Most organizations are not aware of the real impact of a poor document management until, for example, they try to automate a financial process, pass an audit or implement a Workflow in SAP.
At that point the problem appears and we realize that the documents are not where they should be, there are multiple versions and no one knows which one is valid.
According to Oxford Economics, business application users may lose more than 10% of your day searching for information, which is equivalent to up to 24 working days a year.
That's when we can say that the problem isn't just technological (that's why the cloud). Per se does not solve it) but rather a poor information management model.
The cost of not having your Document Management integrated
Who hasn't found themselves looking for a document without even knowing where to start? This is because many times the company's documentation is scattered in local or shared folders, emails, unconnected repositories or even on our own desktop...
This causes reactive, manual, slow work, delaying work in processes.
“Where is the contract?” , “What is the latest version?” , “Who has the valid document?” ...
This time is not measured in financial KPIs, but it has a direct impact on invoice cycle times, accounting closures, supplier service and even audits. And, above all, in the automation capacity. You can't automate what isn't structured. That is why in another article we explain How to migrate from paper document management to an automated system.
The challenge of digitalization for effective document automation
Apart from the dispersion of corporate information, another common problem is proliferation of versions: the same contract in three versions, a copy in SharePoint, another sent by email (but was this the good one...?) , a “Final_V3_Definitiva_OK” version (sure?) ...
This creates a lot of operational uncertainty and legal risk. In SAP environments, it also prevents correctly linking documents to business objects, executing automatic workflows or ensuring traceability. Also, all these issues must be considered when we start a digitalization project and we have to choose a suitable Document Manager to the needs of the company.
The solution isn't to store in the cloud, it's to manage information in its context (s).
Without a single, controlled and secure repository, document management is left half-finished. Many organizations believe that they already have document management resolved because they have a repository where they can “store” documents. And they believe that the solution is in the “cloud”. However, storing is not managing.
When a document lives in a folder, even if it is in the cloud, it still depends on someone to effectively manage the system. However, automation facilitates search, archiving, traceability and security when accessing and sharing files.
In addition, at the financial level, a DMS integrated with SAP allows, for example, to consult the invoice from the accounting transaction, access the contract from the order or view delivery notes from the receipt of merchandise, among others.
Real impact of document management on operational efficiency
When document management is integrated into SAP processes, the improvements are immediately tangible:
- Reduced time spent searching for information.
- Elimination of duplication.
- Automatic approval workflows.
- Faster and more traceable audits.
- Access control and increased information security.
- Silos, legal risks and sanctions in more extreme cases are reduced.
Document management should not be seen as an isolated project, or as a simple modernization, it must be the foundation of automation End-to-end.
Trust Brait for Intelligent Document Management in SAP
At Brait, we work on document management as part of the SAP process architecture, through a prior analysis of the information model, definition of documentary criteria, integration with business objects and workflow automation.
The goal is not only to minimize paper and digitize documents, but eliminate downtime and enable real automation that allows us people to add value to the relevant processes and aspects with which we work in our daily lives.
If you want, we analyze your current situation and we explain to you how it could be the Roadmap of document digitization in your company, without commitment!
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