The old adage that what is not measured cannot be managed is easily extended for the digital world. If you have a software system to manage something then it cannot do its job properly if materials exist outside of its knowledge.
In the context of document management, if a document management system, be it a hosted application or a service, is unaware of a large pile of paper sitting in a row of boxes somewhere, then you can be sure it is unable to manage that stack. This is one of the fundamental issues around document management and managed document services (MDS), according to Matthew McCann, sales director, Ricoh Ireland.
McCann said that while managed print services (MPS) are well understood here, the promise of MDS in terms of efficiency and productivity is still not fully grasped, with a focus on price that would suggest a lack of awareness of the full value.
ComputerScope in association with Ricoh, conducted a survey among IT professionals to gauge attitudes and awareness of MDS. From 227 respondents, 44% indicated that their organisation had "a working system in place to effectively manage and retrieve all business documents held across the entire organisation, including hard copy and soft copy."
However, McCann points out that divided responsibilities can lead to a lack of focus in implementation. "Companies are divided by how they handle documents in the organisation," said McCann. "You’ve got it divided between the IT department, facilities department, procurement and other elements. Trying to get a comprehensive strategy in place within an organisation is actually quite difficult."
The legacy of the MPS focus on cost per page has also had effect on MDS attitudes, McCann argues, which appears to borne out by the results. When asked about the top three criteria for selecting an MDS partner, cost came out as the single most important factor at 60%, with return on investment (ROI) and potential cost savings coming in at 40% and improved security coming at 36%.
This is somewhat at odds with the results where respondents were asked about drivers for adoption of document management, as the reduced threat of lost documents came in at 49%, ahead of cost savings at 48% and the need for greater visibility and control of documents at 43%.
While the threat of lost documents features highly as a driver of the adoption document management systems, said McCann, it must be asked if people fully understand the impact of lost documents, whether it is a delay in access or actually loss. Realistically it is more about the time taken to access them, as this is lost time which is lost money. With people no longer constantly looking for documents, people are freed to do more productive things.
When the conversation comes around to managed print services (MPS), said McCann, there is an understanding there that this is about cost and reducing the cost per page. However, with managed document services (MDS), it is about the whole document life cycle.
"Unfortunately because of the type of structures we have within most Irish organisation, parts of that lifecycle belong to several different people and there needs to be joined up thinking within the organisation about that. So it is not just procurement driving down the price, or IT looking after the security element. They have all got to get together to look at a managed solution for their documents throughout the organisation."
This further supports the disparity between some of the results. When asked about their top concerns with regard to managing documents, 79% listed security implications as their number one concern, and yet when it comes to selecting a provider, cost comes out on top.
Realistically, return on investment (ROI) should be the most important thing. "We would never do any MDS solution without giving a full ROI on the solution being proposed," said McCann.
"We do a document workflow assessment (DWA). We go into an organisation and identify bottlenecks." The organisation is asked to identify document processes that could be better and the process is mapped from start to finish, from creation to storage. The cost is then identified, along with every person who handled the document along the way. Any handler that can be removed from that process frees up those people’s time and gives a return on investment. That gives a direct offset against cost.
The issues of time spent looking for documents was addressed specifically, with respondents reporting that, of the 43% that had a document management system of some kind, 33% spent less than 10 minutes, 30% spent between 10 and 30 minutes and 14% spent between 30 minutes and an hour. A significant 14% spent more than hour.
Reduced to its simplest, McCann said that MDS could provide a major boost to public services in terms of document availability and accessibility. If all documents relevant to a case before a public service were easily available, it results in more time available to spend on the case itself, which means more productive staff and more of the public served with existing resources.
The proliferation of devices that can generate and handle documents has also changed the landscape, with 77% of respondents said that they believe it is becoming more difficult to effectively manage and secure all business documents.
This is because it is inevitably down to IT to implement document managed systems or services, according to McCann, but IT does not have access to all parts of the document lifecycle. For example, if a hard copy is taken from an archive, photocopied and then distributed, this process is outside of the control of IT. Whereas, if the document was retrieved from an electronic store and distributed electronically, IT would have complete visibility and the capability to impose the correct policies and controls, irrespective of the type of device being used.
"What we find is that most people say that they don’t have the ability to get their documents into a central repository, but most companies have the capability but they aren’t aware of it," said McCann. Respondents indicated that only 14% had a system for all documents to be turned into soft copy, with 53% saying that they had it for some documents.
For example, many companies have multifunction devices (MFD) but often regard them as purely output devices. "We see them as an entry point to a document management system."
These devices can be used for scan to email or similar, to get documents into a system that can then give the visibility and control necessary to manage the documents.
"You can’t get visibility and control of the documents until they are in the system."
There is not necessarily a policy that will fit all organisations or all documents, but what needs to be done, with buy in from every department, is for a decision to be made that from a certain point forward, all documents will have an electronic entry, McCann advises. So even if there is a large hard copy repository of documents, they can be controlled in terms of access and presentation when they also exist in electronic format.
When it comes to documentation types, there are few surprises in what remains in print and what is generated in soft copy. Signed contracts remain stubbornly in paper format at 77%, whereas company presentations are overwhelmingly electronic at 93%. Company budgets too are electronic at 80% but invoices are slowly going electronic with a 38 to 62% electronic versus paper split.
The governance picture emerging from the surveys is reasonably positive as 64% of respondents said that their organisation had a policy to govern accessing or storing documents for all employees in your workplace. This ties in strongly though with the trend towards more devices being able to access documents as 52% of respondents said that they were aware of personal devices being used within the organisation for work related activities.
While 79% of respondents said that security was among their top three concerns in managing documents, compliance and governance issues came in at 60% and inefficient processes at 42%. There was also an open response, which represented only 2%, with some respondents indicating that responding to Freedom of Information requests was a significant concern.
The overall picture that emerges is one of an industry where the benefits of document management and MDS are fairly widely known, but perhaps not fully understood in their wider implications for the organisation. The focus on cost perhaps shows the progression of document management from print management roots but suggests that the benefits for productivity and security are not yet to the fore.
While McCann says that initial conversations on MDS are still had with IT, he argues that it then needs to go to the rest of the organisation as a strategy for the whole organisation. He argues that the change in working habits toward user procured technology should not have any bearing on the matter either. It should not matter what device you are trying to access a document with, McCann asserts, the document managed system should be able to handle that and provide the document securely.
With systems capable of handling the bring your own trend, providing documents securely to almost any device, and detailed policies with respect to all data obligations, organisations should be able to take advantage of managed document systems as service from a trusted partner, with all the productivity and efficiency benefits that they entail.
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