Should you manage your documents yourself or outsource them?

Although digital working is applied in many organisations, paper archives are still not in the past. Despite the fact that paper often gets in the way and leads to inefficiency, it always remains a consideration whether to archive internally or to opt for external archive storage. To make this consideration in a thorough way, we zoom in on the advantages and disadvantages.

Managing your documents yourself

People often think: "I have free space internally anyway, I can use it for my documents". It is, of course, an advantage that everything is quickly at hand, and it remains under your own control. This also makes it seem like the cheapest solution at first glance; after all, you don't have to incur any costs with a supplier. But are these advantages really advantageous? It costs you useful space in your organisation that could probably be put to better use, such as extra office or meeting space. In addition, the archive is often cluttered, everyone archives in their own way and it therefore takes too long before the right document is found. This not only leads to inefficiency and frustration, but also indirectly to higher costs.

Outsourcing your physical archive storage

Storing your physical archive externally has many advantages. Firstly, it frees up space because your archive is at an external location. Employees have the correct information at the push of a button, which contributes to work productivity. When choosing an external archive location, it is very important to pay attention to safety. Is the building protected against fire and water damage? Is there camera surveillance and burglary protection? Is the archive only accessible to authorised employees?

Many archived documents are no longer needed in daily work processes. If you still need a file from the archive, you can easily request it via Scanning on Demand. This is already possible within 1.5 hours!

Digitising

For documents that are often consulted, we recommend digitisation. There are many possibilities to make your digital documents accessible in a safe and user-friendly way. It is advisable to discuss this with an experienced advisor so that it is done correctly at the front end. Digitising has the advantage that afterwards you will no longer have to spend money on your physical archive, such as renting space, personnel costs or archive materials. Your data is much clearer, and you can access your files from anywhere.

Vitalising

Much more is possible with digital information. Think about the enrichment of data. At Archive-IT we call this process Vitalisation. Through smart technologies unstructured data is converted to structured data. Metadata is linked to your digital files, which - among other things - results in better findability and an automatic management of retention periods. The latter, in physical form, is also quite a challenge for many organisations. Because legislation and regulations with regard to the retention of data are becoming increasingly strict, this is one of the most important arguments for taking a critical look at information management.

It often seems like a big step, but do you want to experience the many benefits of outsourcing your archive? Whether this is external archive storage or digitisation: contact one of our employees who will be happy to help you!