5 reasons why you need a document management system

Document management systems (DMS) are more important than ever, but are still not used enough, according to a study conducted by IDC (International Data Corporation) in 2020. That study looked at how companies handle digital document management: around 1,500 executives from various international companies answered questions. The results give food for thought.What immediately catches the eye is that IDC predicts a 42.2% growth in enterprise data over the next two years.

32% to 68%: that is the ratio of used and unused data in an average company. Furthermore, two-thirds of the companies surveyed rated their data security as inadequate – something companies can easily remedy by installing sound document management software. In other words, companies store lots of data they do not use, and they do not secure any of it properly.

What lies behind those failures? One reason could be a lack of understanding of the advantages of a well-thought-out document management system. With that in mind, we would like to share five good reasons to consider a DMS.

Digital document management systems – DMS vs. CMS

Before we get into the five significant benefits of a document management tool, we should first clarify the difference between a DMS (document management system) and s CMS (content management system).

A DMS helps a company create, edit, and centrally store digital documents. In addition, a document management system classifies and secures those documents. It supports and facilitates collaboration, reduces bottlenecks, and increases workflow. Document management for MS Office primarily deals with Office applications such as Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Excel, etc.

A CMS works in a similar way, but focuses on managing online content – websites, images, media files, and data sets, among other things.

Document management software is the correct solution to:

• preserve and secure your data long-term;
• make documents available uniformly and company-wide according to your corporate design;
• enable collaborative editing of Office documents.

On the other hand, for content intended for use on the Internet – and of a temporary nature – then CMS solutions are more suitable.

Document management systems: 5 significant plus points

1. A DMS increases business efficiency
   Together with Nielsen, we had a B2B office study conducted by GfK. The study clearly highlighted the positive impact of document management tools on corporate efficiency. It revealed that employees who work mainly on computers spend around 40% of their working time formatting Office documents. In addition, searching for documents without a DMS is difficult and time-consuming. This is where the template libraries and the numerous productivity tools of digital document management software come in handy. All templates – from Word documents to PPT master slides to Outlook signatures – are uniformly adapted to the corporate design. As a result, users save around 30% of the time they spend editing Office documents.
   
   You can download the complete Office study here for free!
   
   Document management software saves time and money. Companies that still rely on analog instead of digital document management waste an estimated 40% to 60% of their office employees' working time. Every day, tens of millions of pages of paper are printed, copied, distributed, filed, and archived across Europe. The investment in a document management system pays for itself within a very short time.
   
   
2. Digital document management simplifies administration
   A sophisticated document management system easily integrates with existing IT systems. A DMS will reduce administrative effort many times over. It eliminates siloed applications and data, especially for companies with international operations. Where documents were previously created in different languages at different locations, administrators can now provide, manage, and update them centrally and uniformly via a single user interface in the shortest possible time. This reduces workload – especially for IT – and increases the usability, flexibility, and reliability of a company‘s IT services.
   
   
3. Document management for Mac, Office Online, etc.
   Holistic MS Office add-in suites such as empower^® can be used anytime, anywhere. You can host a document management system on-premise and/or in the cloud. And the operating system does not matter. For example, empower^® works with Office for macOS, Office for Windows, Office 365, Office Online, as well as Microsoft Teams.
   
   
4. Document management software facilitates collaboration
   The days when our professional scope was limited to the workplace alone are over, and not just because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Working from home or indeed anywhere is becoming an integral part of our professional lives. Cloud-based document management software provides flexible access to relevant documents, making collaboration much easier. You can work on different projects with your team at the same time, regardless of location.
   
   
5. Consistent brand presence thanks to document management software
   A document management system guarantees that your company's corporate design is uniformly communicated on every Word document, Excel spreadsheet, PowerPoint presentation, and e-mail signature. Any adjustments can be made centrally by administrators and/or in the team and implemented company-wide with just a few clicks.

Our document management system – the empower^® MS Office add-in suite – can do all this and much more. If we have aroused your interest, then please get in touch. We look forward to hearing from you! – Get started!