How can document repositories future proof your business?

As we anticipate the Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0 and 5G technology with bated breath, the global market for document management and cloud file sharing continues to increase exponentially. The lightning speed of digital transformation and the unprecedented changes triggered by the COVID pandemic has affected almost every industry. Protecting corporate assets, including essential documents is the stepping stone in future-proofing your business in the long haul. 

Document repositories form an integral part of document management systems, providing an efficient and secure way of storing all your documents in one centralized location. Before diving onto the benefits, let’s get the fundamentals right!

What is a document repository?

An archive storehouse is a mutual extra room, available by completely endorsed colleagues and oversaw by clients who have the administrator rights and controls. It is comprehensive of an archive the board framework. The concentrated record store is all the more regularly utilized by organizations today where all representatives can get to archives, messages, PDF documents, checked records, outside information, CAD documents, pictures, and different illustrations.

Let’s find out the plethora of benefits document repositories has to offer:

1) Eliminate data redundancy:

One of the key benefits of a document repository is eliminating double entry of data and overcrowding of files on your desktop or local drives. Being centralized into a single storage system ensures that all documents shared between your resources and employees are not duplicated across departments. This not only eliminates hoarding necessary space but also prevents ambiguity.

2) Seamless integrations:

If your business is implementing  Enterprise Resource Management or Customer Relationship Management applications, it’s wise to have a single document repository that seamlessly integrates with these solutions. Your daily workflow will be simplified and effective by allowing you to access, back up, edit, and monitor documents that are created within your ERM or CRM. Besides, most electronic document management systems integrate with email software such as Microsoft Outlook.

3) Secures your documents:

Version control monitors and records any change made to a document and by whom, protecting your documents against undesirable changes. A document repository secures vital business information and files by encrypting the data, safeguarding from a data breach, malicious intent, or human error. Permission to access control over documents not only preserves the integrity of your documents but also ensures that changes are made by the appropriate parties only. Besides, it also provides added security measures like audit trail, automatic backups, and password protection. In the event of an accident or a natural calamity, like a fire or flood, your files are safely stored in the cloud, away from any physical damage.

4) Foster better collaboration:

Document repositories facilitate an efficient medium for team members and cross-functional teams to share and collaborate on documents. Features like real-time editing, file sharing, task and calendar management, group chatting or video calling, provide transparency on who is working on what, making collaborations effective. Document management solutions like Dropbox, Samepage, Bitrix 24 among others, are trusted employees and management alike for workforce collaboration.

5) Easy document retrieval:

When you have an entire business’s worth of scanning to go through, storing paper documents can be cumbersome, time-consuming, and also, cost you a lot of money.

Reports suggest that the cost to store documents for a business is approximately 12 times higher when you don’t have a file manager in place. On the contrary, searching for a document within a repository takes merely a few seconds, and also allows remote employees to access them in real-time. Indexing, a process that categorizes and registers all your files via the metadata in your filing system, ensures retrieval is quick and efficient, irrespective of the accessor.

The Takeaway:

Once you have a document management repository in place, inform the entire staff on how it works. Training sessions on incorporating file storage should be considered a part of the new employee onboarding process. Law and accounting firms, medical and healthcare organizations, architecture, engineering, manufacturing firms, or any business that has auditory requirements and records retention can benefit from a document repository.