Feature

From Document Manager Magazine Vol 17 No 05 - September/October 2009

Mark Hatton of RR Donnelley Global Document Solutions (GDS) looks at three document management related issues facing businesses both large and small

Mark Hatton of RR Donnelley Global Document Solutions (GDS) looks at three document management related issues facing businesses both large and small - the proliferation of paper documents, controlling the costs of document management and the impact of government legislation regarding the management of paper records and documents.

It may seem paradoxical that in the digital age, the volume of paper documents being generated and stored continues to increase despite the much heralded advent of the paperless office. The demand for new paperless delivery channels continues to be made from a new generation of consumers who are much more familiar with the sophisticated new technology. However, global consumption of office paper more than doubled in the last two decades of the 20th century as the introduction of digital technology made it cheaper and easier to print documentation. British offices, for example, are responsible for printing over 100 billion pieces of paper every year.
So what's driving this explosion of paper? One key driver is the proliferation of Government and Industry focused legislation. There is a broad range of legislation covering specific industry or cross-industry sectors including health and safety, human resources, legal, corporate and financial records. Examples of legislation that defined document retention policies includes Sarbanes-Oxley in the US, the Companies Act for corporate records, and the Limitation Act for legal records amongst many others in the UK. Each Act defines its own document retention policies which can vary for each different document type, whilst some retention policies can be quite complex, being triggered by a specific ‘event'. A retention policy for employee records, for example, has a statutory retention period so the policy for these documents may be defined as ten years from the end of employment.

Such legislation doesn't only dictate the format and content of a document, but also how the source document is managed. Original documents or certified copies are often required to demonstrate that the correct process has been followed when the company is audited. Strict rules define how long a copy of each document should be stored before it can be deleted, as well as specifying the service levels for finding and delivering specific documents to a customer or other document stakeholders on demand.

Companies are regularly audited to ensure compliance. Failure to meet required standards through inadequate document management processes can often result in large financial penalties and in extreme cases even imprisonment. A myriad of differing and complex rules govern the management of a company's paper documents, whilst at the same time the volume and size of documents generated - and therefore the size of the problem - continues to grow.

The Cost of Paper
There are multiple layers of cost associated with paper documents. Firstly, and most obviously, there is the actual cost of printing and delivering the source documents to customers. These costs consist of the actual process for the creation of the document, the printing and enclosing of the document and the handover to the chosen mail partner if required. The final cost per document can vary dramatically depending on the efficiency of the process.

Costs associated with the safe and secure storage of documentation can also be substantial and the length of time a document must be archived for is often dependent on specific legislation - for example, the ten-year retention policy for employee records - and private companies must retain their accounting records for at least three years.
It can cost a company thousands of pounds to have all necessary documents stored in a safe and secure environment, but storage is only part of the regulatory compliance issue. While great importance is placed on the safe storage of documents, equal attention must also be afforded to the quick and efficient retrieval of documentation. According to PWC figures, the average staff labour cost for filing a document is around £18, but around 7.5 per cent of all documents get lost and three per cent get misfiled. The average labour cost for finding a misfiled document is around £105 and the cost of reproducing a lost document is £190, which highlights the need for an effective and reliable means of managing document storage and retrieval.
Industry regulations often govern the amount of time a company or organisation has in which to present a requested document and failure to comply can result in litigation. In relation to legal cases, courts have their own time limits for the presentation of documents and do not look favourably on any company or organisation which fails to submit documents on request - large fines are levied for failure to adhere to deadlines.

As well as financial implications, the continuing office “paper trail” also has a huge effect on the environment and an organisation's green credentials. At a time when companies are looking to develop eco-strategies in a bid to cut waste as well as save money, the use of a paper-based system goes against both of these objectives. All businesses have a legal responsibility to dispose of any waste in a responsible manner, but there is often a substantial charge for commercial waste collection: it has been estimated that waste can cost a company up to 4.5 per cent of its turnover.
In addition to the organised destruction of documents through waste disposal and recycling, another risk associated with paper documentation is deterioration or accidental destruction. It is possible for the office paper trail to literally go up in smoke. In July 2006, a six-storey document storage warehouse in east London caught fire - the warehouse contained thousands of boxes of paper records from a variety of companies around the world.

Enterprise Content Management
Companies are increasingly turning to new approaches in a bid to avoid the issues of the traditional paper trail. One of the key alternatives is the use of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions. ECM is defined by AIIM as the strategies, methods and tools used to capture, manage, store, preserve and deliver content and documents related to organisational processes. ECM solutions offer more robust and risk adverse operational solutions by digitising and managing content.  A recent AIIM report found that the main driver for investments in document management is cost savings.
ECM solutions typically consist of several core components, briefly outlined below:

• Document Management provides document check-in/check-out, version control, security and library services for business documents
• Records Management provides long-term archiving, automation of retention and compliance policies, and ensuring legal, regulatory and industry compliance
• Document Imaging provides scanning, transforming and managing of paper documents
• Document-Centric Collaboration allows document sharing and supporting project teams
• Workflow (BPM) for supporting business processes, routing content, assigning work tasks and states and creating audit trails
• Web Content Management automates the webmaster function and managing dynamic content and user interaction

 As more companies recognise the benefits of an ECM approach, market and customer requirements are evolving rapidly, as vendors add capabilities that can interoperate with ECM. These components include:

• Integrated document archive and retrieval systems (IDARSs) for archiving fixed content, including images and print stream reports
• E-forms for capturing and exchanging electronic content
• Digital asset management (DAM) for storing and managing rich media content
• E-mail archiving and management for retaining electronic communications in support of compliance and discovery

 
This evolution into digital document storage in which both inbound and outbound documents are scanned and processed eliminates many of the risks associated with a paper-based approach. Storage costs are reduced as more data can be held in a smaller space when compared with the equivalent paper-based data. The risk of losing, damaging or destroying documents is removed as multiple copies of a digital document can be stored at multiple sites allowing for straight forward implementation of disaster recovery.
Digital documents are easily indexed for archiving, which means that document recall from the archives is simplified, and turnaround times reduced significantly - boosting regulatory compliance and ensuring a more reliable, cost effective approach.

Best Practice - get the most from ECM
Organisations looking at an ECM approach as an alternative to paper-based systems have some important considerations before implementation. The first, and arguably the most important, consideration is whether the organisation chooses to handle the ECM deployment itself or whether it invests in a managed service platform.
The initial deployment of an ECM solution can represent a significant challenge if an organisation decides to handle the implementation itself. A substantial financial commitment is required to set up ECM and can also be a big drain on IT resources. This is particularly difficult in the present economic climate when budgets are tight and cuts are being made across many departments. Specific knowledge is required to successfully implement ECM, which means staff must be fully trained in both the set-up and operation of the system. Training in these areas requires time and money and represents another drain on resources. AIIM recently carried out a study into implementation issues of companies that have deployed an ECM system. The study found that three of the main issues - aside from financial challenges - were low user acceptance due to poor design or clumsy implementation, underestimating the process and organisational issues and knowledge or training among internal staff.
Selecting a reliable outsourcing partner to provide a managed ECM platform combats many of the issues which arise through in-house deployment. However, before selecting an ECM partner, an organisation should research its preferred provider thoroughly and ensure that it meets any of the required business legislative requirements.
It is important to nominate an “ECM champion” within the organisation to help each department across the business understand the benefits of adopting ECM solutions. Siloed solutions should be avoided in favour of a modular system. This means that an organisation can select which services they require and these can be integrated with legacy systems. This allows for the evolutionary roll-out of a new system and avoids the “big-bang” effect when a system goes live, which has greater potential for a complete system fail.

Conclusion
ECM has evolved as a solution and made a transition from an imaging, paper replacement and forms processing service to a more complete document management package. ECM now provides search, access, process, collaboration and archive capabilities for an expanding range of content types across the organisation. Deploying an ECM platform on a managed service basis brings a number of benefits to a business including:

• Reduced commercial risk
• No capital investment in technical infrastructure
• Flexible transaction or service-based commercial approach
• Reduced operational risk
• Minimal impact on internal IT services
• Service is managed and supported by experienced team within rigid governance framework
• Highly scalable architecture to accommodate service growth
• Reduced implementation risk
• Faster implementation timeframes based on virtualised shared service platform
• Access to highly experienced cross functional implementation team
• Speed to market
• Dedicated support team with proven change management process delivers rapid requirements to delivery capability

Teaming up with a reliable provider of a managed work platform can be a much more viable means of implementing an ECM solution. A reputable provider can bring numerous cost saving and operational benefits without many of the issues discussed, such as poor implementation timescales and expensive set up costs.  

More info: www.rrdgds.com

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