Managing Unstructured Information
We live in a world where data is doubling every two years. It is no surprise that CIOs are seeking to find ways of controlling this ever-growing pool of information, as nearly 80% to 90% of their data is unstructured. The earlier companies are able to manage unstructured data, the more compounding the benefits will be, and one of the ways to utilize these benefits is through Enterprise Content Management. Enterprise Content Management systems (ECM) is a technology used to capture, manage, store, and control enterprise-wide content. ECM technologies have a wide-spread and powerful ability to further increase performance in all organizational areas for a multitude of reasons:
- Compliance: ECM solutions ensure that records are following the retention schedules that your company establishes, ensuring that records management protocol is followed from creation all the way to destruction.
- Redundant Data Control: Email, while a powerful, is emerging as a tool that causes increased frustrations for workers in their day-to-day operations. Documentation is being shared back and forth from coworkers with no version control applied. Individuals are spending on average 2 hour every day to purely search and gather information, and even when they find what they are looking for, there is a chance that the information is not the most up-to-date version that they need. ECM, acting as a central repository for all information, provides the ability to store all versions of a document in one place, limiting the amount of time to search for an item while also enabling employees to look back on previous work if necessary.
- Automation through workflows: Policies, guidelines, RACI matrixes, business process models, etc. are some of the many controls that organizations place to ensure that processes are being followed efficiently and within regulatory bounds. Workflows automate processes, streamline them, and provide status reports to make certain that employees are efficiently completing work in a timely manner.
- Reduction of storage costs: ECM, acting as a central repository, ensures that you are limiting the amount of information that your company stores both physically and electronically. Electronic storage is reduced due to reduction in duplication and no longer relevant data, and physical storage is decreased due to the ability to progress towards a physical file free environment via OCR enabled technologies.
Continue to Part Two, Planning For Maximum Benefits, to unveil the key points in ensuring these organizational wins are achieved.
