Making a Business Case for Electronic Document or Records Management Building and maintaining an edms system is a significant investment in both tools and people. It requires on-going care and attention. It s not for everyone or every scenario, and it shouldn t be a random decision. The goal of this document is to introduce some of the common reasons organizations undertake electronic document management and which can be used to help you build a business case. How to Build the Case One of the first things you need to know when starting a new project are the benefits of the proposed business change and how to communicate those benefits to the business. If you don t know these things there is little point proceeding. What prompted you to think about document management? Is it because you have an out of control file share and can t find anything? Is it because you want to go paperless? Are you hoping to streamline some processes such as document review and approvals? Before you can even start formulating your requirements, you must know what you are hoping to achieve. Step 1: Identify your challenges or problem Do not implement an edms simply for the sake of going electronic, or because it s available. Using an edms is generally more effort and your users will complain or not comply if you can t give them a good reason why they should be using it. In order to build a business case, you must be able to present some sort of benefit, and you generally can t benefit if there is no challenge to overcome in the first place. Do not move to a system if you have no challenges. If a file share is working, then stick with the file share. Not every product in the edms market offers the same components or functionality, and they all have strengths and weaknesses; this is another reason why it is important to know your challenges and objectives before you begin. The last thing you want to do is select the wrong product for your needs because you will be setting yourself up for failure. For example, if your challenges are on the collaboration or sharing side, then you might want SharePoint over LaserFiche; however if workflow and document imaging are where you need to streamline, then something like SharePoint would not be suitable. It can be difficult to identify your objectives and challenges without some understanding of how these products can assist. The next section presents some of the common challenges organizations can address through edms.
It s possible to have multiple challenges. For each objective or gap identified, complete steps 2, 3 and 4, then use the results to rank them in order of importance. Step 2: Determine the benefits You must be able to clearly articulate the benefits of addressing your challenges or problem in order to present a case. These benefits can take many forms: they may be financial savings, time savings, happier or more productive team members, more accurate information, mitigation of risks, or ensuring compliance among other things. As part of this step also look at the cost of not addressing or fixing your challenge. Costs can be financial, but they can also be measured in terms of risk and impact. Start by looking at any financial costs that could be eliminated or reduced: salaries, storage costs, other software costs, other contracts. Financial savings should not be the sole business case for an edms implementation; many of those savings will be redistributed to other areas like system licensing or support. Some cases may not even have a financial impact risk can be as big a driver. For example, is there a legal or regulatory risk to non-compliance? What is the impact of not being able to access information when you need it? If you are working with time sensitive or critical processes and you need a document immediately, then the impact could be quite large. Is there a risk to damaging the university s reputation or image? A lot of work has already been done in the area of content and document management to gather metrics and statistics. Look for studies done by credible organizations such as Gartner, AIIM, ARMA and IDC). For example: AIIM estimates disk space allocation for unstructured content could be reduced by 42% by using an efficient content management system, and in particular, one that uses just one shared copy of each document Executives spend an average of 6 weeks per year searching for lost documents 60% of an employee s day is spent working in one form or another with records and documents All these factors should be considered when determining benefits. Step 3: Determine likelihood or frequency How often does your challenge occur? Is it an ongoing issue or something that you encounter periodically? Do you struggle daily with not being able to share information with a colleague? If you have paper files that you struggle with but only once a year, is it worth the effort to digitize? If you have repeatedly lost crucial information and management is frustrated and concerned, then addressing this challenge may become the focus. These are the types of questions you need to ask yourself. If you have real life cases where these challenges have happened in the past and had an impact, use them in your business case. Step 4: Identify solutions
Once you have your challenge(s) or problem(s) identified and prioritized, you can begin to look at solutions or ways to address them. In the edms realm, review the Document Management Cookbook for suggestions on selecting products.
Common Business Challenges Below are some of the key challenges or business drivers for implementing a solution: Findability Often we have information stored in multiple places and the challenge is how easily it can be found. Information can be on a group file share, a personal drive, Google docs, in an email, in paper files in a cabinet. Further, files stored in folders on a file share often require the user to understand the structure and then manually search through files for the document they are looking for. Common challenges: Critical information is on a person s personal drive or email and can be lost or inaccessible if they leave the organization, go on vacation, have an unexpected absence, or if the document is needed during off hours. Information is stored in paper files only accessible in the office Windows explorer has limited search capability on file shares Critical information is stored in someone s email and can be lost or inaccessible if they leave the organization, go on vacation, have an unexpected absence, or if the document is needed during off hours File share folders structures are flat. It can be time consuming and inefficient to wade through many levels of folders, especially when dealing with large volumes of files Under FIPPA, when a FOI request is logged, it can be incredibly time consuming to manually comb through files in multiple places Provide a centralized repository (all info in one place) accessible by all and that can make use of a centralized search Assign extra metadata/ properties to information (tagging) to make searching easier and to allow for content to be grouped and filtered based on user s needs, rather than drilling down through folders. Full text search engine Access content remotely (without needing to be in the office) Information overload and content chaos Closely linked with findability, information overload refers to the challenges caused by sending information or documents in emails, dumping irrelevant content in file shares, misfiling documents and propagation of versions. Some alarming statistics:
15% of all paper documents are misfiled or misplaced Employees email 2 or more documents a day to an average of 5 people for review, which creates 10 new documents per day that are often stored in multiple locations Common challenges: No one understands the file system and knows where to put their document so they don t use it and store things locally or file in the wrong place Obsolete files/ content is not cleaned up which could cause a user to reference incorrect information Multiple versions of documents floating around with no idea which is the correct or latest version. Depending on your business this could be a major risk Junk All versions or drafts of a document are kept when not required and take up disk space Email quotas are used up by sending large attachments Valuable discussions are taking place via email with no way to capture that information outside of a user s inbox for future reuse Sending the wrong version of a document to a boss or co-worker Build a structure for content in advance. This can be automated based on input tags so the user doesn t have to worry about filing. The document will be stored appropriately as long as they tag it. Use metadata to force users to populate useful properties. This generally discourages throwing garbage into the directory Lock down the structure so that users can t create folders that don t make sense or don t align with the vision for content Schedule reviews or deletion of content based on how long it s been inactive to identify material that isn t being updated Control the number of versions for both drafts and final versions. These are maintained behind the scenes so they don t clutter up libraries or repositories and there is no confusion over what is the current version Provide a central location for a document and send users links instead of attaching documents to emails. This reduces mailbox consumption and also ensures they are always looking at the latest and correct information Provide discussion forums which can reduce emails back and forth and also store that information for future consultation and retrieval
Regulatory requirements Your unit may have some regulatory requirements regarding storage of information. These can include: Retaining records for a defined period of time Showing audit trails and proof of security Create a file plan with automated rules for retention and archiving Audit certain user activities Eliminate costs associated with storage of paper files (**note this should not be a sole justification) Business Process This is one of the most important areas because the complexity of your business process improvement may drive the selection of the tool. This is the main area where products tend to differ. Some basic common challenges are identified below, but business processes tend to be unique you should identify your specific processes in your business case. Common challenges: Send a document to multiple people to review and update but must keep track of who has responded and who hasn t, conflicts with reviewers changes, maintain order of reviews, multiple copies Formal procedures that need to go through a review, update and publish cycle Automate review and approval of content without sending emails and attachments Distinguish between draft (working) and official (final) documents Be alerted when a document changes (proactive notification) Collaboration Collaboration is becoming more and more important, not only outside our units, but also within our units. It presents a huge challenge in a decentralized environment as very few tools are enterprise in scope. Common challenges: Notify the team of key changes or new information Share information across units
Work with another unit on a document Work with documents online from anywhere instead of being limited to your desktop Collaborate with others on a project Document sharing and co-authoring (working on the same document at the same time) Ask for feedback on a document without emailing and sending multiple versions. All feedback is collected and retained with the document Use discussion boards to brainstorm, ask questions or gather input instead of sending emails. This ensures all users can see the latest responses, multiple versions are not created, the conversation can be retained for future use and isn t buried in someone s inbox, the conversation is searchable Edit documents in browser online, rather than needing client software on your desktop Productivity Productivity is closely related to collaboration, findability and business processes. Many productivity challenges and improvements will be unique to the unit. Some stats to take note of: According to a 2012 global survey, wasted time around working with documents costs an organization %19,732USD per information worker per year and amounts to a loss of 21.3% in the organization s total productivity 83% of knowledge workers lose time to versioning issues every day and 92% use email to collaborate Knowledge workers spend 50% of their time searching for information and take an average of 18 minutes to locate each document. Common Challenges: Time spent wading through disorganized file shares with limited search capabilities to find the right content Time spent to retrieve files from onsite/offsite storage Using local stored spreadsheets to track items or statuses Manual review and clean-up of file shares Having to come into the office to retrieve files or being unable to access files while travelling Emailing wrong version of a file to boss, client or co-worker Working on wrong version of a file and have to redo all the changes Time spent collecting and consolidating feedback
Manage tasks and issues in one central place instead of on a spreadsheet (which can be tied into Outlook tasks or notifications) Anytime/anywhere access to critical files and documents. Frees up administrative and productive time spent locating and retrieving documents *if properly organized Handle multiple versions and ensure everyone views the latest version of a document Collect feedback automatically either on a document directly or through discussion boards Co-authoring of a document so users can make changes at the same time Internal portal/ intranet At UofT, sharing information to a broad internal audience (staff and faculty) is particularly challenging because there is no internal network or intranet. Often this means units have to create their own portals and support applications that facilitate this. This content can become difficult to manage. Usually ties together 2 or more of the above challenges and deals with static content (ex. procedures) and interactive (ex. discussion, wikis) Common Challenge: Sharing information to or with a broad internal audience Reduced application development and support costs. Lowering cost and time to deploy and maintain group portal through quick, easy setup