Digital document workflow definition: Digital document workflow refers to the process of managing and digitizing documents using various methods and techniques that rely solely on digital technology. The overarching objective is to establish efficient and streamlined document workflows within a business. This includes utilizing cloud technology and automation to enhance the efficiency of document-related processes, ensuring that all documents are easily accessible, organized, and secure.
Digital document workflow has been an objective for SMBs for several years now.
The reasons for this have become more apparent as organizations start seeing the benefits of digitally transforming their work processes.
- “Three-quarters of SMBs agree that digital technology was changing the business landscape and 48% are looking for additional ways to add transformative measures to their scope of business” – Deloitte
Transforming workflows is an important digital trend which has taken a major precedence in North America.
While digitally transforming workflows isn’t just about replacing paper-based processes, there’s little doubt that the time and money spent on outdated work processes is a key driving factor for businesses.
Today, we’re going to be looking at what your business can get out of a quality digital document management workflow and the kinds of gains to be expected.
Document Management and Digitization
Document management and digitization meaning: Document management and digitization refers to the same processes that make up a digital document workflow.
Document management and digitization can be thought of as the solution used by organizations to capture, track, and store documents—whether they’re PDFs or paper files.
When we talk about digital document workflows, we can think about document management and digitization as being the main component in doing so.
The Problems of Poor Digital Document Workflow
Employees Spending too Long Accessing Information
As always when it comes to digital transformation, the key issue at hand is employee productivity.
Whether it’s manufacturing, healthcare, or legal, businesses of every industry are utilizing digital transformation strategies in order to streamline their business operations and improve overall productivity.
According to a McKinsey report, “Employees spend an average of 1.8 hours every single day searching and gathering information. That is 9.3 hours per week that could have been spent elsewhere doing something more valuable.”
When you consider how much data there is in businesses today, improving the means through which it can be handled and shared is crucial. To put this into perspective, 90% of all data in the world was generated in the last two years.
With this, there’s an ever-increasing amount of information that employees are constantly having to rummage through. In an organization that has yet to make use of digital solutions, this means a lot of time wasted by workers looking for what they need.
Information Not Readily Available to Employees
Furthering these issues is that in many SMBs, employees struggle to access data that’s not immediately available to them with proper document workflow.
This can be for a variety of reasons, but most commonly this is because departments across a company have different data management systems—typically legacy systems that are cut-off from the rest of the company.
This means it can be effectively impossible for someone in one department to retrieve data from another because they lack access.
- “Data-driven organizations are 23x more likely to acquire customers, 6 times as likely to retain customers, and 19 times as likely to be profitable as a result.” – McKinsey Global Institute
This is called a data silo and they are a major contributor to inefficiency in businesses.
This is an issue when it comes to productivity, and estimates indicate that IT departments spend close to 80% of their time working on issues directly or indirectly caused by data silos.
Dissatisfaction From Performing Mundane Tasks
Routine, manual tasks are common among businesses which have yet to implement digital transformation for their document workflows.
These tasks will typically revolve around data entry or routine data handling.
For example, you might find a worker in HR manually inputting employee benefits data, or you may be manually inputting all your customer invoices and receipts.
These are instances in which companies have grown used to accepting these mundane tasks as simply part of their business operations.
The truth is that these are often totally avoidable because of digital document management workflow.
The net result is that employees are frustrated because their digital document workflows (or lack thereof) aren’t helping their productivity.
They’re effectively doing a job that could be digitized, in which case they would be allowed the opportunity to focus their energy on something that needs a human touch, like customer inquiries.
Substandard digital document workflows not only cost your business money but your employee’s time.
The Causes of Poor Digital Document Workflow
Data Silos
Data silos are groups of data that have effectively been cut off from the rest of the business because they exist in disconnected digital locations. Any company that tolerates data silos is hampering their own productivity.
Here are just a few examples of the data silo issues that arise from poor digital document workflow:
- Data analysis: Silos mean information is stored in different places, often as inconsistent file formats. This makes analysis for business decisions a lot harder.
- Access: Permissions and access problems are common with silos. The result is that employees can’t get the data they need fast enough, slowing down work processes significantly.
- Unnecessary work: Limited visibility across a business often means different teams end up doing the same work in tandem, when shared access and the removal of silos would save time and energy.
Poor Communication
Subpar communication within an organization and a lacking digital document management workflow goes together.
When digital document workflows are underutilized, you can typically find that not only does data get siloed, but the culture does too.
Departments within the business begin to work independently, with their own data and processes.
Time and time again, we at Tronitech have seen how important it is for digital transformation to have a strong culture to ensure success, both with our clients and ourselves.
By neglecting your document workflows, it’s very easy to fall into a trap where culture is inconsistent and divisions act with too much autonomy.
Time-Consuming Paperwork Processes
We spoke about how employees are often hampered by having to perform menial, manual tasks.
Much like tedious data entry costing you labor, paper is also a double whammy.
With companies that predominantly operate with paper-based processes, staff must spend valuable time handling physical documents.
This is in addition to the large sums spent on the paper itself.
Companies like these often operate at the expense of a great digital document workflow, which saves time and money.
Advantages of Documentation Digitization Workflows
As we’ve noted in this blog post, there are several issues that arise from having poor digital document processing for information and data.
Rectifying these issues first begins with understanding that document creation is a key business function, and how that document creation is handled—in terms of capture, storage, and workflow—is crucial to realizing the benefits and advantages of digital documentation.
Here are a couple of those advantages:
Reducing Reliance on Hardcopy Documents
We don’t ignore the fact that it can be a big change for a company to ditch paper-based processes.
For many, however, it is a necessary change to embrace digital document workflows to some degree.
Utilizing a document management system (DMS) can significantly boost the productivity of your workflows.
This will save you time and materials over physical paper-based equivalents.
It will also give you far greater visibility and control over documents and data that pass through your company, allowing you to dictate your workflow rather than the other way around.
Time Better Spent
With less time spent searching, storing, and handling data and information, employees can make better use of their time when document flow automation and quality document management procedures are in place.
This provides benefits for the company and the employee—staff waste less of their time while the employer isn’t paying staff to spend inordinate amounts of time looking for documents they now have instant access to.
Preparing for Compliance
Like it or not, compliance is a serious area of consideration for businesses today.
With laws like CCPA, SHIELD, and industry-specific laws like HIPAA, it’s becoming imperative for organizations to organize the information they hold in a way that’s easy for them to remain in compliance with the emerging regulations coming into law.
For businesses that hold significant information on customers, particularly sensitive or identifying data, getting a document management workflow in place that securely stores information in an effective manner is a smart investment.
Takeaways:
- Poor digital document workflows lead to inefficiency and dissatisfaction.
- These are caused by siloed data, poor communication, and time-consuming paper processes.
- Automation, the cloud, and reducing reliance on paper within your organization can significantly improve your operational processes and efficiencies.
