On-Demand Document Management: 5 Tests To See If It's Right For You

W H I T E P A P E R
ON-DEMAND DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT
5 TESTS TO SEE IF IT'S RIGHT FOR YOU
Christine Mason, CEOSpringCM
3 5 0 N . O r l e a n s S t r e e t , S u i t e 9 5 0 C h i c a g o , I L 6 0 6 5 4 . t e l e p h o n e : 3 1 2 . 8 8 1 . 2 0 2 6 . w w w. s p r i n g c m . c o mOn-Demand Document Management
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Document Management Paradox 2
Figure 1. Enterprise Content Management Defined 3
Barriers to Purchasing an Enterprise Content Management System 4
A Fresh Approach: Document Management On-Demand 5
Figure 2. The Difference Between ASPs and On-Demand Software 6
Five Tests to Help You Decide if Document Management On-Demand is Right for You 7
Test 1: The Reach Test 7
Test 2: The Speed Test 7
Test 3: The Cash Flow Test 8
Figure 3. Total Cost of Ownership Comparison: On Premise vs. On-Demand Software 8
Test 4: The Darwin Test 9
Test 5: The 80/20 Test 9
Summary: The Right Document Management Solution for Many Situations 11
About SpringCM 11













S p r i n g C M , c o p y r i g h t 2 0 0 6 , a l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d O n - D e m a n d D o c u m e n t M a n a g e m e n t / 5 Te s t s1Introduction: !e Document Management Paradox
How Do You Manage the Unmanageable?
Documents - whether paper or digital - constitute the fastest growing component of most organizations' information assets. U.S. businesses create more new electronic content each year than all the materials currently contained in the Library of Congress.
If you realize the importance of managing those assets better, on-demand may be a more effective and lower cost alternative to installed software. But is it right for you?
Geographically dispersed workforce The right information, right now Collaboration on multiple levels
The paradox is that while you want more control, you don't want to impede the flow of good information to those who need access to it. How do you accomplish both? How do you manage the explosion in content and resolve all of its associated problems?
The Problems that Plague You?Outdated Information. You want your field organization and customers to have the latest and most relevant product and pricing information. Because there is no immediate way to share updated material, field representa-tives use old information because it's the information that's available. As a result, inaccurate pricing and product information goes to the customer. Your organization loses valuable time and business revenue.
?Blind Spots. You are still using paper processes in some parts of your company, and these paper processes lead to "information black holes" - documents and other content that are hard to discover, retrieve and manage.
?Lack of Access. Your goal is to have geographically dispersed employees, remote workers, distributors, and clients collaborate on projects, contributing information and reviewing that which is created among team mem-bers. Projects include: preparing proposals, sharing competitive information, resolving billing disputes, re-purposing marketing materials, and much more. Relying on specialized remote access software (e.g. VPN), however, that is not usable on every company's network may mean someone is out of the loop. Your goal is at risk of being realized.
?Wasted Time. You send a document by e-mail for several people to review; each edits the document resulting in several uncoordinated yet edited versions. Your company spends time you don't have to reconcile the pieces.
?Technology Roadblocks. You send out an e-mail only to have it rejected by the receiving party's system as being too large. The data is critical, but cannot be delivered either because the message itself is too large or the user's inbox is full (of other large e-mails and attachments?). Your project is delayed and time spent working around this limitation is a drag on productivity and a distraction from higher-value tasks.
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