Like a Gift-Bearing Party-Guest, Cloud Is a Welcome Addition to Any Digital Transformation
Going paperless has a slew of benefits that range from locating documents with ease to streamlining and automating common office tasks. Drawboard.com estimates that the average business could save $9,897 per team member on time savings with an additional $5,026 per project on printing sheets.
This process of taking traditional paper tasks and using software and other office technology to enhance the way they’re completed has been coined digital transformation. The software used in a company’s digital transformation often includes Document Capture, Enterprise Content Management (ECM), Workflow Automation, Web Forms, and other tools for digitizing, using, and managing information.
During the early days of digital transformation, most available options were on premise solutions that run on a server in your office. But now, many organizations see that the cloud model can enhance a digital transformation’s already potent benefits, and many companies are quickly making the switch.
Increased Communication and Collaboration
By having all of your files in one central repository, ECM gives equal access to a document’s latest version to any employees on your network who may need it. This allows you to make revisions in real-time and provides insight to management about the state of each document.
This collaboration and communication can expand beyond your office walls by moving ECM to a cloud environment with browser-based access like Square 9’s GlobalSearch. According to NBC News, by the end of 2021, the number of permanent available remote work positions doubled from 9 to 18%. This massive spike in remote work makes off-site access to business-critical documents essential for these workers to do their jobs properly.
Workflow management tools like Square 9’s GlobalAction take this communication a step further, routing documents along a path and notifying the correct individuals when these documents need attention.
Enhanced Security and Compliance
Personal Identifiable Information (PII) and Protected Health Information (PHI) are protected by law, and many business documents in departments ranging from human resources to accounting contain this information.
PII is any information that could reasonably identify a person, while PHI is any health information that can be tied back to an individual. Examples of PII include full name, home address, social security number, and credit card number.
While keeping this information on an on premise server is much more secure and compliant than keeping it in a file cabinet, cloud-based solutions can drastically improve this already sound security. Some cloud-based ECM providers like Square 9 Softworks are HIPAA and SOC 1 and 2 compliant and take great measures to protect client data. These providers may keep the data separately siloed, encrypting it in storage and transit and constantly monitoring the environment for anomalies.
Faster Disaster Recovery
No one thinks that a disaster will affect their business, but the risks are too significant not to prepare. 40% of businesses never reopen after a disaster, and an additional 25% fail within a year (FEMA). What’s more, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration, 90% of all companies struck by a disaster fail within 2 years afterward.
Businesses unprepared for a disaster find themselves missing business-critical documents that were either lost in the disaster or are inaccessible while trying to operate remotely. On premise solutions are a drastic improvement over paper files, but they still risk suffering damage. What’s more, if you cannot use your building post-disaster, they do not provide a way to continue business offsite during repairs or relocation.
On the other hand, cloud-based solutions secure all your information offsite, often with real-time backups. In addition, the anywhere, anytime access they provide allows you to continue business remotely until a new location is established.
Complete Price Consistency
Digital transformation provides tremendous long-term cost savings through improved efficiency, productivity, reduced storage space, and printing materials. Cloud solutions also deliver on these savings while covering all the costs of operating a server for a set regular fee. In addition, by operating on a subscription model, cloud solutions offer cost consistency so you can plan your budget accordingly.
In addition to this cost consistency, a subscription model also allows you to scale up your operations quickly and efficiently. On premise infrastructure requires additional hardware purchases, network equipment, software licenses, and in-house technicians, which are significant expenses.
Extra computing power doesn’t need to be a permanent investment with cloud servers. You can simply pay for additional processing speed during busy times and return to your original plan once business slows down. Upgrading storage is also cost-efficient and painless. There’s no need to install additional hardware or reconfigure the software around the new drive; a simple plan upgrade gives you instant access to more space.
Square 9 Softworks is a secure and compliant provider of cloud and on-premise digital transformation solutions, including enterprise content management (ECM), document capture, workflow automation, and web forms. To find out more about the enhanced communication, security, and efficiency a digital transformation provides and the many other benefits, contact us.
