Small and medium-sized businesses usually adopt digitizing processes to save on expense and storage space along with improved efficiency. There are many unmet needs in this industry. Some businesses struggle with incorporating their paper documents with their digital documents, legacy systems, process control, and data silos. Ultimately, educating businesses on how to use the systems and the multiple benefits gained, can go a long way in the success of the process.
SMBs and Digital Documents- Facts
- Almost 78% of small to medium size businesses are using digital documents to manage their businesses.
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- Nearly 60% of SMBs do not back up their files on a regular basis.
- Employees spend an average of 1.8 hours every day searching and gathering data.
- 22% of their time is spent on repetitive tasks.
- 99.5% of collected data is never used.
- An average office worker can go through 10,000 sheets of paper a year.
- On average, it costs a business $25,000 to fill a filing cabinet, and over $2,500 a year to maintain it.
- Data-driven organizations are 23 times more likely to acquire customers, 6 times more likely to retain them, and 19 times as likely to be profitable as a result.
- Paper records account for 62% of data breeches, according to the HHS Office of Civil Rights (UK).
- 94% of SMBs used cloud services in 2020.
- Nucleus Research discovered that for every dollar invested into content management, there is a ROI of $8.55.
SMBs and How & Why They Use Digital Documents
- Eliminating paper documents and the cost of physically storing those documents is a chief reason they use digital documents.
- Using digital documents provides a more efficient way to search and retrieve documents. It also provides a more efficient way to locate lost or misfiled documents.
- Digital documents can have added security such as limited access to improve the security of sensitive documents.
- Compliance is an issue with almost every business. Federal and state regulations must be followed, or there are penalties. Digital documents can help ensure better compliance by using automation of records and security.
- According to Xerox, "True digitization involves creating an end-to-end digital solution that includes document routing, storing, sharing and printing. It incorporates mobile print and cloud solutions, as well as state-of-the-art security."
- For the majority of SMBs, a main goal is increased productivity since there should be less time accessing and sharing documents.
- While many offices scan documents to store them, this is inefficient, as they can not edit them. Efficient processes and programs should have the ability to edit documents.
Challenges/Unmet Needs
- Many small businesses have to deal with a mixture of data on paper and electronic files. Using a document imaging system to convert all the paper files is time-consuming and expensive, therefore they deal with the majority of their files being on paper.
- Without an easy to understand file management system that stores documents in easy to locate files, valuable time is lost.
- 29% of SMBs state that the cost of manually managing and working with the documents is too high.
- 39% of SMBs state that using and processing documents takes too long.
- 29% are worried that their document volume is growing too quickly.
- 87% of businesses have low analytics and do not utilize their data to its potential.
- Policies should be enacted for data retention and destruction to assist with staying in compliance and to reduce the risk of data theft or loss.
- A common problem is having multiple data management systems in one business making it impossible to retrieve data from other departments because they do not have access. This is also called a data silo. Having silos in a business can also cause poor communication and departments act autonomously, instead as a whole.
- Process control can become a challenge. Documents usually have a process they must follow. For example, sales agreements must be created, edited, approved, signed, and so on. This manual process can break down at any step in the process. Having a digital content management solution to allow for an automated experience would result in less costly mistakes. Digital document management can be faster and easier.
- In a Deloitte study of SMBs that were experiencing concerns or barriers in using digital tools, 31% indicated they were concerned about privacy and security, 28% stated cost, 20% indicated that staff had inefficient skills, 15% indicated they had limited access to training, 12% stated that legacy systems were an issue, 10% indicated there was not enough time to learn a new system, and 18% said it was not relevant to their business.
Recommended Additional Reading
- How Digital Transformation Gives SMBs the Agility Advantage- This white paper presents multiple studies and benefits of going digital with documents.