In a government office, it is often said that files have a life of their own; they disappear, appear almost at their own will. Go to any government office and you will see mountainous piles of files and documents. If we were to place one file next to another, derived out of the government offices in India, surely, the line would go around the equator a couple of times at least.

Yet, if you think that it is the government officials that do not know how to cope with documents and files, then you could not be more away from the truth. According to some statistics, close to 80% of corporate information is stored in documents. While private players might be a notch better than their PSU cousins, there is still a lot that can be done. And this is where Document Management Systems or DMS comes into play.

A Better Alternative
Loosely defined, DMS is a computer system or a set of computer programs used to track and store electronic documents and images of paper documents. DMS commonly provides storage, versioning, metadata, security as well as indexing and retrieval capabilities. DMS allows organizations to exert greater control over the production, storage, and distribution of documents, thus yielding greater efficiencies in the ability to reuse information, to control a document through a workflow process and to reduce product cycle times. Hence, with DMS, companies are better able to manage the processes that deal with production, storage and distribution of documents. For instance, there is an electronic copy of the purchase order that can be reflected in the ERP application. Indeed, one of the biggest motivators for digitization of documents has been ERP, as when the data is in the system, a company is able to streamline the processes and is better able to take a value-based judgment about not only its future requirements but also future earnings.

DMS have seen substantial changes during the past decade. The evolution and capacities of DMS has progressed and expanded in line with huge gains in processing speed and capabilities of computers.

Considering the fact that a large number of public sector enterprises which are still paper based, India is a key market for DMS solutions. Rapid globalization and advent of private-sector enterprises also render the need for DMS, at worst, pressing. The advantages offered by DMS are multiple and all-encompassing, making it an essential element in business management and growth.

More and more Indian companies are realizing the need to be more focused on their core area of business instead of concentrating on managing documents and, in this context, DMS can be used for strengthening business applications, says Ravi Venkatraman, director, Xerox Global Services, Xerox India.

Adopting Fast
However, the adoption level of DMS in India is in different stages of maturity and varies for different organizations and verticals. Som Gangopadhyay, assistant director, Business Imaging Solutions, Canon India, elaborates on the reason for the low level of DMS adoption since saying that most CIOs in India are more concerned about the uptime of their network and servers, and provide security to their PCs instead of concentrating and delving into DMS.

A few of the verticals which have been one of the first adopters of DMS in India include BFSI, telecom, IT and ITeS, government, transportation and logistics and pharmaceutical verticals.

According to IDC, in 2007 alone, office would have produced some 4.5 tn pages of hard copy information. Not only is managing this amount of paper nightmarish but imagine the ecological impact of the same! In a world that is hurtling toward ecological catastrophe, every small step goes a long way. Thus, it is imperative that organizations start evaluating the means of cutting paper in office, not only is it cheaper but also is a better for our world.

Going Paperless?
Every organization talks about the eventuality that it would go paperless, someday. Yet the road to going paperless is long and winding, as the volume of paper of paper produced is still huge in most organizations be it insurance, banking, telecom, or the government. A large proportion of companies are automating their operations for achieve operational excellence and reduce costs.

Moving into paper-based information into electronic workflows is an increasingly important challenge for most organizations today. However, the challenges are not exclusive to large enterprises. The small to mid-size enterprises are also looking for basic points of entry for scanning and document management improvements.

Even though large corporations are beginning the move to paperless with imaging after realising that the costs were decreased due to information being more readily available. The small businesses have now followed suit to include electronic signatures. Also, with a global economy, enterprises are now being pushed to use technology to the fullest to streamline transactional interactions.

With huge amount of documentation to deal with, organisations across the globe now are becoming dependent on DMS solutions to not only make their offices less paper intensive but also go beyond mere automation. This would help them reap real business benefits such as sustained competitive advantage, increased market share, quick ROI, high efficiency and low turnaround time.

Nonetheless, all agree that paper can never and truly be eliminated. The only thing that can be achieved is lesser and lesser paper is used. Also, the fact that due to expanding business requirements and mandatory regulations, the need for paper-based documents has actually gone up. A more realistic approach would be to go for a less- paper office rather than a paper-less one.

Hopefully, sometime in the future, when you walk into a government office, there wouldnt be any storerooms that would be choc-o-block with files and their likes. Files will cease to have their own lives and turn into what they truly are: files. A few government offices and a few state governments have taken small steps on that road, but there is still a long way to go.

Shashwat DC & Stuti Das
shashwatd@cybermedia.co.in

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