How do you make the business case for implementing an ECM or ERM system? As an electronic forms and document automation focused company, we often see ourselves as an on-ramp that connects to the highway of many other systems, so we’ve had a chance to observe the process and see what works and what doesn’t work. Here are some of our suggestions based on what a particular organization is facing. You can follow the discussion at http://goo.gl/4SnK7 . Since LincDoc doesn’t exist in a vacuum, we wanted to share this with our VARs and customers who might face similar problems.
The Customer Situation: We’ve outgrown shared folders and need to be more efficient
- Engineering firm in the UK with 50 employees
- Over 500,000 files are in a shared drive without a formal structure.
- No retention schedules
- No user control, anyone can move and delete anything
- Looking for a quick fix, not considering a long term plan and strategy.
Their Questions, our advice (paraphrased):
1) Should we stop and create a plan, take an inventory, and do things right? Or just try to go with a quick fix?
It will work, but first you have to stop the bleeding. Luckily it is only 50 or so users, so you can train them easily on the new processes and new systems. Our advice would be to lock that volume as read only once you get a new system.
2) What are some tangible outcomes from the inventory process – such as typical documents that would be produced (e.g. info system map) that would help then perceive the worth of this work. I have indicated the time taken for the different info gathering stages to give them a fuller picture of the detail involved.
You can expect significantly improved findability of information, greatly shortening the time it takes to find the right file or document. Likewise if you audit those records, you can most likely reduce the amount, cleaning up the signal to noise ration on that content. An analogy I give is that if done right, it should be as easy to find things on an internal system, as it is to search for facts on Wikipedia.
3) It may be a case of ‘how long’s a piece of string’ but are there any general timescales for how long inventorying takes? Whether it’s in terms of ‘allow xhrs/days per y number of people’ or any other rule of thumb from those of you with experience of this kind of work?
This is variable, but what you can do is take a look at 5-10% of the system, and estimate how long that will take (so 25 – 50k records) and extrapolate from that sample size. Still, there are some hidden variables such as change management and process control you’ll need to factor in. my quick advice is however long you THINK it will take- double it. It will set expectations, and give you room to breathe.
4) Is it common for companies, even when they seem to understand they have a real info problem, to just underestimate the worth of this kind of work?
What you are doing is incredibly important, and yes it won’t be appreciated until that organization is sued, or audited- and they have to produce records from your new system. In fact, you have two methods of making the business case internally- carrot and stick. The carrot is all the nice things, speed, accessibility, better client service, and faster collaboration. The stick of course is what happens if you don’t change things, and something occurs.
Last but not least, make sure that your organization is fully committed to process improvement, and that the people are ready for it as well. With a good communication and training plan, and clear business objectives, you give yourself the best probability for success.
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