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documents convert information into action. Are readers
inspired to buy our products or engage our services? Are
people prompted to act efficiently and correctly within the
inner workings of our business processes? Have people
understood our message and adopted our point of view?
Documents are Strategic
Documents have great scope because they provoke a
variety of actions critical to an organization's business
processes. Companies communicate with customers
through documents. Documents drive revenue by prompting
customers to buy, borrow and pay. Customer satisfaction,
brand recognition and perceived quality are fostered by
documents that communicate clearly, provide accurate and
timely information, and serve the needs of readers.
Documents are also the beginning and end of internal
business processes. They are the tools that help run a
business every day. Documents connect work groups and
link key business processes to the people who perform and
manage those processes. The efficiency of day-to-day
workflow hinges on action provoked by documents. Do
workers get the right information when they need it…and
then act accordingly? Are they wasting time searching for
information and correcting errors? Are they besieged with
useless information and weighted down by unending
paperwork?
Documents can influence the way people think and feel.
Corporate documents inspire a feeling about the company
that issues them and influence what customers think about
the quality - good or bad - of products and services. Political
candidates, social activists and religious groups use
documents to sway opinion and persuade people to adopt
a certain point of view or behavior. Law enforcement and
governmental agencies use documents to record public
opinion, establish societal norms and influence the conduct
of citizens. For students and scholars, documents help to
convert information into understanding and learning.
503.452.9166
Documents are Tactical
If a document strategy starts with the notion that documents convert
information into action, then it ends with the recognition that documents
are a tactical liability if they are not effective. Whether digital or paper,
documents cost money to produce and require labor to process.
Consider the following statistics:
- Thirty billion original documents are used each year in the United
States. - The cost of documents to corporate America is estimated to reach
as much as 15 percent of annual corporate revenue. - Documents claim up to 60 percent of office worker's time and
account for up to 45 percent of labor costs. - 85 percent of documents are never retrieved, 50 percent are
duplicates, and 60 percent are obsolete. - For every dollar that a company spends for a final document, ten
dollars are spent to manage the process.
Clearly, documents that are not effective in converting information in to
action have a tactical stranglehold on organizations. It's no surprise that
the lion's share of work concerning documents is tactical - producing
pages faster, cheaper or not at all. The tactical opportunities found in
document systems are concrete, measurable and readily apparent, so
the success of any document strategy will certainly be measured using
these factors as a yardstick.
But ultimately, no matter how efficient the "speeds and feeds" of
document production become, or how effectively we migrate from paper to
the web, if documents fail to inspire "desired reactions," they represent
little more than a tactical liability.
One of the constraints that must be overcome by those who are building a
document strategy is that the traditional view of documents is tactical
rather than strategic. Documents are generally seen as a problem or a
liability, not an opportunity or an asset. But simply viewing documents
tactically - a cost to be contained or a function to out-source - limits
opportunity to incremental improvements whenever they happen to
present themselves and excludes a large part of the equation.
Balance the strategic and tactical aspects of documents by concentrating
on the effectiveness of their communication, as well as the efficiency of
their production. Now that we have the technology to efficiently produce an
avalanche of documents, we must always ask: Are they effective?
Using Documents Strategically means Using Information Strategically
Organizations must build a document strategy if for no other reason than
the current exponential growth of information. More information has been
produced in the last thirty years than in the previous five thousand -- the
entire history of civilization. What's more, that body of information is
expected to double in less than five years. With over 90 percent of
information contained in documents it is clear that whatever the medium
-- pixels or paper; bytes or birch bark -- documents are the currency of
human communication. Information: You've got to be able to find it, you've
got to be able to use it, and you've got to be able to keep it. Documents
allow us to do all these things.
Information is now the most valuable component of the entire economic
chain, according to Peter Drucker, the prominent management
consultant. Organizations that are able to harness the power of
information and manage, share and use information effectively are well
positioned to create value for everyone involved, says Drucker.
But to harness that value comes at a high price. Investment in information
technology now accounts for over one-half of the United States gross
investment in equipment. It has been estimated that U.S. businesses
spent more than $100 billion in 1995 on hardware alone.
Documents are a vehicle that can turn the expense of gathering
information into an asset and are one area of information technology that
can be quantifiably measured and improved. A document strategy is vital
because it monitors, directs and improves the way information is used in
a very tangible way. Enhancements made in document systems can
ultimately determine the real value of the information we have gathered
and the technology used to collect it.