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5 Kinds of Businesses That Don't Know They Need Secure Document Management Software

Written by Guido Lara, OpenKM USA staff member on 29 May 2020

There are no set rules when it comes to running a successful business. While there are too many factors to consider in today's economy, like its trade wars, market fluctuations, and ever-changing technologies, in truth, there is an underlying basic principle: business organization.

You may have significant responsibilities and important decisions to make to keep your enterprise running efficiently. Whether your business is thriving or not is usually determined by how you decide to organize your company and how well you manage to recover your business from drawbacks.

That is the overall philosophy that leads to a prosperous business, so how do you put it into practice? One of the fundamental organizational aspects you should consider is your company's document workflow. 

How do you know if your company can benefit from using a Document Management System?

We're going to break down 5 kinds of businesses that usually don't know they need a document management software; then, you will be able to assess the benefits of using a DMS in your own enterprise.

1. Retail and E-commerce stores

Department and convenience stores are usually well organized about their document retention, and the same principle should apply to the broad extent of the retail sales industry, including e-commerce stores.

Whether you are selling your finished products straight to end-user consumers or dealing with providers and complex workflows, storing documents may provide higher efficiency with mail orders, invoices, warranty checks, client information, and improved task management. Not to mention the additional services you may obtain and provide like client reward systems and insight for marketing strategies.

2. Construction firms

A study by the School of Civil Engineering and Mechanics of Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China found that two large construction sites wasted up to 59.6% of the time due to inconsistent, misplaced, and ambiguous documentation, attributed to blocked information and struggle to collaborate.

General contractors, home builders, or specialized trade contractors deal with building plans, legal certifications, contracts, budget, and large bulks of supporting documents regardless of the company's size. For construction firms, document scanning, data storage, and document workflows are daily and essential tasks, and having a full central repository can be a fundamental organizational principle to assemble documents correctly.

3. Entertainment Industry

Movie studios, music studios, commercial television and radio stations, cable TV operators, and royalty recollection companies, among others, are some of the companies that deal consistently with multiple file formats and need to track their documents accurately for revenue and legal purposes. Some of them overlook the advantages of having a cloud repository and document management features provided by a document management system —like optical recognition, watermark, and meta tag systems— and they end up hiring different organizations to address their document management issues.

4. Cruise Lines

The sea transport industry has seen an increase in the number and variety of fraud cases during recent years. In 2016, Carnival Corporation, the world's largest cruise line, agreed to pay a $40-million fine for falsifying records, and environmental compliance violations, among other crimes.

Document control and security management systems for audit trials should have been addressed at the time. Nevertheless, in 2019 the company also admitted falsifying training records again, sending teams to visit ships to fix any environmental compliance violations before inspections, and even contacting the U.S. Coast Guard to try to redefine what would be a failure of their environmental compliance plan.

Corruption among large organizations may be a difficult - if not impossible - task to eliminate entirely but providing centralized workflow procedures and enforced compliance measures through a Document Management System, can be a step forward to enhance a company's uprightness.

5. Educational institutions

Educational institutions are the third most frequent target of data breaches by hackers, just after healthcare and financial services. In 2017, more than 1.9 billion records were stolen on educational institutions, with identity theft being the leading reason for the breaches at 74 %.

Social Security numbers, employee bank account numbers, and other personally identifiable information make educational institutions a target for attacks if they lack the proper security for electronic documentation. The exact cost this has on the institutions depends on the scale of the breach how much time it takes to identify and contain it, and the expenses incurred on resolving lawsuits. Still, the Ponemon Institute estimates the average cost of a data breach is $200 per record on educational institutions.

DMS's cloud-based solutions for electronic documentation can help these institutions by providing strong security protocols, document tracking systems, and even specific tools like optical character recognition systems.

Takeaway

Many businesses make claims that their information is safely stored without updating protocols, and they will satisfy their client's and business's long-term needs. 

The fact of the matter is that data is highly valuable, and all industries should be concerned about keeping secure and well-structured documentation. It is essential to evaluate what is more important to your enterprise when measuring costs and risks of data loss and take that analysis as a serious potential for growth.

Each company has its strengths and weaknesses, and careful evaluation of document workflows and document security liabilities must be performed before any investment in a Document Management System, after all, these providers also have their own strengths and weaknesses. 

We can agree that organization is vital for a successful enterprise, and there is wisdom in how to approach the structure of organizational decisions. Cloud-based Document Management Software can provide valuable collaboration tools, version control, and document tracking protocols, among other powerful features, which can help to implement robust security protocols while maintaining information accessibility on any enterprise.

If you have any doubts or difficulties with this assessment, you can always reach out to a high-end DMS provider and ask for their insight on what to look for in a Document Management System for your company.