So You Think You Know What Document Management is? How Sure Are You?
So as a quick introduction my name is Simon a software advocate and on a daily basis I battle to define what Document Management Software really is to potential customers. I know for a fact document management will simplify and improve all your business processes, regardless of document type and business department.
Here let me give you an idea of what I am trying to say. A regular conversation I come across when speaking to businesses:
Me – Hi I wanted to have a quick chat about document management and the benefits it will bring to your business.
Them – We have document management already, our employees manage their own documents in our archiver.
Me – Agghh let me explain …………….Hello, hello!?
Them – *Gone*
Maybe there are too many terms to describe the same thing and everyone is confused. Here are some terms I found – ECM, DMS, CMS, EDM**, these are all the same solution but with a different acronym.
The Common view:
Document management is interpreted literally as managing and categorising documents. I don’t blame businesses for taking this view, as it’s not wrong, but it’s not quite right either.
The Professional view:
Document management is not only used to store and manage ERP documents and reports, but also to enrich, reformat, enhance, convert and distribute said documents.
Did you know?
(1) Document management will save your company £1000s on development and programming costs. For example, SAP ABAP programming can be a slow process but, by using document management you can make changes to documents & reports in minutes at no additional cost. Furthermore, there is no need for programming expertise.
(2) It is intelligent! In fact DMS can automatically match and merge corresponding documents together. Such as, automatically matching invoices, PO`s and goods receivables. All this can be achieved without human intervention.
(3) Document management is multi-lingual – This is 100% fact, DMS can utilise Unicode, grab data from multiple ERP`s using query variables or RFC`s. However, the cherry on top is the ability to produce documents in the mother tongue of the country where the documents are being distributed too.
(4) Document management is faster, cheaper and more reliable than any courier service – Thanks to multi-channel digital document distribution, your ERP documents will be delivered in a matter of minutes. This is achieved through email, FTP, Sharepoint and Fax in the format of your choice (No Stamp needed).
(5) Document management keeps you legal – Yes, you read that correctly, ‘legal’. What I mean by this, is that when new document or labelling legislation is enforced by governmental departments, you need to be quick off the starting blocks to adapt. DMS allows you to be compliant in a matter of hours with just a few clicks of the mouse.
The list of benefits associated with implementing document management into your business goes on and on. So next time you get asked about DMS, think about document challenges in the warehouse, finance, and HR. Maybe you need a quicker more effective way to distribute, or maybe quite simply you may need better formatted documents.
One more thing! What’s your definition of a document? In the world of document management anything that contains letters, numbers, symbols, icons and or logos is a document, this includes barcodes and reports.
Till next time thank you for reading.
ECM, DMS, CMS, EDM** : Enterprise content management / Document Management Software / Content Management Software / Enterprise Document Management
