Speed is the primary benefit.
Moving information amongst your team instantaneously, people can take action immediately and deal with it then and there. If it relates to a customer, the response to that customer can be much faster than was previously possible. It’s then filed and everyone can see it’s been dealt with.
Results are improved customer relations, increased productivity, reduced costs of storage and paper etc. The costs of computer storage are now so low that documents can be kept on file indefinitely.
We are seeing a much faster through-put, the velocity of dealing with an email or a letter is much greater nowadays than we originally envisaged and this automatically gives us a better customer image and an edge over our competitors. It also increases speed of interaction. along the lines of 'Hah. He's moved that job to me, I'll deal with straightaway and bounce it straight back to him. It's almost like ping pong.
Location is the primary benefit.
You can refer to the document you need without going into the office. You save time taken going into the office, you eliminate delays as you can see the document now, you save the cost of travel, your staff can enter documents wherever they are and they immediately become part of the corporate management system.
As telephone calls can also be routed to a laptop this may mean you save the cost of local and regional offices. Conversely it enables you to think strategically about how you want your company to operate.
Finding the document you want, quickly and easily is the primary benefit
Every document is hyperlinked to the person who sent it (or to whom it was sent) to the relevant company, to the relevant project(s), to the sales opportunity, in addition it can be found by date it was created, by the user’s name, by subject, and by reference no. It can even be searched on the document content looking at the text inside a .doc or .pdf file.
This is probably the ‘greenest’ bit as you eliminate the need for everyone to have their personal copy of every document, though saving travelling or saving another or a larger office building is pretty green.
Seeing the whole life history for your customer as an individual and as a company is the primary benefit.
It has always been comforting to see a list of all the invoices for a particular customer or company, this means that you can also have all the correspondence so you can see immediately everything that you need. (If some one leaves that company, the company history is retained completely.)
Confidentiality is the primary benefit
If you restrict access to all the documents relating to a particular project or project structure to specific people or group of people, this is the equivalent of the filing cabinet(s) (wherever they are) being locked at all times, opening automatically only for authorised executives.
Safe-keeping is the primary benefit
You can confidently relax in the knowledge that all your emails, letters and invoices, plus every type of electronic file, are filed permanently and can’t be destroyed. Your corporate business and document management system is held to ISO27001 standards plus a further copy is held at a remote location. This copy is updated every thirty minutes.
So all your information is protected against theft (https standard,) fire and flood. Communication with your information is also assured to the highest level available.
Having one all-embracing corporate document system is the primary benefit
No matter how well you try you have a multiplicity of paper-based filing systems plus a multiplicity of computers and software and servers and filing systems. With elink Advantage you can combine them all into one corporate document system. Everything is on-line, available in anywhere anytime, it’s backed-up, its filed consistently and filed in a manner that what you want is immediately available or can be found easily and quickly.
And then there are the detailed savings as well:-
- For documents received
- Office Space is reduced as you only need a few filing cabinets to hold documents until you send them to a document repository for safe-keeping
- Photocopying is reduced and therefore the cost of paper and people’s time is significantly reduced
- There’s a huge benefit to you when you receive documents electronically as they are so easy to file and action, saving office staff.
- For documents generated within the enterprise
- Version control is provided including the ability to discuss and to pass draft documents for editing and agreement, increasing office productivity,
- All relevant electronic files and every format are included eg .doc; .xls; .pdf; .gif; .jpg; .msp; .msg; .ems; .wav; even multiple files are allowed for within one document. So logos, voice, and all the elements relating say to a new campaign or all the notes and hand-outs for a seminar or training session.
For all documents
- Everyone can refer to them wherever they are and several people can look at the same document at the same time
- Any document(s) can be attached to a diary entry or an action so no one has to ‘find the right documents’ as they are already attached and each can be showing which the latest version is.
- No documents are printed, so prgressive savings on paper and ink or laser cartridges.
Some documents can be set-up to be automatically published to an intranet, extranet or direct to your primary public website.
So you tell us which of these is the primary benefit for you, please. Tell us of other benefits you’ve found which we haven’t referred to.
Prepared by Cliff Jenkins
e-Advantage Solutions Ltd
16th March 2007