The average office spends $25,000 to fill a four-drawer file cabinet and $2,000 annually to maintain it.¹
It's no wonder that organizations are more active than ever in pursuing solutions to streamline traditional methods of managing documents. Without the assistance of document management software, organizing documents, emails, scans, electronic faxes, graphics, Internet content, etc., is frequently a manual process that is very time intensive. Essentially, a dated management style that just doesn't work in today's digital, fast-paced office environment. Add in the burden of “Big Data”and the challenge of information management is bigger than ever.
Many have simply come to the point where “enough is enough” and the decision to automate is an absolute must. While some organizations are full steam forward, some remain wavering on the fence—willing to forgo and endure. So why the wavering? Based on insight from some of our client project engagements, it seems...
- Other automation project initiatives appear more important and are easier to sponsor.
- Having enough internal resources to effectively complete/coordinate the work is a concern.
- Such a project requires too much detail and decision making to fiddle with at this time.
- The cost/benefits of document management automation are not well enough understood.
Whatever the situation (all understandable by the way), we know the more time an organization takes to finally deploy document-based automation, the more savings they miss out on in the long run. For those who may still be wavering, we trust the following statistics will compel them to consider just doing it—making the document management decision today. Take a look...
The Average Office:
- Makes 19 copies of each document.
- Spends $20 on labor to file each document.
- Spends $250 recreating each lost document.
- Spends $120 searching for every misfiled document.
- Loses 1 out of 20 office documents.
- Recent estimates show that an average office administrator will take 12 minutes to process a single document.
- Nine of these 12 minutes are spent searching for, retrieving and re-filing the document—meaning that only three minutes are spent actually using the information they’ve found.
Average Office Savings Stats:
- EDI Group, Ltd. estimates a $1-5 savings per document after implementation.
- Gartner, Inc. estimates a 40% document-related cost reduction with document management systems.
- Laserfiche estimates a 20% time savings based on filing and retrieval efficiencies, eliminating misfiling and workflow efficiencies. Increased efficiency, as well as greater staff productivity, can save up to 6,000 hours annually, or 2.4 full-time staff positions.
- An IDC study has shown a five-year return on investment (ROI) of 404% for Document Management implementations. Half of the organizations in their study had a payback as early as six months.
In all, organizations can look to eliminate a number of costs that they may not currently be aware of and receive significant benefits from a decision to revamp their document management approach. With an estimated savings of $1-$5 per document after implementation, as well as the time savings and other productivity enhancements, the decision seems clear ... just do it!
To learn more about how your organization will benefit by making a document management decision today, let’s visit!
Source: (1) Document Management: The Buyer's Handbook, Laserfiche