Digital transformation is the new trend, as when everything around us has the modern touch like our phones, kitchen and the bathroom even the marketing strategies have gone beyond our expectations because of various uses of technology.
When everything is turning digital, how can the businesses and our work processes stay left behind?
There are some things at work that making us work slowly, but being slow can affect you from growing your business at your desired pace, so getting rid of them is the solution. One of them is reducing the paperwork, I know that documents are the currency of any business, but during the time of modernization, you cannot risk your business future by trusting on paper documents, because they can be easily stolen, copied or get damaged. If you own one of those businesses where the result is going to be disastrous if your company’s confidential files get leaked then you obviously need changes in the office.
Well, how can you make the change? It sounds hard when you think about getting rid of all the paper documents, but let me assure you it is going to be the best decision that you can ever make.
To manage the documents digitally, you require scanning and indexing software. Why? This article is all about that, but before beginning with the software, you should know how you can have control over your digital documents.
How Can You Have Control Over Your Digital Documents?
The document control concept is simple yet very useful; it means that you can secure your documents as well as make them ready for easy retrieval so that you don’t waste time and energy. To do the same, you need a Document Management Software (DMS) integrated into your system. This software would enable you to have the data or file by just doing a keyword search and would also provide the required security for your documents which you never had while using the paper documents.
To know why you need scanning and indexing software for your business, you must know how the document management software works. Some step by step processes is to be followed to use the DMS fully. Those are i) Scanning, ii) Sorting/Indexing, iii) Storing, iv) Retrieving and v) Sharing
Scanning
Before entering the documents in the system you need to scan all your paper documents—so for that reason, you need to have a scanning solution. Currently, the scanners can scan thousands of paper documents daily and can transform the information in digital formats like PDF, JPG, TIFF, etc. Some scanning software comes with OCR (Optical Character Recognition) facility, which enables them to extract the required information by processing image files. Other than that you may receive a lot of e-mails regularly, the DMS would capture all your e-mails along with other software generated results too to have all the documents at one place. So, if you need to convert the app generated results or e-mails in some other digital format, and then the scanning software can do that too.
Sorting/Indexing
You definitely feel frustrated when you have to search for a file urgently, but that files seem to be lost in a pile of papers. This is something that’s not going to happen when you are using the DMS, because before storing your data the DMS needs to make sure that all your documents have been correctly indexed, so that when you search s file, you can merely type a keyword related to the files, or a phrase or plain text from the file and that file would be in front of you within seconds. To index all the files, you gonna need help, indexing software would come to your rescue.
Storing
After the data get scanned and sorted now is the time to store the data. The DMS is of two types, i) On-premise/Self-hosted DMS and ii) Cloud-based DMS
- On-premise: The on-premise DMS is responsible for storing all the data in the physical server of a company; generally the large companies use this on-premise DMS because they have an IT team appointed who are able to take care of the maintenance and the security of the DMS. Nobody outside the office can have access to the files. The entire system of working is offline.
- Cloud-based: The process of working is online, and the data gets saved in the cloud, so the storage concept is virtual and infinite in this particular DMS. The host or the service provider is responsible for maintaining and taking care of the security of the data; anyone given the permission can access the data from anywhere using any device with an active internet connection.
So whichever you choose, the data gets saved anyway, and you can retrieve them anytime now.
Retrieving
As it is mentioned earlier, the retrieving process of the documents is easy because of the indexing process performed at the beginning stage.
Sharing
The DMS lets you share and transfer files via any file transferring process. You can also encrypt the files before sharing so that the privacy can be maintained.
Now when you know how the scanning and indexing software can help you in the digital transformation of your workplace, here are some more benefits that you should be aware of:
- You can convert the paper documents in any digital format for your convenience, though the PDF format is globally used, so you can find a scanning solution that obviously comes with scan to PDF feature.
- When there’s no need to buy paper, printing ink regularly, then it is apparent that the software is saving your money.
- You are getting free space when there is no paper, which makes you save the storage cost of papers as well as making your office neat and clean, which gives your office a great work environment.
- The organization of files becomes simple because every files and folder is under one system.
- The sharing and collaboration were never easier because you do not need to trust the courier company anymore because you can share the files within seconds by sending an e-mail or any other file transfer process.
- The security is tight because you can monitor the access while sitting on your desk; also, it lets you protect your documents using a password from the folder level.
- Though it is only applicable for cloud-based, still this point needs to be discussed, because you can access any files from sitting in your home or any other place because the documents have been scanned and made digital.
- Indexing software lets you get a hold of your required documents because it has classified all the data according to their purpose.
- After sorting the DMS can determine which files should be saved where, so when finding a document, you would know where to search.
- Extracting the required information from files can be useful in some critical tasks.
- The paper documents can be damaged due to some natural disaster, but in the case of digitized documents, there’s nothing to be feared as there’s no chance of damaging.
Well, now when it is clear to you that eventually, digital transformation can be beneficial for your business you should not delay the changes anymore, adapt to the changes as soon as you can, because the other rival companies of yours might have done the required changes or planning to do the same because digitization is the future, and ignoring it can cause your business a great loss. To manage the work-flow and to increase the work efficiency, you have to consider installing the above-mentioned software to make your productivity right.
It is recommended to deal with an expert vendor to make your experience good with the software.
There are many features to get added with the software in the near future, embrace the changes, and enjoy the blessings of the technology. I found this article on Dayton Daily News useful for you.