As the world grows smaller. One thing that a lot of companies grapple with is the sheer number of documents that pile up. Regulatory reasons aside, there are other reasons as well that a company would want to hold on to a multitude of documents. All this documentation adds up over time. The companies may find a lot of their resources getting used up. Just to manage this mountain of document management and data instead of focusing on their core competencies.
This is where outsourcing document management to a third party becomes a lucrative option. Not only are more and more solutions coming up under the larger umbrella of document management systems. But there are also companies who make it their sole focus to manage your documents as well as keep them safe and encrypted.
This article will look at what a document management system is, how outsourcing document management works and what the advantages of outsourcing them are. Without further ado, let’s jump in!
What is Document Management System (DMS)?
Document Management or more commonly referred to as Document Management System pertains to how an organization receives, stores, tracks and manages its documents, reducing the use of paper in the process. In the increasingly electronic world, this is done using software solutions that help with categorizing and tagging documents as well for easy retrieval.
How does outsourcing documentation work?
Efficiency is a constantly evolving metric. As businesses get larger and more complex, their need for efficiency also increases, and more often than not, it is gained by being able to focus on the core business. In these situations, resources being used up for other activities like managing the host of activities that come along with maintaining documents like digitizing them, cataloging, storing, encrypting, and retrieving them can significantly hurt efficiency.
There are companies whose core competence is to be able to manage this mountain of data for you thereby helping you focus on what you do best. Hiring them to do what they do best i.e. managing documentation is what outsourcing is about. There are various other benefits of outsourcing documentation too.
Benefits of Outsourcing Documentation
1. Increased Capital :
Since the company will not be investing in managing documents, there will be more working capital to support day-to-day operations as well as other priorities that come up.
2. Increased Efficiency:
Having freed up resources to focus on your core business, you will find that you have better gains in efficiency and productivity. This can in turn be used to focus on issues that only you and your organization can solve.
3. Better Security:
Companies that specialize in DMS work with much higher security than others. To ensure their clients’ data security, they need to invest in strong security systems.
4. Cost Savings:
While better efficiency and productivity will give your company huge gains in cost, outsourcing your documentation to a company will also save you the costs involved in setting up and training resources to do it in-house.
5. Better Technology:
Since DMS is not your core competency. Assessing and investing in a solution might still not give you access to top-notch technology. Add to it the complexities of constantly upgrading technology to keep up with the times, it will end up leeching more resources than the benefits it will offer to keep it in-house. When outsourced to a DMS provider, they will be constantly upgrading their technology as part of their business.
6. Customised Solution:
With a DMS provider, they will have solutions catering to companies no matter size or scale. Not just that, their solutions are scalable in a short span of time unlike having it in-house. Where any change will need to be assessed and then upgraded carefully, in a domain that is not core to your company.
7. Ensures Compliance:
All industries have specific compliance requirements in addition to larger ones around DMS. Creating processes in-house can be a significant drain on resources. Instead, outsourcing these to a company specializing in DMS can create faster adaptation as well as ensure stringent compliance.
8. Better Support:
Since a company that specifically deals with DMS will have not only anticipated issues. But also created support and solutions around them, outsourcing these activities gives your organization better access to support. In addition, they will be able to throw more resources. Resolving problems gives you more peace of mind and space to focus on your business.
In Summary
In today’s fast-growing digital world. There is a growing mountain of documents that come along with everyday operations. The older and larger the company, the greater the number of documents. In such a setting, going paperless will definitely help. However, that too takes up significant resources both in terms of manpower and capital.
This is where companies that specialize in documentation management come to the rescue. Not only do they take on the mantle of digitizing documents. But they then also look at ways to catalog, store and retrieve them. All this at various levels of security as required by individual firms. What’s more, these solutions can be scaled and customized to suit each company’s specific needs.
We hope this article has helped answer some of your questions about document management. And how outsourcing can help you and your business.