Articles
Protect Your Business Information: Prevent Document Deterioration, Misuse And Loss With EDM
September 30, 2009
Click Here To Download:•Guest Column: Protect Your Business Information: Prevent Document Deterioration, Misuse And Loss With EDM
By Laurel Sanders, Optical Image Technology
Security concerns are in the news a lot lately. The government has issued public alerts against terrorist activity. Military experts are debating how to maximize armed forces' safety amid intensified conflict in Afghanistan. Medical experts are producing vaccine to combat Swine Flu. Each issue focuses on the need to ensure public safety. Yet most businesses – including agencies that rely on timely, accurate information to make decisions about public safety – overlook a serious risk that jeopardizes their effectiveness and ability to survive. The threat? Inadequate document security.
Businesses need secure access to accurate information to make smart decisions. Usually information is scattered:
- on paper (subject to deterioration, misfiling, security breaches, and loss);
- trapped in the minds of executives, managers and workers (subject to unintentional alteration and selective memory); and
- stored in electronic documents and software applications (subject to inconsistent rules, conflicting policies, and difficult to lock down).
A recent 2009 AIIM report entitled Electronic Records Management – Still Playing Catch-up with Paper shows 60% of managers surveyed couldn't be confident their records hadn't been altered, deleted, or inappropriately accessed if they were challenged. More than 70% had no provisions for long-term electronic record archival; 31% had twenty or more content repositories that could be usefully linked (and presumably weren't, complicating access and security). Many respondents described their electronic records as unmanaged; most lacked email management policies. It doesn't take an expert to uncover a foul brew of document security concerns. Ignoring document security invites trouble.
Click Here To Download:•Guest Column: Protect Your Business Information: Prevent Document Deterioration, Misuse And Loss With EDM
