HOW MUCH PAPER DO YOU NEED IN 2015?

We all know that going paperless will help the environment and save trees. We have all seen the “Going Green” advertisements and social push to protect the planet. But do you know exactly how much paper we really waste?
The average office worker uses approximately 10,000 sheets of paper per year according to the US EPA. That’s 20 reams of paper per office worker in the US.

So, what steps can we take to reduce our paper use?

1. Use email instead of fax – This one seems simple, but many of us are culprits. Instead of faxing, create it electronically and electronically send it. If you must fax, use an electronic fax provider – This will save you time and money.
2. Organize and store your documents in a central Electronic Content Management System – Documents will be organized and easy to retrieve and use. You can send documents directly from the system and allow users to retrieve documents. This eliminates the need to print and send documents internally and even externally.
3. Create E-Forms – Most companies, whether you’re a financial institution, Academic, medical provider, insurance company, etc., require some form of physical documentation to be filled out from your customers. By making these forms electronic, you will reduce the use of thousands of sheets of paper.
Source: http://www.tronitech.com

Whether you’re interested in reducing paper waste or just want to save money in the 2015, TECRES Consult can help with effective and efficient document imaging solutions in Nigeria Give us a call or visit our website to learn more

EARN UP TO N50K/MONTH

TECRES Consult is an IT Consulting company. TECRES Consult is recruiting Project Contract Staff for:
Job Title: Computer Data Entry Officer
Job Location: Lagos Mainland
Job Duration: 4 months
Job Duties: – You will carry out data verification and validation
Job Requirement: Minimum of Diploma in Computer Studies
Deadline: December 17, 2014

Method of Application: Send CV to jmacaulay@tecres.com.ng

CHEAP ARCHIVE REORGANIZATION

Information Asset is any organized documentation, data or body of information incorporated into a communication structure and managed in such a way that it can be understood, shared, protected and exploited effectively.
In preserving information assets value, risk, content and lifecycles, deploying a document management solution is the way to go however cost of digitizing can sometimes outweigh the value of such documents.
The essence and benefits of information management is to have access to documents as at when needed. The first point of call is to provide physical archive reorganization to free up space and have a better estimate of your paper volume.

The reorganization is done by moving old documents more than 10 years into indexed archival boxes for retention storage and reorganizing newer and current documents in a chronological order with proper index labels. An index tracking list is created using spreadsheet for easy access and retrieval thereby eliminating time wastage and improved efficiency.

Tecres Consult is a document management company that specializes in archive reorganization, digitization (document scanning/conversion) and document management services. We help organizations evaluate their document management needs and analysis to ensure that each one realize the maximum level of business benefits.

Contact us today

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• by email: info@tecres.com.ng
• visit our website: www.tecres.com.ng

SIMPLIFY CONTENT AND DESIGN

In software design, we use terms like “intuitive” and “user-friendly” but are these terms truly signifying simplicity? Most computer systems work best if they are kept simple and avoid unnecessary complexity. It is easy to get carried away programming complex code, yet it is important to note that increases to a system’s intricacy amplifies difficulty in maintaining it.
Over-complicating software design could turn consumers away through unneeded features and over-engineering. It generally is harder to debug programs than it is to write them, so use thoughtful reduction to simplify functionality. Impress consumers, don’t overwhelm them with confusing complexity. By keeping a system simple, you are capitalizing on its ease of use.

Laserfiche ECM provides the ability to establish and deploy information management standards throughout the enterprise while giving individual business units tools to customize the system to meet their specific needs

Using Laserfiche extends well beyond its technical capabilities. With more than 34,000 customers worldwide, we have an active community, including more than 80 software development firms that have developed supporting applications through the Laserfiche Professional Developer Partnership (PDP) Program; more than 1,000 customers who share their expertise as Laserfiche Luminaries; and more than 2,000 individuals who have enrolled in certification courses to further their skills through the Laserfiche Certified Professional Program (CPP).

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ECM AND DMS

Enterprise Content Management is much more than just a means for storing and managing an organization’s documents. ECM also includes the tools, strategies, and processes used to capture, store, retain, and manage content. ECM appeals to those looking to manage and configure large volumes of structured and unstructured data, including:
- Images - Web content - Email - Video - Electronic documents - Other media
With its superior security features, ECM systems tend to appeal towards risk-driven consumers – such as healthcare professionals, universities, lawyers, etc.

Common ECM Features: - Digital asset management - Indexing - Document collaboration - Workflows - Audit trails - Business process management - Email management - Imaging In order to visualize ECM – image it as an Office Assistant, able to automatically recognize the content within a document and know who, where, and when to send it.

Document Management Systems are designed to control the life cycle of documents. This includes document creation, retention, and accessibility. Whereas an ECM system is your “Office Assistant”, a DMS is your digital “filing cabinet”. A DMS is at its core a simplified ECM system as it focuses on managing entities as a whole rather than the extensive functionality of content management.
Document management systems are technically a sub-category of ECM – as ECM could not exist without its ability to manage documents (the core function of a DMS).
Common DMS Features: - Workflows - Audit trails - Indexing - Versioning

STOP!

Stop ...

1. Wasting time and staff resources on endless “document quests”
2. Struggling to make one team member’s documents available to another
3. Recreating important content because you can’t find it
4. Fixing problems caused by overlooking crucial information in files or email messages
5. Opening documents simply to understand what they contain
6. Struggling to interpret obscure file names or to understand which client a document is associated with
7. Losing documents because they’re not labeled consistently or physically stored together
8. Misplacing important email correspondence
9. Navigating multiple applications, drives, and folders simply to view all the content associated with a project, client, or matter
10. Deploying unnecessary software to client desktops – or performing time-consuming conversions – simply to permit document viewing
11. Struggling to control who can see or edit your documents
12. Spending hours trying to track who viewed or edited a document
13. Wasting money and time backing up obsolete files
14. Reconciling inconsistent concurrent changes made by document reviewers
15. Using Windows’ slow and ineffective document search tools
16. Trying to figure out which version of a document is authoritative, or who owns it

With document management system in place, you can get more done, more effectively, at lower cost, in less time. You can stop wasting time or money on manually finding and managing your documents, and reinvest those resources in becoming more profitable!

Call today us today and give it a trial for document management feasibility study and consultancy

CHOOSING THE WRONG VENDOR TO DEPLOY DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SOLUTION

Why do document management implementations go wrong? Ever asked yourself as a CTO, CIO, CMO, C-Suite. As almost everyone would want to believe it or not, document management has come to stay. Either you adopt it now or you end up paying the huge cost of having to do a catch-up. From the big names to the small and unknown (SharePoint, Alfresco, Documentum, Filenet, Hyland, Laserfiche, OpenText, Pinpoint, Paperport, gDoc, etc), these solutions have come to stay.

My story goes…
A client hires a (wrong) vendor (padi padi or for kick backs) and says, “We want a like-to-like migration from paper document to electronic document management solution (EDMS) or enterprise content management (ECM).” The vendor says “Okay” and does it.
Now, I don’t know about you, but when I hear “like-for-like” I think I am not adding functionality, but just following the charade. It may just be taking advantage of new out-of-the-box features, available to make information governance and management easier. This is a no no.
The wrong vendor interprets “like-for-like” literally, and end up creating a mess from paper document into EDMS/ECM making the deployment a failure..

...the back-story goes like this ...

1. An organization decides to convert from paper to electronic document management solution (good start).
   
2. They take the decision to implement any of the above listed EDMS or ECM (reasonable decision).
   
3. The vendor deploys the solution and copies (not moved) some content from the network drives into DMS solution (making progress, except…)
   
4. They did not …
   
   • Take a content inventory.
     
   • Develop a taxonomy or metadata model.
     
   • Account for other stakeholders that may need access to the content.
     
   • Provide context / role specific views to the users.
     
   • Put any rules around site provisioning and what to do with them when no longer needed.
     
   • Do ANY of the things needing to be done prior to implementing an ECM solution and migrating content, regardless of what the platform is. In short, they moved whatever was in those network folders right into the EDMS, effectively creating two messes instead of one.
5. So the advocated solution starts to collapse under its own weight (because they miss the parts about capacity planning, scaling, and disposing of content).
   
6. Nobody uses the solution even after millions of naira have been spent making the software a failure.

>>> and fast forward.
The right vendor should spend some days talking with stakeholders to figure out what’s needed and the end users of their expectations. Get into people’s heads about their thoughts, fears, and attitudes around how they view information management as an enabler for them to do their jobs.

1. Define the Scope – The scope shouldn’t be limited to a specific group, bother anyone and everyone concerned from stakeholders to end users. Most vendors cut out this stage and talk mainly with IT staff. Although they own the business unit, the content applies to a business process that involves all and non-technical units in the organization.
   
2. Fundamentals – By fundamentals I am referring to items such as file plans, retention & disposition schedules, archiving strategies, metadata model, user profiles (personas), security, etc.
   
3. Content Migration – Content migration is not just simply forklifting content from one repository to another. There has to be some serious thought put into it. Decisions about what content goes, where does it go, what gets archived, day forward or legacy, all have to be asked and answered.
   
4. Search – Absent of metadata and taxonomy makes search difficult and concise result a fantasy.
5. Other considerations – Infrastructure planning or architecture, capacity planning, business continuity planning, backup/restore planning, storage management, integration, enterprise search, etc. There is a long list of things that should be done.

Any one of the above could cause the best EDMS or ECM implementation to be a spectacular failure. One small mistake can spell doom and this has nothing to do with technology selection. The mistake is even more critical when the wrong vendor is picked. It’s really that simple.

Regardless of what solutions you’re deploying, selecting the right partner is critical. Go back to square one and do the right things in the right order. Involve the right stakeholders in the discussions, stop the client from making quick decisions and get them to make correct decisions.
The point of my little story is that you need to do your homework before you choose a partner no matter what you need them for. The wrong partner can kill a project; the right partner will help you succeed.
At TECRES Consult, we help organizations select the right partners and ideal solution.

Julius Macaulay is the Principal Consultant at TECRES Consult (www.tecres.com.ng) providing ICT training and document management consultancy services for organizations. He holds a Masters degree in Information Technology with special interest in "the paperless office".

SHOULD AN ORGANIZATION DECLINE ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

While most organizations are considering Electronic Document Management System, some decisions makers still reject the need to convert their paper documents to digital copies. Consider the following fact in the UK.

Up to £15 billion wasted every year in the UK looking for 'lost' documents at work.
A survey of over 1,000 office workers in the UK has found that over two thirds of desk-based employees spend up to an hour a day looking for 'lost' documents. This wasted time is costing British businesses up to a staggering £15 billion (£15,388,652,760) every year, according to research from infoMENTUM, carried out by independent research agency Censuswide. The research found that employees are getting increasingly frustrated at not being able to locate the documents they need; nearly 20% of respondents had to waste additional time recreating documents from scratch, as a result.

Over 93% of UK office workers believe that access to the files and documentation they need is important and helps them to do their job more efficiently and effectively.