An enterprise content management solution, often known as an ECM systems, allows businesses to securely manage content and information throughout their life cycle. It enables authorized users to securely store and access unstructured data, such as Word documents, PDFs, emails and scanned images.
One of the biggest motivators for implementing an ECM solution is to increase efficiency in retail supply chains, contract management, HR processes, and government administration. If your organization still relies on paper documents, it’s time for a change. Ditch the outdated system and go digital to increase productivity and efficiency.
The 5 Most Important Elements of ECM
Our customers have similar goals for implementing ECM, which they’ve communicated to us over the years. Most commonly, our customers use ECM to:
- Stop wasting paper and make your business run more smoothly.
- Mitigate the harmful effects of duplicate documents.
- Lower the risk to your organization.
Leading electronic content management solutions like Docupile can do much more than this. Here are the five most important components of an ECM solution:
1. Capture written records in digital form
Capturing and import of information into a secure digital repository is the first stage in managing an organization’s content. This can be any document, including those that are generated, recorded, kept, shared, and archived.:
- Outstanding invoices from vendors.
- Job applicants’ resumes.
- Contracts.
- Correspondence.
- Research reports.
You can collect these documents through various methods, including:
- Creating digital records from the point of creation using electronic forms.
- Digitizing paper documents to be stored electronically.
- Managing digital content, including Microsoft Office documents, PDFs, photos and video files.
- Automatically filing and categorizing documents from any device or storage.
Traditional document-recording processes are time-consuming and expensive. There are countless advantages to digitizing your documents- from quickly and easily making copies to instantly sending them off to someone who needs them, eliminating the chances of losing important papers, and much more.
2. Store documents in an online storage space
Organizations can store any business-critical documents in a digital repository with robust ECM solutions, allowing users to:
- Determine who has access to, edits, and creates documents.
- Find documents based on category and search terms.
- Organize papers in a personalized folder structure that is adaptable.
Enterprise content management has many advantages that extend far beyond document storage. A content management system doesn’t just save time and money when handling documents and helps retain records that need to be kept according to a schedule. This easy process is excellent for anyone struggling with meeting compliance regulations. In reality, content management solutions are paying out $6.12 for every dollar invested, according to a recent Nucleus Research study.
3. Retrieve documents from any device or location.
Once an organization stores its records securely, it can:
- You can easily find any document you need using our full-text search feature.
- Find certain words or phrases within document text, metadata, annotations and entry names.
- Use the preset search settings to search for documents by date of creation, users who checked them out, and other document metadata.
Enterprise content management software helps employees save time by quickly finding the information they need to answer requests from clients, citizens and auditors. Staff members have quick access to the data they need to make better decisions about concerns that could have a significant impact your company’s bottom line.
4. Automate processes that rely heavily on documentation.
Automation aids businesses in eliminating manual activities such as photocopying or dragging-and-dropping digital papers to get more results with less effort. The following are some of the benefits you can experience by using an ECM systems with digital automation features:
- Send documents to specific people based on certain conditions.
- When papers need attention, inform staff members.
- By catching errors early, you can save time and keep your team from having to redo their work.
Purchase orders must be signed, records archived, and employee holiday requests authorized or denied daily. These documents can move through the required review and approval steps with automation as specified. By using our processes, you will save money by being more efficient and making fewer mistakes.
5. Reduce business risk and secure documents
Companies in various industries use ECM document management systems to manage their records to avoid penalties and better protect themselves against risk. An enterprise content management system must offer customizable security settings to best protect information from those who should not have access to it. These settings may include:
- With our granular security controls, you can decide who gets to see which folders, documents, fields, annotations and other document properties.
- Login information, newly created documents, destroyed paperwork, password alterations, and more can all be monitored.
- You can protect sensitive metadata by controlling information access down to individual folders, templates, and fields.
Leading ECM solutions allow line of business departments to manage user access independently, which ensures that sensitive HR data is kept within the HR department and private financial information is kept within the finance department, even if it’s stored in the same repository.
Many electronic data management system platforms provide a few of the five key elements listed below, but category leaders like Docupile include them all to help your organization rapidly improve business processes.
What are some examples of ECM Systems?
An ECM systems can help your company in a variety of ways. Here are some examples:
- Accounts Payable: Capture bills and purchase orders (POs), automate invoice matching, and highlight mismatches between bills and POs.
- Customer and client service: Provide customers and clients with online portals that host digital documents, enabling secure, anytime access to paperwork.
- Off-site and remote work: Give your employees the resources, materials, and services they need to complete their tasks successfully.
- Staffing and recruiting: Streamline hires and recruiting processes by reducing the need for paperwork, approvals, and other activities.
- Information governance: With these records management tools, you’ll be able to comply with regulations and keep your information secure easily.
