Document Management – Where to Start?

Document management may not immediately excite everyone’s interest, but there’s nothing more effective at focusing the mind than survival. It is a fact that today’s compliance landscape is harsh and getting harsher – and the key to business continuity is the ability to manage risk, maintain resilience and ensure recovery. Depending on your organisation’s operations and the legal jurisdictions in which it operates, a broad spectrum of statutes and regulations may apply, such as The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, The Data protection Act and/or The Freedom of Information Act. Further, with regulatory regimes and the penalties they can levy expanding to meet the explosive growth in information flow, neglecting document management can be a very expensive and damaging oversight. As of 2010, The Information Commissioner’s office can issue fines of up to 500k for improper records management, meaning that failing to implement a proper RM programme could be a very costly mistake. The first step in document management is to decide which documents you need to manage. And, no, that doesn't mean you should start by scanning all that paper bulging from your file cabinets or stacked to the ceiling of your storage container. Instead, proceed in manageable and less overwhelming chunks. Identifying statutory and/or recommended retention schedules for different types of documents is an excellent place to start. Firstly, you will be able to identify any documents that should be disposed of immediately, which is just as important as retaining the ones that are needed.