Today corporates are realizing the significance of a
'paper-smart' office, where some documents are digitally stored and secured,
while others are smartly printed. Whether the system is an informal, ad-hoc,
paper-based method for one person or if it is a formal, structured, computer
enhanced system for many people across multiple offices are some of the issues
that are involved in managing documents. Methods for managing documents address
areas such as location, filing, retrieval, security, disaster recovery,
retention period, archiving, distribution and more.
For a long time, companies overlooked such aspects of their
IT infrastructure that were perceived to be purely functional and incapable of
helping businesses improve their bottom lines. Printing, used to be one of them.
But with the increased pressure on CIOs and management teams to reduce costs and
inventories, it has become crucial for enterprises; to make printing operations
leaner, greener and competitive enough to have an impact on the company's
profitability. These increasing pressures have established a strong base for the
relevant printing solutions in the current time.
Managing documents
Some of the methods for managing documents address the
following areas:
1. Location: Where will people need to go to access
documents? Physical journeys to filing cabinets and file rooms are analogous to
the onscreen navigation required to use a document management system.
2. Filing: How will documents be filed? What methods will
be used to organize or index the documents to assist in later retrieval?
Document management systems will typically use a database to store metadata
about documents and a File System to store the actual physical files.
3. Retrieval: How will documents be found? Typically,
retrieval encompasses both browsing through documents and searching for specific
information. What kinds of information about documents are indexed for rapid
retrieval?
4. Security: How will documents be kept secure? How will
unauthorized personnel be prevented from reading, modifying or destroying
documents?
In order to be competitive in the current scenario, CIOs of
Indian enterprises have recognized the need to optimize resources and bring down
cost that has led to an increase in demand of outsourcing in document
management. Large enterprises that are driving the growth of this technology are
in BFSI, government, pharmaceuticals and IT. Establishing an ideal printing
environment through an analysis of the enterprise printing needs — number of
printers required overall cost of ownership etc.
Nitin Hiranandani, HP IPG India |
If we look at some of the benefits that document management
systems provides, we can mention the following:
1. Controlled printing: This strategy gives role-based
access to color, duplex printing, PIN access, etc and helps reduce the cost of
consumables, including ink and paper.
2. Tracking the enterprise's carbon footprint through
energy efficiency tools
3. Meeting the security and compliance needs of an
enterprise.
4. Digitization of documentation: The concept of managed
print services seeks to transform business processes by optimizing the company's
imaging and printing infrastructure, effectively managing the total imaging and
printing environment and improving and streamlining the document workflow.
According to IDC and Gartner reports, 3-5% of revenue goes to output management.
There is an explosion in digital content due to rapid shift from analog to
digital formats.
The digital content is doubling every 18 months.
Enterprises are incurring lot of cost on documents management in the form of
storage, retrieval, archival, capturing, imaging, etc.
Born in the green and energy-aware age, today's document
management solutions for enterprises seem to have embraced the Olympian ideal:
citius, altius, fortius — as they contribute to customers' goals of growing
swifter, higher, and stronger. Today's technological breakthroughs have
transformed the role of these solutions as being an indispensible component of
any growing or established business looking to improve bottom lines.