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Document and Records Management: The Right Prescription To Battle the Recession
A common theme of IT news recently is about how companies faced with the realities of the ongoing recession are turning to data management techniques to achieve efficiencies and cost savings. The economy may be heading upwards, but many companies are still cautious and continue to see how they can improve their productivity.
For example, last summer John Newton, CTO of Open Source Alfresco, announced that Alfresco 3.2 was “designed for the Great Recession“, providing high-end features for managing and controlling data and content at very reasonable open-source subscription pricing.
InformationWeek and others reported renewed interest in data analytics and business intelligence. Companies want to get a grip in understanding their data to be able to make better business decisions.
And now, a report from OCE echoes some of those thoughts in the area of document management and imaging. The report is called “At the Crossroads: Leveraging Document Management Strategies on the Path to Economic Recovery”.
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The OCE report surveyed 180 executives responsible for document management processes. Of these executives, nearly half thought that it would be at least three more years before the economy was back on par with the robustness of the economy prior to the recession. That’s a while. The report tries to assess how these executives are trying to cope with the prospect of three more difficult years. |
The report investigates this areas of document management and how executives are prioritizing them:
- Document Imaging (paper-to-digital conversion)
- Records Management
- Enterprise-wide Print/copy
- Mail and Shipping
- Fleet Management (print/copy/fax fleet)
Nearly 50 percent of companies are increasing their spending on document imaging.
38 percent are increasing spending on records management. 51 percent of companies are keeping the same level of budget for records management. 83 percent of the companies interviewed have some sort of records management program in place, but surprisingly only 10 percent are managing electronic documents.
In general, the readiness of companies for handling electronic records management seemed low.
| Records Program Elements: | Response % |
| Records Retention Schedule | 16% |
| Records Retention Policy | 15% |
| Policies and Procedures | 15% |
| Paper Records Repository | 13% |
| Dedicated Records Management Staff | 11% |
| Periodic Compliance Auditing | 11% |
| Electronic Records Repository | 10% |
| Employee Training Program for Records Management | 9% |
