Digitalizing Your Business: How a Phased Approach Drives Success

There are advantages to going department by department when you implement a document management system. Think of starting small as your “sandbox,” a development term for a place for experimentation to confirm the direction you are taking is the right one. Working through your first implementation project provides valuable information about priorities and processes that you can bring to your next one.

1. Select a department and go forward from there

Too much change at one time may initially overwhelm users. This is especially true if one person deals with multiple processes across departments. Setting your overall goal for the implementation gives you an endpoint to reach for, but it can be more effective to take smaller, manageable steps toward that objective.

For most organizations, the accounting department offers a significant opportunity for a savings of time and resources and is a great way to start.  Accounting still tends to be paper-centric. For example, processing incoming invoices is often done manually. This presents significant ROI potential because when you digitize paper documents and become more efficient, it enables your company to get paid more quickly. This results in improved cash flow. Automating these processes saves time as well and allows you to grow your business without adding staff. 

Document management ultimately works best when multiple departments are connected. Even when you start in one department, it’s important to create a plan to assess which other departments you will automate in the next project phase. Then you can develop a staggered implementation timeline for each department to “go live” while automating the next department is already underway.

Find out why three DocuWare customers who implemented the solution in their accounting departments used the experience as a steppingstone for expanding their use of document digitization.

2. 4 Tips for a successful phased implementation

a)  Invite future users to your first training sessions

Once you’ve introduced the solution in one department, invite representatives from other departments to sit in on training. They’ll get first-hand experience with the solution. This will get them excited about how document management can positively impact their work lives.

b)  Hold a review and optimization workshop and invite business leaders from other departments to attend

Bring your existing users together to talk about what works and doesn’t, and how to apply these successes and challenges in the future. This workshop also serves as a showcase for other departments. If your initial implementation was for the accounting department, for example, you could invite leaders from sales, human resources and other departments to sit in. This gives department heads the opportunity to listen and form their own opinions about how they want to use document management, and it’s a highly effective way to get other departments on board.

c) Tap in-house expertise

Power users and administrators are a homegrown resource who can take part in training the staff in other departments. Ask them to participate in the training sessions. They can help users who need extra attention and share their real-world experience with the group.

d) Don't forget the importance of documentation

Think of your paperless office as a growing, evolving ecosystem, not something you just set up and never think about again. As your company grows, you’ll want to extend it into new areas and new processes. The goal is to prepare your company to support the system going forward. That’s why it’s essential to document what you’ve already put in place, including the findings of your discovery and design phases and the system’s configuration settings. Your documentation should also identify administrators and power users, so that people know who to contact internally when questions arise.

DocuWare – Document Management Software And Workflow Automation

Ricoh now offers DocuWare – document management and workflow automation solutions, which have been around since 1988. DocuWare solution allows businesses to digitize documents, manage and work with business data with international security standards in the cloud, at corporate servers or a combination of both. From there, businesses can simplify your existing workflows quickly, focus on your core business and increase competition in the market.

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