A little over a year ago, when we spoke with business owners and executives, document management seemed to be more of a “nice to have” feature. Yes, it saved time, was more convenient, and saved space, but the traditional filing cabinet was still working. Now document management enters discussions as a necessity, and no more as a “nice to have” function.
What happened? Here are a few explanations that can help explain why document management has become important to have.
Remote Access For Sales Representatives
One explanation is that sales representatives that are traveling to customer sites need to see certain documents as well.With the help of laptops, smartphones, and tablets, sales people have lots of information available to them. Documents filed in the filing cabinet back in the office are difficult to access though. If they are at a customer site and need to produce a document, such as a proof of delivery or an invoice, it requires rigorous chain of events and people to get that document to them in the field. With a document management system, documents can be easily accessed from remote locations.
Security starts with what prying eyes can’t see.
I would surmise that the lion’s share of companies out there, particularly the companies that are considered small companies, are still operating in environments where there are reams of paper shuffled about. All of this paper, in the form of reports, orders, purchase orders, product specifications, etc., is shuffled about is eventually stored away for future reference.
If you are a subscriber to US News and World Report, you have no doubt gotten notice that the weekly magazine is going 100% digital rather than the traditional weekly print edition. So now to read your subscription of the magazine, you will need to, presumably, read it online, a special reader that they provide, or possibly on a reader device (Nook, Kindle, or another reader).