes don’t hold you back.
If the reasons outlined in this blog appeal to you, download our Document Management Handbook <link> and learn more about how you can improve the efficiency of your business’s document environment.