According to market research firm, Statista, the global farm management software and services market is expected to grow at a constant annual growth rate of 7.6% between 2017 and 2021. This growth has inspired new government initiatives promoting improved farming practices and cost-effectiveness. To accommodate these initiatives, the agriculture and farming industry is experiencing an increased demand for cloud services. By implementing a cloud-based document management system into an agricultural, farming, or food supply company, productivity is streamlined, costs are reduced, and inventory management is greatly improved.
Agricultural companies rely on their relationships with buyers, agents and supply chain customers. According to a recent Pricewaterhousecoopers (PwC) study, on average, workers spend 40% of their time managing non-essential documents. In addition, International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates that employees spend 20% of their day looking for information in paper-based documents and that, 50% of the time, they can’t find what they need. Picture this – a buyer calls requesting the delivery date for an order they placed. Instead of rummaging through piles of paperwork and file cabinets, they simply log into their enterprise content management (ECM) system, run a search based on vendor name, order number, or any other specific search criteria, and pull up the appropriate documentation instantaneously!
Agricultural companies that implement an ECM solution benefit from employees allocating less time on locating and filing documents and more time focusing on important tasks, increasing overall employee productivity. Document management software goes as far as to automatically extract critical business information from your documents using optical character recognition (OCR) – eliminating manual data entry and ensuring document information is accurate. Once data is extracted, workflows can be set up to automatically route documents through the approval process. The audit trail records the full document history including views, edits, and workflow status, ensuring the most updated information is being used and reducing the chance of errors caused by redundancy. Having all purchase orders, invoices, and contracts stored in one centralized location makes it easy for companies to stay current with the inventory they have on hand and the status of each order.
Taking paper processes digital saves companies money by eliminating the need for off-site storage, paper and ink costs, and cuts back on the amount of time and effort it takes to file documents. Making the switch to a browser-based document management platform also allows for anywhere, anytime access to documents through the browser from any mobile device, keeping processes moving even when employees are off-site. An added bonus – ECM software effortlessly integrates data with AgVantage and other agriculture software. This reduces the amount of employee training and eliminates repetitive data entry all while maintaining security and data accuracy.
Is your agricultural business falling behind on the technology playing field? Enterprise content management software is an easy-to-use, cost-effective solution that will take your company to the next level. Contact Square 9 Softworks today to learn how our award-winning products can eliminate paper-based processes in your company, or schedule a live demo to see our products in action!
