Your Document Management Knowledge Center

A systematic business process workflow does four crucial things for your organization:

• It maps outs out each team member’s daily tasks, keeping them on track, comfortable, confident and constructive throughout the day.
• It clears out bottlenecks and staves off redundancies that put big-time dampers on production efficiency, work quality and employee morale. 
• It keeps your organization compliant with legal and financial regulations. 
• It enforces your organization’s practices, from simple operations to more complex methodologies, to keep everyone on the same page and conquering projects like a well-coached team.

But a workflow engine only operates like the well-oiled machine it should when rules and guidelines are defined by management, accepted by employees and followed by everyone.

The economy’s getting back on its feet and the market’s definitely looking better, but there’s still uncertainty wreaking havoc on businesses. Redundancies, shifting roles and talent gaps translate into major challenges for each department in your organization.

• The pains? Disheveled process flow, frustrating bottlenecks, crippled productivity and majorly depreciated employee morale. 
• The need? To work smarter with fewer resources. 
• The solution? Process automation and document management software.

Here’s how a powerful information management system gets your organization working with more accuracy, agility and cohesive productivity:

Networks and storage drives quickly get cluttered when documents are scattered and mismanaged. Most companies ignore robust document control practices because they aren’t aware of how crucial these practices actual are to the success of their organizations. Don’t let your business fall victim to the additional time and effort wasted when you need to track down who’s holding onto (and who’s accountable for) the latest version of a file.

A fine-tuned workflow is a useful blueprint to map out team members’ daily tasks and remove redundancies. A business process workflow helps to enforce your organization’s operational practices from simple to complex tasks. Your workflow’s scope might range from one or two on-site employees to a large group with multiple locations. 

In Scent of a Woman, Al Pacino plays retired U.S. Army officer Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade, a cantankerous blind middle-aged Army veteran.  For me one of the most memorable moments was his Tango.  Al Pacino makes you believe that he is blind and dancing flawlessly.  He makes the dance look effortless and that comes from practice and discipline, a fitting combination for a retired Army officer.

It seems we are hearing more and more about “job creation” these days. But while the politicians continue to pontificate on the wisdom of enacting further corporate tax cuts to encourage job creation, it’s important to remember that there are other ways that you can control to find the capital necessary to increase your workforce and your bottom line. Many of these savings can be realized quickly by leveraging the benefits of on-demand document management and workflow software.

In today’s world, “working from home” is no longer synonymous with inactivity and loss of productivity.  In fact, more than 34 million people in the U.S. telecommute at least one to four days a week and according to IT analytics firm Forrester Research, telecommuting ranks will expand to 63 million by 2016*. The vast majority of telecommuters report spending more time actually being productive versus commuting or combating daily office distractions. 

The advantages of using document management software are numerous and well-known, but for many organizations it’s not so much the decision to adopt this type of web-based technology, but setting priorities for use once it’s been implemented and deployed.

With virtual meetings becoming more commonplace in today’s global community, it’s never been more important to enable easier and more effective online collaboration.  Working across geographically diverse locations and accommodating more and more telecommuters is impractical, if not completely impossible, if your business processes still rely on paper files for information dissemination, input, review and approvals. 

Have you seen our latest newsletter?  Find out the latest exciting news in document management, including the upcoming InsideNGO conference being held in Washington DC.