Electronic documents hotting up for 2006

Going electronic with a document management system typically pays for itself within three to six months. And with costs down fivefold in recent years and still falling, there’s more here for SMEs. That’s the view from most system providers and commentators (see page 28). Tony Bray, managing director of rising star VersionOne, emphasises the hard cost and time savings. “Think of the cost of printed documents – about £1 each including post. Doing it electronically costs from 3p to 10p. “Then for document imaging there’s a whole raft of savings that enable an organisation to redeploy people who have just been keying in documents.” As for other benefits: there are: rapid data retrieval; error and pre-printed paper elimination; forms customising; and space saving implications. And with systems now aimed at SMEs, and able to link into existing a multitude of ERP, CRM and CAD system, it’s easy to understand the uptick in spending here.