Document Management News

Firms are finding it hard to work out the Return on investment (ROI) from content and document management systems, says a report from the National Computing Centre (NCC).

Despite growing investment in document management, electronic content management (ECM) and workflow software, the majority of organisations still find it difficult to calculate the ROI for these systems, said the NCC.

The latest survey from NCC Research into the use of document management, ECM and workflow technologies was commissioned by the Evaluation Centre, an online service guiding IT buyers in the selection and use of business software and services.

The report said only 2% of the companies questioned found ROI justification "very easy" and 2% thought it was "easy". On the other hand, the majority of respondents found it either "very difficult" (27%) or "difficult" (35%).

In addition, only a quarter of the companies (25%) felt their current systems were delivering all the expected business benefits, whilst a further 9% think they have been partially successful.

This compared to 24% who have not seen the expected benefits and 11% who said it is too early to judge the results. Another 28% did not know how successful their systems are.

This can be explained, said the NCC, by the fact that only 16% of organisations regularly measure their systems to determine if the expected benefits are being delivered, whilst 27% are planning to. A further 8% have only measured the effectiveness of their systems once after the initial implementation. This leaves the majority with no hard information by which to judge the effectiveness of their systems.

Steve Fox, Evaluation Centre managing director, said, "Calculating the ROI and measuring the deliverable benefits are obviously proving difficult for many organisations. Suppliers are well-versed in these techniques and should play a proactive role in helping customers to determine the payback on these systems."

Julian Buck, general manager of document management company, Version One, says, “I find this research surprising as our customers frequently report an ROI within six months. Organisations that implement electronic document management report swift ROIs as a result of reduced stationery, printing, photocopying, document storage and postage costs. They also report softer cost savings due to redeploying staff to more value-adding roles and as a result of more efficient working practices.”

Buck adds, “It’s important that businesses contemplating document management do ROI calculations so that they can determine what payback they can expect. Many document management suppliers, such as Version One, have tools to help calculate ROI and so it’s important for organisations to take full advantage of these tools, especially during challenging economic times.”

Over 100 firms of various size were questioned for the survey.