Content Management v. Document Management: Which Is Best for Your Business?

The term content management is used all throughout the IT industry today, and it means different things to different people. With the introduction of the new Microsoft Sharepoint version, the definition of content management has now expanded to include content, document, collaboration and etc. But what is content management and what is document management? Are they the same thing, or do they serve different purposes for an organization?

Document Management is the computerized management of electronic as well as paper based documents. Content Management is the technologies, tools, and methods used to capture, manage, store, preserve and deliver information, content, and documents. Now that we’re clear on the difference, which one is more important for your business? Good question, but before we answer it, let’s look at the facts:

• Over thirty billion documents are used each day just in the United States.
• In the course of a typical business day, Americans send and receive over 2.2 billion email messages.
• Content is growing at a rate of 92 percent per year.
• The average worker spends 40% of their time looking for information and 500 hours per year copying, filing, etc.
• More information has been produced in the last 30 years than in the previous five thousand years.
• The cost of ink, toner, maintenance, etc. is only 10% of total document related costs for managing paper. The remaining 90% is spent by workers looking for documents, updating documents, filing documents, recreating lost documents, etc.
• Since the introduction of the personal PC in 1984 the number of pages printed by American Companies has grown by 500% to over 1.5 trillion.
• In 1995 only about 10% of documents were presented in digital form.
• While paper documents will decrease as a percentage of all documents, since overall information is growing at 92% per year, the actual number of printed pages will actually double within the next five years.

So what does all this mean to you? It means that content management isn’t enough. With this type of increase in information, converting documents into scanned digital images is an important reason for document management. Document Management also allows the merging of the worlds of paper and digital into one.

But really, why is Document Management important? Document Management is essential to your business because how well documents are managed has a lot to do with how well an organization is operating. The ability to link scanned images of your paper files with key digital documents and access them instantly through intelligent searches will allow for the efficient use of resources which, in turn, improve your organization.

So what do you need to consider when it comes to Document Management? Two key aspects to consider when designing a document management strategy are image capture and data capture. Image capture involves the scanning of a paper document and creating a digital image of that document. Scanning is the first step in eliminating paper minimizing the costs of storage and reducing retrieval time for those stored paper copies. For small departments, scanning and saving digital images in TIFF or PDF may be a good start to Document Management.

Data capture, for large volumes of documents, is an efficient system for managing and retrieving documents. In order to quickly search and retrieve large volumes of documents, key parts of a document must be captured. Using data capture (manual data entry, OCR, ICR, etc.), data is captured in index fields (metadata) to enable searches on documents.

You’ll need equipment to handle your Document Management processes, including scanning equipment for regular and large format papers as well as for large volume, mid volume and microfilm/microfiche, as necessary. You’ll also need to consider software for image capture, data capture, quality control and image viewing. And then of course you need storage space, both computer-based and physically speaking, for all of your digital files. Will you handle your digitized files on site or use a data center?

A Cost Benefit Example
A search was performed of over 10,000 documents looking for a specific topic, author and data range. The manual search of paper files performed by staff took 67 hours and found 15 documents. The same search using a document management system required 4.5 seconds and found 20 documents.

Planning the Transition
When developing a plan for a document management system, start with one department at a time and think about the following along with other factors considered critical to your particular business:
• The least complex documents
• Strong technical infrastructure
• Strong business champion
• Highest value documents
• Clearly defined workflow
• Volume stored/added annually
• Clearly defined indices
• Start with the best-trained, most capable staff

As with any project, planning is key to success. When implementing a document management system, start with a well planned and detailed scope of work (SOW). Then be sure to get the buy-in of the key players including, at a minimum, IT, the records manager and the head of the department involved. The SOW should outline the design, training, system and user responsibilities required for your Document Management plan. Once there is buy-in, you’re ready to begin the transition. When implementing the system, utilize a department by department approach. Training people on the system is important to get full utilization of the system.

You’ll want to consider the following as you implement your new Document Management system:

• Storage/backup systems are a very large issue as they can be expensive and must be upgraded on a regular basis.
• The network must be reliable to avoid corruption of the documents and to allow quick retrieval of documents.
• Wide acceptance and use of the system means documents must be available nearly 24/7.
• What is the impact to my business if my EMC goes “offline?” How fast do I need to get it back online?
• Does my training make users want to use the new system?

The Results
Once your Document Management system is in place, you will find that the speed of document retrieval increases and even physical office/floor space available may increase.

Now, there is no such thing as an “electronic document revolution” or a “paperless” office. Many documents are still printed out, and some electronic copies are even printed out multiple times. Where some departments used to make photocopies to send to another department, you’ll find that they now scan the documents and let the receiving department print them, resulting in a shift in printing costs but not an overall decrease.

Document Management will not lead to a decrease in paper generation. While paper storage decreases, the original paper is still generated at the same rate. More electronic origination of documents would eliminate this problem. Although there will be an overall net decrease in paper storage and filing, there will not be a decrease in all departments. Some departments preferred to maintain electronic copies and paper copies, duplicating their efforts as they scan and file. For these departments, both workload and costs have increased (this is a minority of the departments).

Cost Benefit Analysis
There is a quantitative return on investment that can be calculated. Man hours saved and storage space savings cost can be calculated (see example below). When doing the ROI calculations you must include hardware, software, maintenance and man hour costs of administering the system.

For example, 1.5 million documents in a system represent the equivalent of 3,640 boxes of paper or 585 4-drawer file cabinets. Off-site storage costs are $.30-$.45 per box per month. Electronic storage of these documents saves $13,000 to $19,000 per year. Calculating savings on users retrieving an average of 61,000 documents from a document management system shows that, using an hourly rate of $9.59 (non-burdened, Office Assistant III) and an average lookup time of 5 minutes per retrieval, an additional savings of 5,083 man hours, or $48,759, can be realized. How does that look on the bottom line? Pretty good.

Conclusion
Document Management systems allow better management of records, enhance customer service, increase document security, reduce storage costs and reclaim valuable floor space. These systems allow for stricter adherence to retention schedules, rapid document retrieval, document sharing and annotation and the ability to print, fax, email and export documents by end users. Automated processes allow IT staff to import records, reports and other data directly into the system, avoiding the costs of printing and distribution.

Document Management systems will not create a “paperless office” and it will not necessarily reduce printing costs. Document Management systems will allow for better management of documents, with better control and security of information, while allowing for integration with other electronic information. Information is increasing at an incredible pace. Document Management systems allow for seamless access to both paper and electronic information.