Who uses document management software?
Document management solutions have the ability to improve your business processes without changing them much. This makes them ideal across a wide range of situations and industries.
Who uses document management solutions?
More and more industries are falling under the influence of legislation that requires specific procedures for records keeping. Financial services companies need to be able to prove that information is unaltered to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley; medical practices have to prove that their records are safe from prying eyes to comply with HIPPA. The legal industry, too, has specific requirements related to discovery, including full-text searching of massive numbers of documents.
For businesses in these highly regulated industries, document management solutions are by far the best way to ensure compliance with strict security and record-keeping rules. It's important to note, however, that such systems can only help your company become compliant, they don't guarantee it. But, the right procedures and behaviors do. No matter how secure your electronic records are, if an employee prints sensitive information and takes it to lunch, you're not in compliance.
Departmental applications
Almost all companies have certain common business units that can benefit from document management. Human resources and accounting departments, for example, are traditional heavy users of paper files and some of the biggest beneficiaries of a document management solution.
Procedural applications
Other applications for document management include compliance with the Patriot Act, which requires immediate government access to certain records, and ISO 9000/9001 certification, which benefits from having the ability to prove your data is secure and unaltered. Manufacturing and government are two sectors that pursue document management solutions for these broader regulatory reasons.
In truth, any organization that wants to put procedural processes in place can benefit from document management. Such systems are used to enforce naming conventions, ensure strict approval processes are followed, and generally add consistency to existing procedures.
