This is how an EDMS gets organizations closer to a paperless office with a single source of truth.
McKinsey states that employees spend 1.8 hours every day — 9.3 hours per week, on average—searching and gathering information. Put another way, a business may hire five employees, but only four “show up” to work; the fifth is relegated to searching for answers that may or may not be found.
Enter electronic document management systems (EDMS).
An EDMS is a centralized digital platform that manages and organizes documents; it makes it easier for employees to find and access necessary information, arranging documentation in a single digital repository. An EDMS’s primary function is to simplify the creation, management, organization, retrieval, tracking and archiving of documents in various forms.
It serves as a central database where files are saved digitally (across formats such as documents, audio, video, images, etc.) and minimizes the use of random file storage options, such as file shares or sync-and-share options — all while decreasing the risks of lost or misplaced documents.
An EDMS holds several features that can collectively enable organizations to improve their document management processes, including:
An EDMS streamlines the way information enters your organization, keeps your data to greater standards of accuracy and allows you to access digitized documents with ease — all of which are done through capabilities like:
EDMS platforms can efficiently scale to accommodate growing volumes of documents without a significant overhaul of the infrastructure. This is particularly valuable for organizations experiencing expansion or those with varying document storage needs.
An EDMS can be configured on-premises or in the cloud, allowing organizations to choose the most suitable storage environment based on their specific needs, budget and scalability requirements. On-premises EDMS deploys servers on-site with control but limited flexibility — while cloud EDMS platforms emerge stronger when it comes to disaster recovery, cost efficiency and painless, automatic software updates.
The document version control capability eliminates the issue of having conflicting edits to a document, multiple document versions in distribution, messy workflows or further errors. Consider a scenario where a company relies on a document that outlines several standard operating procedures (SOPs) to initiate a repair protocol.
Without version control, technicians may refer to outdated procedures, which would potentially lead to costly or hazardous inefficiencies. An EDMS preserves historical document versions, providing clarity on the timing and nature of changes, while ensuring that users always have access to the most current and accurate documents.
Insight is important, and having reporting features in your EDMS measures the security and activity of your organization’s most crucial information. Here’s what you should be able to track with a modern, capable EDMS:
An advanced EDMS also offers real-time monitoring capabilities in the form of easily understandable charts, graphs and tables to facilitate informed decision-making.
An EDMS allows for multiple users to work on the same document and allows edits, markups or annotations to be visible to all authors with access to see them.
Some EDMS platforms seamlessly integrate with popular tools and applications (such as Microsoft 365, Google Docs, etc.). This integration facilitates simultaneous, real-time editing by multiple users, ensuring that everyone is working on the most up-to-date version of a document.
If your organization largely relies on paper documentation, manually tracking retention schedules can become an error-prone process that could leave you wide open to legal risks if sensitive files get misplaced or damaged along the way.
Besides enabling administrators to view full audit trails of user activity, modern EDMS can align with various compliance standards, such as GDPR, HIPAA or SEC regulations, by offering predefined retention templates or allowing customization to meet specific compliance requirements.
The system should also include automated retention scheduling, which allows for the setup of retention and disposal schedules for documents based on their type and content.
Backup processes in an EDMS involve making copies of data and documents to safeguard against data loss due to hardware failures, data corruption or other unforeseen incidents.
You can even set automated backup schedules to run daily, weekly or at other intervals depending on your organization's requirements.
Diverse storage options in an EDMS offer obvious benefits to cost efficiency. For instance, organizations can store documents accessed less frequently or historical records in budget-friendly, long-term storage solutions like off-site tape backups or specialized archival repositories.
Here are common features and ways an EDMS can fortify document management:
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Hyland's solution cut costs by $21 million in 5 years for Liberty Mutual — drastically eliminating paper, printing and storage.
If your organization is looking to take the first step towards going digital and establishing a solid foundation for document management, an EDMS is a good launching pad. Let's explore some of the key advantages, complete with real-world examples.
Collaboration is the cornerstone of any EDMS.
Here’s an idea of what a secure, minimal-touchpoint workflow might look like in a HR department when documents are digitized and stored in a single location:
An EDMS acts as a single source of truth when it comes to accessing vital business information. Everyone has swift access to the same, updated information regardless of their location or time zone.
Faster access to information creates a ripple effect of efficiency. Continuing with the HR example, HR professionals can access vital documents (contracts, tax forms, onboarding materials, etc.) faster to get a new hire acclimated to their role quicker by ensuring prompt, precise information.
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Hyland’s Alfresco platform provided Global Specialty, a business unit by Liberty Mutual, with electronic file and records management capabilities that helps the organization apply records management policies to a single source of truth.
The costs associated with searching, retrieving, storing, distributing or replacing documents isn’t cheap. Security risks that come from private documents lost in transit or in the hands of malicious actors also put organizations at risk of hefty noncompliance fines.
And in the event of unforeseen circumstances, such as natural disasters or pandemics, having an EDMS with remote access and disaster recovery capabilities ensures that compliance documents are accessible and protected. This avoids potential costs associated with document loss or downtime.
An EDMS allows organizations to overhaul many outdated, time-consuming and manual processes, and it provides a much-needed refresh on how work is done. Here’s how a successful implementation may look in procurement, for example:
Pre-EDMS: Employees spend valuable time sifting through paper documents or navigating complex network folders to locate supplier contracts and purchase orders.
With an EDMS: Documents are digitally indexed and categorized for instant retrieval. Employees no longer waste hours searching for critical data or sift through multiple duplicate versions of the same document – and they and unlock more hours in a day to focus on high-level procurement decisions and better supplier relationships.
Research by Globalscape shows that companies stand to lose an average of $4 million in a single noncompliance event. An EDMS plays a pivotal role in ensuring compliance by reducing the likelihood of compliance violations, costly legal disputes and data breaches, particularly through:
Most cloud-capable EDMS leverage storage services, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure or Google Cloud, to store documents securely. In the event of a catastrophic event, such as a natural disaster or data center failure, data can be quickly recovered from backup copies in geographically dispersed locations, ensuring business continuity.
Automated or scheduled backups also protect against data loss due to accidental deletion, system failures or other unforeseen events. Users can restore data to a previous state from these backups.
Many industries can benefit from implementing EDMS to improve document management, collaboration, compliance and overall operational efficiency. These industries include:
