Poor Information Management Leads to Inefficiency and Higher Costs

Companies without an efficient document management system may still use a combination of paper and electronic records. This type of piecemeal approach only leads to further disorganization throughout the organization. Do any of these situations apply to your company?

• Team members have difficulty locating documents they need promptly. 
• Once employees locate the documents, employees have difficulty sharing the documents with their team members and other users within the company.
• There is no way to determine whether the document version located in the system is the most up-to-date version.
• Meeting security and required compliance standards is an ongoing issue with disorganized documents.

Update Information Management System to Tackle Multiple Internal Issues

How would updating the information management system in the company lead to improved efficiency and other benefits? 

• Improve Document Categorization and Indexing

Company documents are categorized and indexed into the new system to make them easier to find. Employees will access files and other documents more efficiently, saving the company time and money. 

Team members have access to the latest versions of training manuals, contracts, reports, and other materials. Tagging the latest versions of these documents saves time for employees searching for materials and makes audit and compliance requirements much easier for the organization. 

• Google-Style Search Engine Makes Finding Documents Faster, Easier

Workers use a quality information management system to find specific documents. They look for information online by typing keywords into a search box. The system gives them results of their search in the same way as Google and other search engines.

The quality of the results depends on the pages available in the company’s internal library. There should be a variety of materials uploaded, including accurate meta descriptions. These materials may include expert reports, manuals, blog posts, white papers, contracts, and documents. 

• Templates Give Company Documents Similar Appearance

New document creation becomes more streamlined by using templates. All company documents have a similar appearance, making them appear more professional. Customers and employees won’t waste their time searching through records looking for relevant data. 

More than Just Finding Documents Faster

The advantages of choosing M-Files for your business are much more than just becoming more efficient at finding documents. Becoming better at finding documents is a great place to start in a large company. Suppose all your employees have trouble finding the documents they need. It takes everyone at least 18 minutes to find a document they are looking for every day. In that case, it might not seem like a big deal on the surface.

Multiply those 18 minutes by 500 employees, and the picture changes:

18 minutes x 500 employees = 9,000 minutes

9,000 minutes / 60 = 150 hours

150 hours / 37.5 (standard work week) = 4 weeks

What does this mean? Suppose 500 employees in an organization are taking, on average, 18 minutes to find a document they need every day. In that case, the employer is losing the equivalent of four weeks of employee working hours each day.

The Forrester report explains that companies can significantly improve these numbers and get a much better ROI by choosing M-Files for their information management system. M-Files offers impressive features, such as a Google-like search engine that uses single words to generate results. The search feature connects to multiple company systems, such as your ERP, network folders, your CRM, SharePoint, and more. Your team can rest assured that M-Files will bring back detailed, accurate search results every time. 

To learn more about the benefits of intelligent information management and M-Files, and to find out about the methodology used to prepare the report entitled, “The Total Economic Impact™ Of M-Files,” download your copy of the report here.