Information management is crucial for organizations across nearly every industry. From Fortune 500 companies to medical offices, where and how you handle your documents matters. If you’re sticking to paper-based processes, you’re falling further behind and risking a lot.
Within many organizations, digital innovation is met with resistance. Changing habits is difficult and switching everything seems confusing, unnecessary, and a bad prioritization of funds. Shouldn’t all of that money should go somewhere more important?
Above all – won’t it be difficult to implement?
Actually, no. The transition from paper-based processes to the digital document storage and management solutions that are a core feature of enterprise content management (ECM) is much simpler and less expensive than you may think. In fact, if you’re holding out against the transition, you’re costing your organization money.
Here are five reasons why your refusal to adapt is not in your organization’s best interest.
Reason #1: Your Customers Won’t Get the Best Service
No matter what your role is in your organization, your number one goal should be giving your customers or clients the best service possible. It’s what keeps people happy and returning to spend more money, and ultimately it’s what allows your doors to stay open.
In this modern, fast-paced world, what keeps your customers happy is your organization going digital. They want electronic invoices, quick responses, inexpensive services, and access to their records on the go. All of this can be provided to them once your organization transitions to digital document storage and management.
Reason #2: You’re Risking a Costly Regulatory Audit
But the transition to digital isn’t just about providing fast service to your customers. It also protects your company against expensive, potentially catastrophic, events. Letting sensitive documents, such as medical information, be seen by the wrong eyes is a huge breach of HIPAA compliance and other regulatory practices. Sticking to paper-based processes increases the likelihood that this will happen.
If your company is randomly audited by a regulatory body, having all of your records easily accessible will make the process as quick and painless as possible. You’ll be ready get back to daily operations in no time.
Reason #3: Your Staff Is Wasting Time and Money on Inefficient Document Management
Are you aware how much time is spent by your staff hand-writing paper documents, filing them away, and then retrieving them when they’re needed again? That’s a lot of wasted time – time you’re paying them for. Make mundane parts of their jobs go by faster by going digital, and you’ll be paying them to be impactful instead.
You’ll save money when your employees are more effective, and these savings can be passed on to your customers in the form of lower prices.
Reason #4: You Won’t Be Able to Hire the Best
Using your staff’s time ineffectively is about more than just wasting money. Paying people to mindlessly file paperwork isn’t going to attract or keep the top people in your industry for very long. New recruits fresh out of college and those who have worked their way up in your field want to work somewhere that’s tech-savvy, forward thinking and contemporary.
A large portion of the workforce is accustomed to technology in every aspect of their lives. If they’re forced to work with outdated, inefficient processes at your organization, they’ll move on to a competitor who doesn’t waste their talents.
Reason #5: You’ll Fall Behind Competitors Who Don’t Rely on Paper-Based Processes
Your employees won’t be the only ones leaving to go to a competitor if you’re too old-fashioned. Your customers will, too! Ineffective paper-based processes mean slower services and a more expensive bill for your customers. That’s not something that will keep you in business for very long.
But that doesn’t have to happen to you. Take the recent example of Toshiba Business Solutions. They implemented document management best practices to manage sales orders from origination through payment. They were able to develop a seamless workflow that not only improved cash flow by $4 million a month and saved $1.25 million annually, but also streamlined the management of and access to information while enabling the development of real-time business metrics. Clearly, savings and streamlined processes like these have helped keep them at the top of the highly competitive technology industry.
If a huge corporation like Toshiba Business Solutions can seamlessly integrate digital innovation, you can too. Digital document software is easy to use all at levels, and can truly help your organization stay current, competitive, and profitable. Positive ROI can be reached much sooner than you may think as well, often in as little as 12 months, so the switch to digital will pay for itself quickly.
Find out how your organization can leave paper-based processes and go digital in just 90 days.
