5 Business Benefits of Document Digitization

This has completely changed over the past few decades.

Today, many businesses have a paperless policy and are able to fully function without ever needing to use a printer.

But why is document digitization important?

1. It improves productivity

A company is only as effective as its employees, so savvy managers try to streamline as many day-to-day processes as possible to free up worker time for more productive tasks.

And going digital offers numerous benefits for employee productivity.

Even though using document scanning services to digitize your entire document storage may seem time-consuming and also expensive, the investment is well worth it and will save your employees time every single day.

Instead of having to go into the document cabinet room every time they need to reference a document or find a contract, your staff can simply log into their digital account and find the specific document in seconds.

Having a digitized and sortable library online saves dozens of minutes every single time, which can quickly add up to thousands of hours over the course of the year, maximizing your employee productivity and allowing them to get the most out of their time.

What’s more, digital documents take mere seconds to share with colleagues or clients, so the time savings continue.

2. Digital documents are more accessible

Most companies today aren’t confined to their offices; workers are part of a global economy, they could be working from any country and communicating with people on other continents as if they were right in front of them.

How does this tie into document digitization?

Even when employees are working out of the office, they still need access to important documents that – if you were relying on paper documents - would usually only be available at the centralized office.

There’s the added complication of employees potentially needing to print out all the documents they might need on their trip and carry them wherever they go.

But with a digital document database, this is no longer an issue; your employees gain instant access to all the documents they need, allowing them to accessed what they need through their phone, or even being able to look up and share relevant information in the blink of an eye.

3. You can improve the efficiency of your storage

Storing physical copies of documents is costing businesses a huge amount of money, and that cost won’t go away until all the documents have been fully digitized.

Storing, securing, and retrieving physical documents from a room or a separate facility can cost businesses a ton of time but it also leaves them with a monthly overhead expense that can add up to a hefty sum over time.

Even though digitization may require an investment up front, once it’s done, that storage space is no longer needed and can be used for more productive activities or eliminated altogether.

4. It’s a lot more eco-friendly

Today’s consumers are more conscious about who they do business with than ever before.

They not only want a company to follow ethical practices and be fair to their employees but they also expect businesses to play their role in protecting the environment.

And a big part of eco-friendly business initiatives is going paperless; wasteful business practices are contributing to the mass deforestation around the globe, so customers expect ethical businesses to try to minimize or completely eliminate the impact they have on these processes.

5. You’re providing your documents with better protection

In a lot of aspects, documents and contracts are the backbone of any company – without them, all the vital information about clients, past projects, and accounting would be lost.

And when it comes to paper documents, it’s almost impossible to ensure they’d never be lost, damaged, or stolen. Even the strictest security measures can’t always protect from flooding, leakage, mold, or theft.

So, the only permanent solution for securing the most vital documents of your company is to have them digitized.

Today’s digital databases come with strict and reliable security measures that prevent unauthorized access and ensure that only your employees and those with the right credentials can log in and view them.

What’s more, since all the documents are stored in the cloud, you can be sure they’re also protected from server damage, as they’re backed up at multiple secure locations and will be accessible at all times, no matter what.

Once you complete the digitization process and implement the necessary procedures, adding new documents to the database will take much less time than manually filing them in a physical storage location, and it’ll also prevent new records from getting lost, stolen, or misplaced.