Digital transformation takes your paper documents into the digital era. Through scanning and digitization of your physical documents, you can easily access electronic records from a secure document management system. Digital technologies make it easier to save, store, search, access, and share digitized information while reducing the risk of human error associated with physical records. Whether your records are paper, microfilm, microfiche, or large-format physical documents, scanned documents improve efficiencies, save money, and reduce risks related to lost data.
Digitization of documents paper-based or otherwise reduces the cost of recurring record management. The time spent on the ongoing processing of physical records costs your organization more than the one-time cost of digitizing paper to digital files:
Every day, your employees waste time on the following paper-driven tasks:
This time impacts operational costs eliminated with digitization. It also reduces paper, toner, and copy/printing equipment overhead. As you save time, you see increased productivity as employees focus on higher-value tasks.
Paper documents are vulnerable to loss, damage, or even theft. While some documents have little value, the loss of paper records that are either irreplaceable or that cost time and money to find or replace impacts your finances. The average value of lost or stolen records containing sensitive or confidential information is $148. This number increases by almost 5% each year. Digital records provide backups, so you never face the fear or cost of lost documents. The cost to scan and save documents digitally is far more affordable than your employee’s time, supplies, and effort to recover lost records.
Did you know it takes an average of 30 minutes to process a single paper record for a customer? We’ve mentioned the financial impact of an employee’s time on your business, but what about the overall processes and inefficiencies for your entire operation? Here’s how digitization improves efficiencies:
Digital files simplify record retrieval, reducing the average time spent to no more than five minutes. Employee efficiency improves by using a secure document management system for easy sharing, storing, saving, and retrieving.
Whether it’s fire, flood, extreme storms, burst pipes, or theft, paper documents are vulnerable to loss, damage, and theft. Digitization provides an instant backup to your records and data, so you never face the consequences of lost documents. Natural disasters and burst pipes aside, even the strictest security measures fail to protect you from the risk of theft. Time also presents significant issues for paper documents that become fragile, discolored, or stained as they age. Document scanning and digitization mean you never have to worry about these issues as you always have instant access to your digital files and backups.
Storing documents digitally brings your organization into the digital age. As a result, you gain all the advantages of digitization, including:
Digitally converting your records keeps you competitive, attracting and retaining more customers and talent.
Office space comes at a premium today. Storing paper supplies, printers, scanners, photocopiers, filing cabinets, and document storage boxes strains limited office space. When you are low on space, keeping organized and providing a work environment that improves job satisfaction becomes difficult. Disorganization due to a lack of space also interferes with the efficient filing and retrieval of paper documents.
If your space isn’t adequately temperature-controlled or doesn’t provide a secure area for sensitive documents, your records are at risk for damage and theft. You might already spend money on an offsite storage facility for your expanding paper records. Outdated filing and retrieval processes cost money and create a backlog of work. Digitizing your physical records frees up office space and eliminates the need for offsite storage. As a result, you can reduce operating costs, remain scalable, and invest that money in expanding your business.
Digitizing physical records makes them easily accessible at any time, from anywhere. As a result, you can accommodate remote workers. Mobility and remote work have become a must for all organizations, whether it’s salespeople out on the road, staff looking for more flexible jobs, or a way to reduce overhead for unnecessarily large, expensive office space. Using role-based access controls, you can share data with employees, vendors, suppliers, and customers from a secure storage system.
Whether you manage human resources, accounts payables/receivables, government agencies, manufacturing operations, or any size business, digitization in hand with effective automation solutions will save time and money.
The value and benefits of digitization are clear to see, but should you take things a step further and speak to an expert? Just like with any other industry, consulting an expert in digitization will allow you to squeeze every drop of value out of the process and avoid many mistakes that could derail your efforts. Our experts at MEDI specialize in automation opportunities leveraging digitization and workflow software to improve efficiencies, so if you want the best results, the answer is clear. For more information, speak to a solution expert today.