What is the cost of a Lost Document

Jeff Shuey

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Keywords: scanning, Covey, lost, AIIM, capture, ECM, document, content

By Jeff Shuey, Director of Strategic Alliances

September 01, 2010 - 12:21 AM

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Have you ever spent time looking for a document or a receipt? And no matter where you looked you could not turn it up?

Did it make you mad? Did you think you could have been using that time on something more productive?

Think about this: EVERYONE in your organization does this. Every Day! Multiply this by the number of people in your company and 200 working days per year and this becomes a significant number.

What Can You Do About It?

Below are a few tips to consider when your are thinking about creating or extending your Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system to include a well designed Document Capture system.

 Step 1:
Scan it Right – The First Time

As Stephen Covey said in the Seven Habits – Begin with the End in Mind. Thinking about the end result will help set the stage for what needs to be done at the time of capture (aka scanning).

Step 2:
Index it Right – The First Time

Know what you need to extract from the documents you are scanning or importing. A common strategy is to do a full text search and store the image in both a black & white and color format. This allows for future processes – which might include re-importing and re-processing.

image

 

As you work through the process you need to consider a lot of contingencies. This is why experts should be involved.

No Excuses: You can’t blame it on a smoke monster, a polar bear or that is was all a dream.

 

 

Step 3:
Find it --- The First Time

This is the end result when the initial scanning is done right and the indexing is done right.

Even if the index data is not captured on the first time around it is possible to re-import the images for a second round. While this is not ideal it does provide a second chance. Keep in mind … you have to be able to FIND the document in order to re-import and re-index it. TIP: It’s much better to do it right the first time.

So, What is the cost of a lost document to your organization?

  • Is it greater than the cost of not capturing the information right the first time?
  • Is it worth the risk of a lawsuit?
  • Is there something you can do to plan ahead?

Only you can decide the answers to these questions and determine the value of building the right capture system at the beginning of the process.

Document Capture is the First Pillar in an ECM system.

Image Credit: ABC

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Comments

George Parapadakis

Submitted by George Parapadakis September 01, 2010 - 12:04 PM

Thanks for the interesting blog Jeff. It got me thinking!... http://bit.ly/gpblog5
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Peter Kurilecz

Submitted by Peter Kurilecz September 01, 2010 - 2:03 PM

of the referenced PriceWaterhouseCoopers study? If so can you provide us with the exact title and date it was published? I've heard about this study over the past 30 years and have yet to lay my hand on it or talk to someone who has held a copy in their hand.

I'm beginning to think it is an urban legend
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Daniel O'Leary

Submitted by Daniel O'Leary September 02, 2010 - 10:29 AM

Was kidnapped by Bigfoot and taken to Area 51. I don't think it exists.
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Jim Wade

Submitted by Jim Wade September 03, 2010 - 8:40 AM

Peter is correct, this study is very old and, IMHO, dated information. ARMA published almost identical data in the 70's. While the basic concepts of lost and missing documents still ring true, the fact that many things have changed over the course of time, e.g., employee have risen, the way firms collaborate on documents have changed, etc., questions if this information is still accurate.

I would like to see new data that is relevent to the 21st century.
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Bryant Duhon

Submitted by Bryant Duhon September 08, 2010 - 11:05 AM

Peter/Dan/Jim,

Like the three of you, I've periodically (though admittedly half-heartedly) tried to track down the research study from which these numbers are pulled. My memory can be spotty at times, but I'm pretty sure that these numbers have been floating around at least since I started as editor for inform in 1997.

That said, while maybe the particulars of the numbers may no longer be accurate, they feel true, don't they? We're still misfiling, losing, recreating, etc. documents that exist somewhere.

I did a quick Google search and found this column, using the same numbers and whith a comment asking the same question y'all did -- where's the research.
http://knol.google.com/k/document-management#

And this, which references the study data and dates it to 1998.
http://www.edge.com/downloads/Edge%20ROI%20Document%20Management.pdf

The Coopers research focuses on paper. There's also the EMC-sponsored IDC research on the Digital Universe.
http://www.emc.com/collateral/demos/microsites/idc-digital-universe/iview.htm

And, yeah, Dan, the author is held in the same Area 51 complex by whoever wrote the research that said 20% of information is structured and the rest is unstructured.

If anyone knows where THAT number came from, I'd love to hear from you.
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Peter Kurilecz

Submitted by Peter Kurilecz September 10, 2010 - 10:00 PM

"while maybe the particulars of the numbers may no longer be accurate, they feel true, don't they? We're still misfiling, losing, recreating, etc. documents that exist somewhere."

sorry but I was originally trained as historian so I always want to lay my hands on the original documentation so that I can make my own interpretation. This 'study' has been cited so many times over the past 20 years or more that no one knows really who did the study, for whom, when, by whom or the methodology used.

It was as study AFAIK about handling paper documents. today the vast amount of documentation is digital. sure we may have the same problems but we really don't know. but we do have new tools at hand to assist us in finding them

just because a vendor's white paper mentions the study doesn't make it any more real.

If anyone ever finds this mythical Coopers study I would that they would scan it and post it to Scribd for all to download

It's like I learned in elementary school. don't just give me the answer show me how you arrived at the answer
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