How to develop a corporate document management strategy

Large companies can have thousands, sometimes millions, of documents in use at any one time – and many times more than that in archive.  Their many departments, across several offices or branch locations, all use different documents in varying formats.

Documents are a company’s assets; they are vital in informing the business decisions that affect a company’s success and profitability.  So it is essential that teams and individuals use documents and information in a way that aids communication and collaboration, and that the right people can access the right documents quickly, easily and securely.

By providing the means for a company to organise all of its information in one place, a document management system can help a business to function at its best.  Costs can be reduced; security can be enhanced; and information is easily captured, stored, organised, managed, protected, shared and distributed.

So if you’re looking to implement a document management system, how do you go about it?  Follow our 9 point plan to ensure document management success.

1. Put together a project team

Implementing a new document management system needs to be an all-inclusive process.  The IT department is often best placed to actually run and manage the project, but it affects everyone in the business, so all stakeholders within the company should be included.  You can assign roles and responsibilities as you go along, but it’s vital that you get input from all functions of the company right from the start.

2. Conduct a situational analysis

Undertake an analysis of your present circumstances.  You may like to look at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT analysis) of your current methods of document management.

You should undertake a full internal audit across all departments and locations to gather information about document use within the company.  Find out which documents they use, where they come from, and how they access, store and distribute them.  Take an inventory of the documents that go in to and come out of your company, whether they are emails, faxes, paper copies, or electronic documents; and whether they are invoices, reports, letters, spreadsheets, presentations, images, video or audio.

Ensure you understand the business processes involved for each department and be sure to find out what document management needs employees may have which are not currently being met.

Gathering and assimilating all the findings will give you a starting point from which to input into and inform the objective-setting process.

3. Set objectives

Not setting objectives is like taking off in the car without knowing where you are going.  You need to define what it is that you want to achieve before you can begin to work out how you are going to get there.

Your goals will depend largely on the circumstances and needs of your company, as discovered in the situational analysis, but here are some examples that you may like to consider:

• Capture or scan documents from any source.
• Provide safe storage and backup of all documents.
• Organise documents into easily searchable and accessible libraries/folders.
• Ensure the availability of the most recent version of a document.
• Use version control to ensure transparency of document history and revision.
• Ensure a consistent approach to the creation, classification, format and naming convention of documents.
• Supply an audit trail when evidential proof is needed for compliance or other needs.
• Implement passwords and access restrictions for confidential or restricted documents.
• Distribute documents easily to relevant staff, suppliers, customers and partners.
• Provide an accurate and complete archive of documents.
• Comply with regulatory and industry standards.
• Ensure business continuity by enabling backup and disaster recovery.
• Reduce costs.
• Redeploy staff to more productive tasks.
• Recoup the costs of the system and achieve a return on investment.

4. Scope out your needs

Your objectives, along with the document audit and SWOT, will help you to determine what functionality you require from a system.  Define the scope and functionality of your desired document management solution, and consider other aspects of the system, such as: naming conventions, indexing and classification, security and access levels, backup plans, disaster recovery, and purging policies and procedures.

Be sure to align your strategy with your business processes.  Don’t try to design and plan for something that won’t fit with the way your company works.

5. Evaluate suppliers and systems

Next you will need to evaluate suppliers and systems that meet your company’s needs.  Once you have identified some suitable document management suppliers, you can invite them for an initial meeting, and then go on to select a couple to scope out their approach, solutions, and costs.  After choosing the supplier that best fits your needs, you can then move on with detailed implementation plans.

6. Create an implementation plan

With the help of your supplier, plan the detail of the implementation and rollout of your new system.  Decide if you need to phase in a system or gradually roll it out in a phased way.  Detail the software, products and systems that will be replaced or upgraded.  Be mindful to include a plan for staff training.  You may decide to do this yourself, or your provider may be able to undertake it for you.

7. Agree responsibilities, timings and budgets

For each area of the implementation plan: agree and stipulate timings and deadlines; research costs and set budgets; and assign roles and responsibilities.  Larger companies may need to appoint a project director to lead the implementation as a whole, and perhaps split the plan into smaller, phased rollouts, assigning local project managers as necessary.

8. Implement your new system

After months of research, planning and strategising, you can now deploy the equipment and install the software, undertake the staff training, and then start to benefit from your new, enhanced document management solution.

9. Evaluate and measure

Finally, you will need to measure how you’re doing and check that all is in order.  Go back to the objectives you set at the start and evaluate if you are meeting them.  If not, you can adjust your procedures or practices as necessary to ensure that your goals are achieved.