It’s the age of technology, yet many businesses still choose to stick to storing and doing paperwork. You can’t blame them, though. They probably do it due to budget restraint or a preferential practice by senior bosses. Nonetheless, businesses can perform sufficiently this way, but they can do better.
Opting for cloud-computing applications optimizes work and removes the risk of storing your documents physically. Why does doing it the old way risky? Here are the reasons:
Sensitive data might be stolen or lost
If you’ve amassed quite a load of paperwork, you’ll most likely misplace a few documents that will prove important in the long run. This issue isn’t only about apologizing to clients for random loss of records but also possibly facing legal liabilities if sensitive information is stolen.
If you’re thinking about shifting to the cloud to solve this, it pays to enhance the overall security of your business data through the ServiceNow Security platform. Many companies can help tailor the platform to your needs, so your team can detect and address breaches before they even happen.
You can mismanage mountains of data
Sometimes, the document isn’t missing; it’s just there, and you know it. While this may be true, you’re still opening yourself to the crisis of wasting resources due to delays in reporting, modifying, or providing data stored on physical documents. It also puts you at a huge disadvantage if you can’t consolidate redundant documents.
For instance, if you’re working as an administrative staff in a hospital, and you’re handling mountains of medical records, having ready access to your records can mean life and death.
Coordinating with other teams is confusing
When you physically store documents, you make it difficult for other teams to collaborate. What if your legal department needs certain documents to work with post-sales customer service about multiple concerns? How can your HR team communicate issues to other teams if there’s only a single version of a common document?
Besides slowing down your company’s synergy, it’s also difficult and costly to transport physical documents across distances. You’d be wasting money on fuel, power, or extra labor to coordinate. Not all facilities can accommodate fax transmissions.
Handing over the position is a hassle
Any employee working with physical documentation has mastered the system, but what about their successors? Passing down the protocols and organizational rules using a disorganized system can be tiresome for both parties, no matter how “standardized” the process is for such a business.
This leads to another problem: when it comes to physical storage, there’s hardly any policy regarding archiving and disposal of old and defunct documents. Such a system either leaves employees storing documents “just in case” or disposing of them too soon.
It isn’t safe from natural disasters
How do you expect to protect your paperwork from an unexpected catastrophe? They can get drenched due to severe flooding or get burned to bits by a short fuse that leads to a fire. Even termites can be a problem. Suddenly, you need massive crisis management because you didn’t have a back-up plan.
As such, the shift to an online storage system is sensible. Convenient retrieval options ensure easy recovery in times of unforeseen events.
Understandably, businesses can’t completely abandon a physical document management system, so the next best solution is to have a plan B. Physical and digital systems should always go hand-in-hand. This way, your business can work at its best during the day and sleep easy at night.
