Do your customers need a document management system? If so, make sure to help them plan first. Getting the wrong system could cause as many problems as having no system.
Every business process in an organization creates some form of document. Unfortunately, the volume, type, and format of those documents make them prone to mismanagement. In turn, mismanagement can have a negative impact on an organization’s capability for administration. Without a management strategy, documents – and Web content – put a business at risk, making it vulnerable to threats.
Realizing a problem, some organizations buy one of the many available software products. But customers need to know that a document management system isn’t an easy off-the-shelf and ready-to-use product. For instance, it’s harder to implement integrity controls over documents than with a database. Before they shop, you should help them develop an adequate specification list so you can align document management system tools to their needs.
Before starting a document and content management system, your customers should consider these points:
- Align products to meet the organization’s business and technology solutions.
- Develop policies to provide a framework for implementing the product in day-to-day business operations.
- Review and deploy policies effectively.
- Develop communication strategies to support the changes.
- Create retention and version control rules for all documents to help finalize the principles on which the organization will archive content.
- Apply all relevant information management principles, standards, and best practices.
Buying and implementing a product without proper planning can expose an organization to additional headaches and limit its ability to sustain the document management process. And effective document management system should store and retrieve:
- Digital office documents.
- Email.
- Physical office documents.
- Drawings and technical documents.
- Document images.
- Web content (Internet and intranet).
- Reports from business operational and support systems.
Apart from archiving this information, a document management system should also integrate such other business systems as:
- Resource management.
- Supply chain management.
- Asset management.
- Contract management.
- Horizontal business applications.
- Vertical applications relevant to the specific line of business.
- Knowledge portals.
Although some products may lack certain features a customer needs, most products have an open architecture, so suppliers can integrate products to meet the organization’s goals. Helping customers starting with documented specifications before they shop can provide an ideal document and content management system that will benefit their organization.
