The provision of information plays an increasingly important role, which is often so closely interwoven with the business process that we can no longer see it separately from each other. If the provision of information does not work properly, this often means a disruption of the business process. With a digital working environment, the influx of up-to-date paper information is crucial in order to have a complete and clear provision of information. How do you organise this process as efficiently as possible? We’ll get it straight for you!
Digitizing is the order of the day. What we notice is that many organisations are making a digitisation move, but then have to decide what to do with the incoming flow of new information. In the ideal situation, this information should be added to the existing digital information. There are various possibilities for this. In order to safeguard this current flow of information in the work process, a decentralized or centralized approach can be chosen. The choice to organise this process centrally or decentrally has major consequences for the daily activities of the employees.
Decentralised
Decentralized digitization and archiving is recommended when organizations need to react quickly to changing circumstances. In short, it means that the new growth of physical documents is scanned and thus stored in the digital file. This information is immediately, quickly and on their own initiative entered into the digital archive and at the right place in the file. The advantage is that information is quickly accessible, as opposed to a central process. An important starting point for this approach is the preparation of a working document; how are documents scanned? Are they classified chronologically? What names do we give to documents and can new tabs be created in an existing file? Another area of attention in the decentralized approach is the creation of islands within the organization. Information processing can therefore become chaotic, which will have an impact on the effectiveness and loyalty towards the organisation. Information is stored to be found and that must remain the starting point.
Central
Organisations that opt for a central archive and central processing of incoming paper information often have a high degree of standardisation in their work processes. All paper information is collected in the central repository and they process the information in the correct files. This can lead to considerable cost savings. From the central repository there is more expertise in specialist areas, which are often too expensive to set up on a decentralised basis. Storage periods are observed and the construction of files is guaranteed by structured storage of documents via fixed archive features. Also in this process it is very important that agreements are made, because the information is not directly available to the departments because of the logistic process behind it.
A good description of the process has the advantage that it avoids the need for a major digitisation effort in a few years’ time. Archive-IT has developed handy software, Scan Suite, which uses barcode recognition and automatic indexing to link the new paper information directly to the digital file. In this way, it is always retrieved quickly and correctly. This software can be used in both the central and the decentralized process. If you would like more information or advice on setting up this process, please contact Archive-IT.