Information management and information intelligence are vital components of business success and provide the ability to outperform competitors.
Importance of digital information management
The digital transformation of information is the key to enhancing communication at work, as a company’s survival can be dependent on how information is used in order to gain a competitive edge over competitors.
Digitised information and intelligence inform business practices that create products and services that sell.
The digital tools
The 2019 Global Intelligent Information Management Benchmark Report says that many companies are failing in transforming their information systems to digital because they are getting step one wrong – choosing the right technology tools.
1,500 office workers across multiple industries were surveyed and 82% of them said that poor information management was harming productivity. Around 91% of them thought that their jobs would be easier if they could quickly and easily access current documents.
Medium to large businesses have seen an explosion of data and to make sense of the data the right tools need to be used. SharePoint, CRM and ERP systems organise information. However, 41% of people surveyed said that often documents in these systems were stored in the incorrect folders. Over a quarter (29%) of respondents believed that documents had been lost or misplaced.
Many businesses use outdated hierarchical folders stored across a number of software systems. Though many people blame this on the software, most misfiling of documents is due to human error. Another problem is that different software systems do not work well together and cannot share information easily.
The solution
The solution is to have a more sophisticated approach to document management and the filing of information. One way is to use Microsoft tools. Over the years, Microsoft has developed Office 365, SharePoint and Teams that make it easy to share information. SharePoint uses artificial intelligent systems that analyse documents in order to suggest document classifications that help make the filing of documents easier for users.
Different Microsoft document formats work together. For example, Excel sheets can be embedded in word documents, and SharePoint pages can have various documents created in Microsoft applications embedded or linked to them.
Microsoft One Drive enables data to be stored in one central location and accessed by all authorised workers.
At one time office workers saved documents to their desktop computer hard drives where only they could easily access them. Then offices bought servers as central storage points for documents. Nowadays workers need to access information from any location and on any device - phones, tablets or laptops. The challenge is to make information easily available anywhere. Microsoft has gone a long way to make storing and retrieving information easier, and AI systems promise a future where documents are always filed in the best location for sharing and easy retrieval.
At WM Reply we are passionate about helping organisations use intelligent data information management systems and can help you find the best software solutions to your information management needs.