Better document organization requires electronic conversion

Recent studies have shown that a growing concern for document management will cause businesses to seek digital conversion services.

Research conducted by Iron Mountain revealed that almost half of businesses admitted finding information management problematic. This is especially troubling considering the volume of documentation that firms are required to keep track of has increased ten-fold in the last five years, according to the Association of Information and Image Management.

Surprisingly, 58 percent of Iron Mountain's survey respondents still store documents physically on site as opposed to converting sensitive files to electronic formatting, putting information at risk for fraud or damage. Two percent of businesses have no structure in place for storing documents, despite the fact that 49 percent expressed fear over losing important data and 58 percent feel that paper documents take up too much space.

In addition to saving space, converting documents to an electronic format offers immense cost savings from reduced printer maintenance and supplies, Officing Today explained. Printing and storing documents is an overhead that both small and large businesses can't afford to invest in, especially considering recovery costs with the considerable risks printed documents face.

In addition to ink, paper and repair costs with printing documents, the time that it takes for employees to retrieve and manage these files can prove costly to businesses. Iron Mountain suggests outsourcing document management to a remote provider that is capable of monitoring incoming information and ensuring that compliance is consistently maintained. Advanced archiving features of digital document management allow businesses to filter information depending on level of importance and relevance and file it accordingly, vastly improving workflow. Meanwhile, less prevalent information can be automatically stored separately and securely disposed of at the appropriate time.

Effective document management is critical to business efficiency. Benefits from digitization have the potential to reduce budgetary and time constraints and risk for critical data loss, all while improving employee performance.

Brought to you by Image One Corporation providing complete information governance since 1994.