Role of Document Digitization in Today’s Business World
Regardless of the size of your business, chances are you have hundreds, if not thousands, of records and documents in physical form. By digitally converting paper, microfiche and microfilm documents into an electronic format, you are putting a safeguard in place to secure your important materials and gaining quick and easy access to those documents when you need them.
For the past several decades technology has continually improved the lives of millions, and organizations are no exception. Digital document management services are one of the most widely embraced practices by a vast majority of business organizations around the globe. More than half of these businesses have used document scanning and digitization to create a completely paperless office environment.
For businesses to remain relevant and competitive in an increasingly digital world, it is imperative that digital transformation happens within the organization. Seemingly every panel discussion, keynote, article or study related to driving digital transformation addresses this point, loud and clear. What is less clear to business leaders, however, is exactly what digital transformation means.
What is digital transformation?
Digital transformation looks different for each individual business, but in general terms it is defined as “the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business resulting in fundamental changes to how businesses operate and how they deliver value to customers”. It also involves a cultural change within the organization, requiring businesses to change the status-quo. This can often mean stepping away from the processes a business was built on in favor of more technologically advanced practices.
Document digitization has proven to be extremely beneficial to businesses around the world. When it comes to business operations, document scanning and digitization services are one of the most cost effective ways to enhance the day to day operations within an organization. With constantly rising security concerns and intense business competition, hiring a digitizing data outsourcing service provider helps your organization process, store and transfer data in a secure digital format.
Advantages of digitization
Your business faces a constant threat to physical documents that include disasters, human errors, lost records, theft, and more. We’ve listed below the advantages to digitizing documents for your organization.
- Saves money
You may be surprised at just how much managing physical documents is costing your company. Think of the amount of time an employee spends searching for records, sorting or scanning them, and returning the documents to its proper location. When you compare that time to how much the employee is making per hour, you’ll begin to understand the true cost of maintaining physical documents.
If a document is destroyed by accident, lost, damaged or stolen, what will the financial impact be on your organization? Now the employee has to scramble to find or replace the document. Even worse, if the document is irreplaceable, it could lead to a huge financial impact on your business — not to mention the damage it could cause to your reputation.
- Increases efficiency
Processing documents by hand makes your records susceptible to human error. The speed at which you deliver documentation to customers or clients is only as accurate as your employee is. Physically dealing with documents also slows down your team. It might take an employee 30 minutes to process a document request when that employee must physically move the records from document storage to the scanner, send the records to the client, and then return the document back to storage. If the needed document has been misplaced, lost or stolen, the amount of time spent looking for records can increase dramatically.
- Decreases the risk of loss due to disasters and theft
A disaster can strike at any time, and often without warning. Floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, fire, busted pipes, structural collapse, hurricanes or theft can leave your business in a world of hurt. When your documents have not been digitized, your business is left vulnerable to permanent documentation damage or loss.
According to the National Centers for Environmental Information, in 2018 there was more than $91 billion in economic loss caused by natural disasters. Add to that the threat of break ins or insider theft, and your organization is left susceptible to financial loss regardless of how many security measures you have in place.
Document scanning and digitization means you always have a backup in place, even if something happens to your physical documents. When disaster strikes, having this backup means you can restart your normal processes immediately.
Digital document management will save your business money over the long term, increase efficiency and protect your documents regardless of what disaster, theft, damage or loss occurs. When modernizing your organization to current market standards, document retrieval becomes a painless process. The loss of documents is expensive, and could seriously hurt your reputation or cause the eventual shutdown of your business.
With the information chaos ensuing today, Tronitech understands what clients want, need and desire. The industry is in disruption and the company prides itself on providing the solutions to meet the challenge. Visit the Tronitech Document Management Services website for more information.
