Secure document storage, retrieval and destruction

Overwhelmed with paper is one thing. Overwhelmed by information is another.

After all, paper is something most organisations want to eliminate. Information, on the other hand, is the lifeblood of a competitive company. The more the better. But not if it’s disorganised, misfiled or critical documents are disappearing.

Can you give me an example? 

When we say critical documents, we mean just about anything important to an organisation. If you’re in financial services, mortgage and loan documents are critical. For those in the insurance industry, anything connected to a claim and claims processing is pivotal, both to the bottom line and to customer service. Healthcare? Everything involving the patient. And it doesn’t matter how big or small you are, employee records and policy documents are vital for your human resources department.

So imagine the turmoil if any link in the information chain goes missing. And we’re not talking about paper files alone. Electronic files, like emails, spreadsheets, and Word documents, that are decentralised, poorly organised or difficult to retrieve can lead to just as much lost time, lost productivity and duplicate work.

The Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA) knows all about this. Though it was struggling with mountains of paper (projects files could reach 300 pages or more), it benefited from clear records management once it implemented an enterprise content management solution. It reduced the time to retrieve project files from 12 minutes to 10 seconds or less, making its staff three times more productive. Audit time was reduced from days to hours. And the CHFA no longer worries about losing documents.

ECM allows for secure document storage, easy retrieval

An ECM or content services solution allows for complete document life cycle management, secure document storage from input through destruction. Documents are centralised, searchable and, with the right solution, automatically linked to the appropriate account, customer, patient, employee and so on and so forth.

Not only that, but documents outside the electronic world, like physical patient charts and samples and original loan documents, are easily managed as well.

In short, your ECM solution must bring clarity to all of your data, electronic and otherwise, and allow for easy tracking of critical documents.