Remote Workers Need Document Management Too

In order to put together the ideal document management solution for remote workers first think about what workers need to do with documents to perform their job effectively.

In 1998 Merrill Lynch completed a study which concluded an estimated 80% of all usable business information originates in unstructured form. In other words, 80% of business information resides in documents. Today, the Internet has made it possible to access information from coffee shops and airports anywhere in the world. However, access to documents remains a barrier to many remote workers and travelers who rely on people in the office to retrieve files from file cabinets and fax or email those documents. This inefficient approach ties up people chasing paper and sending and waiting for emails instead of helping customers and generating revenue. Programs like Citrix's GoToMyPC solve the issue by providing access to a PC from anywhere. Other programs like Microsoft SharePoint allow access to shared files on a server. Yet these programs lack essential document management functionality that most businesses require to effectively create, manage, audit and retain business documents in a company-wide, controlled, remotely accessible filing structure.

It is important for workers to have the ability to go to one "place" to work with the documents they need to do their job. This means that the company needs to find a way to centralize document storage into one or more electronic document repositories. Those repositories may be located on the internal network or may be hosted externally. The key here is to tear down the small document silos that exist and start moving toward a centralized storage approach. Some of these mini-silos include file cabinets, local hard drives, USB drives, shared drives and servers where different workgroups in the organization store documents.

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