9 Signs to Update Your Information Management Practices

Is your current information management strategy up to the task of ushering your business into a future, where data is the most valuable asset a company has? Well, the future is here. The truth is, you should have asked yourself this question 5 or more years ago. But if you didn’t, don’t worry. Imaging Office Systems can still help you build and embrace new data management strategies and infrastructures that are primed to take advantage and capitalize on your most important asset.

Need to Update Your Information Management Practices? Look for These 9 Signs That You Do

1. 

   Update your information management practices to keep pace with your competition.

   Your outdated information management practices contribute to unnecessary expenses and other less-obvious consequences, such as slower and less effective customer service, obsolete products and services, and lagging, outdated forecasting data and analytics. Being really great at managing and using data and digital business content is now a prerequisite for being competitive in the modern business world.

2. Documents and data can get stuck in a variety of organizational silos or isolated software applications. Just think of all the devices, email accounts, local hard drives, on-prem servers, and even old-school filing cabinets that contain information that could be useful for your company, but isn’t accessible in the context of everyday business activities…
3. Having a mix of paper documents and electronic files is creating organizational chaos. Without knowing where information exists at every point in a workflow, it’s hard to accomplish anything efficiently.
4. You need to prevent unauthorized access to confidential content. With modern information management, you can provide access to specific individuals or roles within a company. These permissions make it easier to protect sensitive business information and documents and track chain-of-custody. You can also block access to a document from outside your company’s network or even prevent users from exporting or copying it. These capabilities are valuable security features of a modern, cloud-based content management system, such as those designed by Imaging Office Systems.
5. You need the ability to document your compliance practices with records retention guidelines. Whether it’s the bank looking at year-end financials, or the IRS doing whatever it is they do, you need the ability to document your compliance with records retention guidelines. Cloud-based content services let you fulfill these requirements and help make audits much less of a time-suck for you and the auditors.
6. Your outdated information management practices are costing you big money. Gartner Research found that workers in professional jobs, who must work with paper, spend 50% of their time just searching for information. Studies also show it costs $20 on average to file a paper document…and $120 to find a misfiled paper document. Furthermore, because of difficulties locating paper-based info, upwards of $14,000 of productivity is lost annually, per employee, according to studies.
7. Cloud-based document systems deliver the flexibility, features, and performance that improves workflow and reduces errors and time spent searching for files. These upgrades will help you better organize and manage data anddocuments securely and efficiently. It’ll also set the stage for improved, data-informed collaboration and decision-making.
8. Boxes of paper are vulnerable to both physical damage and data leaks, and you’re probably holding onto more than necessary. We’ll help you determine which records you should retain, whether physically or digitally, for regulatory obligations, legal concerns, and best practices. Then, we can help you set up a disposal schedule, so the paper doesn’t stack up again.
9. You really don’t have to work like it’s 1975 anymore…or ‘85, ‘95, or ‘05. Mountains of paper don’t have to dominate your office space, and you don’t have to pay a fortune for off-site box storage. If you have big heavy boxes full of good reasons to move toward a reduced-paper or paperless office, now is the time to evolve.