The pressure to go digital has been felt by businesses worldwide. According to IDC’s latest global study, 95% of organizations report that they are implementing a digital-first strategy to support new digital revenues. And their worries are justified: 41% of their total revenue is predicted to come from digital products and services.
The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly accelerated the digital transformation journey of most businesses. One of the most visible spin-off effects has been the increase of remote and hybrid work. Organizations of all sizes have been giving their employees the tools they need to work with the same efficiency and security regardless of whether they are operating from the office or a remote workspace. But there is still plenty of room for improvement. To work efficiently from anywhere, employees need much more than just Zoom or Microsoft Teams – they need a multi-purpose digital tool like enterprise content management (ECM) that resolves multiple business challenges at once.
Here are 5 ways that it will help your business prosper:
The digital age is making it increasingly harder for organizations to organize and store their data –it’s not just documents that need to be managed but also unstructured data such as video, audio, or photos. Today’s problem is that unstructured data is on the rise, which means that storing your organization’s files in filing cabinets will no longer do the trick. Businesses need sophisticated tools like ECM to efficiently digitize, organize, and store their date in one centralized location.
Keeping data organized is crucial for every organization, because poor information management could heavily impact productivity levels and increases the likelihood that important documents are lost or destroyed. Without a doubt, one of the biggest advantages is that ECM completely eradicates these problems and offers a scalable platform for your business’s content to grow upon.
Going back to data chaos, according to a McKinsey report, employees spend 1.8 hours every day on average searching for and gathering information which totals up to a whopping 9.3 hours per week. This means that one of the five working days, employees are wasting their time searching for files. On the other hand, ECM greatly reduces the time spent searching for documents as it digitizes paper documents efficiently and clearly labels them. Some more advanced solutions even have Google-like search capabilities. This means that employees can spend more time on more value-adding tasks instead of getting frustrated by not being able to files. Say hello to productivity with ECM!
ECM is a crucial enabler of remote and hybrid work, giving employees the flexibility to work from any location, at any time. ECM allows employees to work without any limitations from their homes or on the go by enabling access to the information they need with a few clicks or taps. Furthermore, employees can share documents and collaborate seamlessly together from anywhere without worrying about the integrity of their data.
ECM solutions enable teams to work smarter with greater security."
We are dealing with an unprecedented volume of physical and digital data, and the potential for security blind spots to emerge is a very real risk for those who fail to prepare. ECM solutions enable businesses to digitize physical documents, drastically reducing the number of digital files on-site; these same documents were previously open to being misplaced, damaged or stolen. With ECM, your information is given a new level of security and, what’s more, can be easily accessed and shared in an instant.
Physical documents can drain valuable organization resources, both in terms of the time associated with manual work, but also the financial cost of storing and maintaining documents. This is particularly the case for organizations that store vast amounts of documents in off-site locations. With ECM solutions, files such as invoices, contracts, and legal documents can be digitized and stored on secure cloud-based platforms. This reduction in the physical documents will have an instant positive impact on your business’s bottom line.
While decision-makers may be resistant to new investments in technologies such as ECM platforms right now, it is precisely these tools that are tailor-made to help businesses migrate towards a more digital approach to work. By turning huge amounts of physical information into easily accessible digital data and giving employees the means to collaborate with maximum efficiency regardless of where they work, they are laying the foundations for future success. It’s investing today for a prosperous tomorrow.
Check out our series of informative articles about ECM and how it can transform different industries.