With global data doubling every two years, organizations are overwhelmed. Learn how to distinguish between raw, chaotic information and the actionable, compliant documents your business actually needs to store.
The volume of data flowing through modern organizations is growing at a staggering rate. The world's information is doubling very two years. Furthermore, the data generated in one-third of all organisations grew by 25% over the last year.
Many organizations—from rising mid-market companies to massive tech giants that store data in the range of 100 petabytes—are overwhelmed. But this data bloat is often caused by a fundamental misunderstanding: treating all information as if it were a document.
The terms documents and information are often used interchangeably. It is necessary to distinguish between the two. Distinguishing between the two is the first critical step toward establishing secure data governance, reducing server costs, and ensuring regulatory compliance.
The easiest way to understand the distinction is this: All documents are information but all information are not documents.
Information become documents when the users decide that the information needs to be stored for further use.
Historically, documents were easy to identify because they were printed on paper. Today, information flows through countless digital channels. Due to various channels available to users for receiving and disseminating information there are various types and formats in which information can be communicated.
These channels include:
Whether the above information is treated as documents depends upon whether they are stored, recorded, classified and how they are processed by the organization. For example, a casual conversation about a product design is just information. However, a recording of a TV interview of the company's chairman stored on a computer for future use in promotional activities, is an example of a document.
In an enterprise environment, Uses of information as documents can be for the following purposes:
When organizations fail to implement a structured Document Management System (DMS), the financial and operational costs are severe. In India alone, over 20 billion original documents are created each year. The largest producer as well as consumer of documents in India is the Government.
These statistics highlight a massive failure in governance: 85 percent of documents are never retrieved, 60 percent of documents are obsolete, and 40 to 50 percent of documents are duplicates. As a direct result, around 15 percent of annual revenue is estimated to be the cost of documents for organisations. Without a system to manage them, organizations are essentially hoarding digital liability.
Not every piece of information needs to be saved. But the information that does cross the threshold into becoming a "document" must be stored with extreme care. Documents have to be stored and maintained with due importance to aspects of retrieval, security, search, dissemination, versioning etc.
These requirements cannot be met by simple shared folders or basic cloud drives. All these aspects are taken care of in a good Document Management System.
All documents are information, but not all information is a document. Information becomes a document when the users decide that it needs to be stored for further use.
Documents must be classified correctly to serve as proof of transactions, ensure regulatory compliance, provide actionable information, and support strategic decision-making.
Poor document management is incredibly costly. Studies show that 85 percent of documents are never retrieved, 40 to 50 percent of documents are duplicates, and around 15 percent of annual revenue is estimated to be the cost of documents for organisations.