Major Organizational Risks that DMS Precludes

Major organizational risks that DMS precludes are practically unavoidable if one attempts to solve them with another technology. Is your business thinking about going paperless and adopting a form of document management software (DMS) to help improve efficiency and organization?

If so, then you might be wondering about the range of specific benefits that DMS can bring to the table. Sure, trading a paperless filing system for a DMS can cut back on your organization’s paper and printing costs—thereby improving your company’s green or sustainability initiatives.

But document management systems can also reduce or eliminate many organizational risks. Here are 8 common business problems that adopting a DMS can help you to nullify.

Out-of-Control Operating Expenses

Paper filing systems can be costly, and not just because paper, ink, toner, and storage space cost money. On the contrary, perhaps the biggest cost of paper filing systems is time.

Digging through filing cabinets to find relevant folders or documents is a time-consuming process, and it can make every other facet of a project or process take longer.

These delays can, in turn, result in lost revenues, dissatisfied customers, frustrated employees, and other problems—forcing your business to spend more money hiring administrative employees or temps to handle the filing. In other words, you’re running over-estimated costs simply because you can’t run an efficient office otherwise.

By digitizing the entire filing process and making it easy to find documents using a full-text search function, DMS eliminates these extra costs by making your business faster and more efficient.

Non-compliance: The Most Painful Major Organizational Risk That DMS Precludes

Thanks to the recent rash of hacks and security breaches, there are going to be more and more laws regulating how different industries maintain, organize, and secure their records. Already, there are a few: the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) cites HIPAA and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act as examples.

Staying compliant with government regulations such as these is incredibly difficult with paper files, simply because they are so large and unwieldy. It’s difficult to retain oversight of an entire file room and remain certain that none of those files have been stolen, misplaced, or accessed by the wrong people.

Document management software simplifies file organization, offers superior digital security, makes auditing easier for external auditors, automates document retention policies, and more—making it easy to comply with relevant legislation.

Reputation Damage

Speaking of hacks and security breaches, having your company’s files compromised or stolen can lead to a PR nightmare, with considerable consequences for your organizational reputation.

If sensitive client or customer information falls into the wrong hands, your business could find itself on the wrong side of a lawsuit, while losing proprietary information or intellectual property can potentially cost millions of dollars.

Document management software like eFileCabinet uses advanced encryption, user-based access permissions, and a client portal called SecureDrawer that is much safer for sending sensitive documents than email. The result is a system that keeps your documents safer—protecting your business from security breaches and any related reputation damage.

Data Loss

As one of the major organizational risks that DMS precludes, data theft isn’t the only form of data loss that your organization might face without a DMS. On the contrary, paper files always create a higher level of risk for a business because of how easily they can be destroyed by fire, flood, or some other unplanned disaster.

Since you probably keep all of your paper files in one room or one cluster of file cabinets, the risk of losing them all at the same time is just too high. And while you can create backups, doing so involves creating another massive collection of paper and then paying extra to store those documents offsite.

With eFileCabinet, you can easily back up your files to the cloud so that they are retrievable from anywhere. We also store your documents redundantly, which means that even if one of our servers fails or is hit by an earthquake, you aren’t going to lose your data.

Gaps of Communication

Collaboration is one of the best things about working in an office environment rather than operating as a sole proprietor. With paper filing systems, though, collaboration and communication throughout an organization can be difficult. How do you make sure different members of the organization have access to the relevant documents for a new process or project? Gaps in communication are costly, and they are just one of the many major organizational risks that DMS precludes.

DMS makes collaboration more feasible by making files available for various organizational members to access and edit them. The accessibility ensures that different employees throughout your business have the information they need to make smart decisions and push projects through to successful completion.

Loss of Process Control

How do you guarantee that different files are going through the right steps between their initial conception and final approval? This kind of process control is paramount to making sure that clients, customers, auditors, and other external individuals receive files that are accurate and of a high quality.

It can be difficult to ensure this level of process control with physical documents because it is difficult to track who in your organization has seen, altered, or signed off on a project or invoice. As a result, there is a risk of files that should not have been approved making their way outside of the organizational bubble, and one of the many painful but major organizational risks that DMS precludes.

The Workflow feature of eFileCabinet enables process oversight that makes sure all files are going to the right people and at the right time—whether for comments, approval, or client consideration. This processing guarantees superior quality control while also safeguarding efficiency and making it easy to track who has seen or edited any given document.

Organizations of all stripes—from schools and local governments to real estate agencies—have begun to take advantage of DMS and its risk-mitigating features. Why not make your business the next to reap these valuable benefits? Try eFileCabinet today by visiting our website and clicking the “Free Demo” tab that pops up on the left-hand side of the screen!