What is ECM?
AIIM (The ECM Association), describes ECM as follows: "Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is the technologies used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to organizational processes. ECM tools and strategies allow the management of an organization's unstructured information, wherever that information exists." In essence, it's integrating paper and information in its many disparate forms into a single, manageable electronic database.
Why Implement an Enterprise Content Management System?
Paper filing systems are time intensive. The amount of time that can be saved by scanning and indexing existing documents and implementing an electronic file management system for future documents is staggering. Enterprise content management translates into both time saved searching for files, and increased productivity, as executives have more time to pursue revenue generating activities.
- Typical office workers spend 40% of their time looking for information.
- Professionals spend over 500 hours annually reviewing and routing files, and another 150 hours looking for incorrectly filed documents.
Converting paper files to digital images frees valuable office space, and often eliminates the need for outside storage facilities.
Enterprise Content Management is far more cost effective than old fashioned paper filing systems.
- One four drawer file cabinet holds 15K-20K of pages, costs $25,000 to fill and costs $2,000 per year to maintain
- The U.S. annually spends $25-35B filing, storing and retrieving paper. (IDC)
- Dollar cost of a document, as a percentage of total company revenue, ranges for 6-14%. (All Associates)
- 75% of the cost of a document is in management and logistics (All Associates)
- Cost of Handling Paper - A survey published by futurelawoffice.com with regard to a modern law office shows:
- 70% of time is spent processing paper
- 90% of documents are paper
- 7.5% of documents are lost
- 15% of documents are misplaced
- 30% of documents contain obsolete information
The cost of mishandling paper is substantial - if not altogether immeasurable. (According to INC Magazine)
- It costs $20 to file a document
- $120 to search for a misfiled document, that is if you can find it
- It costs approximately $250 to recreate a lost document
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