Further to the post on what is an EDMS, we would like to also highlight what one needs to look at when selecting an EDMS for any organisation.
You will find a lot of EDMS applications available in the market today. These could range from simple applications that come bundled with scanners to software organisations. While every software has a claim on having the perfect match for your requirement, it is important that you take some simple steps that will help you arrive at the best match for your requirement thus reducing frustration.
Have a clear understanding of how paper is used, stored, retrieved within your organisation. How does the document originate, what is the process and what is the content that is involved? You could also involve other members of your organisation thus forming a task force that will go through different departments and come up with a detailed list of requirements. Alternatively you could also call in experts or vendors who will do this task for you. Based on your collected requirements, form a consolidated list of requirements which will aid your decision making process. You also need to come up with evaluation criteria so that you know the requirements which are “must haves” and those which are “good to have”.
During the evaluation, keep in mind the evaluation criteria and also keep in mind the flexibility of the software to scale up in case you decide to start at a departmental or workgroup level and later on ramp up to an enterprise wide deployment.
Remember, selecting the right system can transform your business and simplify the way it is done.
With contributions from Ashish Baby and Harshad Thakkar