Archives for the 'Disaster Planning' Category
Document scanning: PRODS will show you the way
Technology that we use on a day to day basis both at work and home is in a constant state of change. At home, having the latest and greatest (or at least a recent version) is often more a case of keeping up with the Joneses than anything else. However, in the business world, sticking to methods which have been superseded simply because they are “how we have always done it” offers your competitors the chance to gain a real advantage and can be tantamount to commercial suicide.
One such area is that of business documentation used within the company or as part of the interactions with suppliers and clients. In this area, paper documents have always been considered the safe option, but this is no longer enough. In today’s business environment, retaining information purely in paper format means that it can no longer benefit your company – indeed, it is undoubtedly now holding you back.
However, making sure that your information is available in electronic format is relatively easy to achieve, simply by ensuring that all relevant documents are consistently scanned and indexed. If you are unsure why this is important for your organisation, then just remember PRODS:
Protect
Scanning your documentation ensures that the information it contains is safe and secure. While paper can be inherently difficult to store securely while still making it accessible, digitally stored information allows you to maintain tight security as required while offering pre-determined levels of access to those needing it. Just as critically, by keeping backup copies off site, your data (and hence your business) remains safe and secure, giving you complete security and peace of mind in terms of disaster recovery.
Reference
Information is there to be used and referred to, so it’s important to make sure that wherever it is stored, it can referenced quickly and easily. By capturing the data once through a programme of document scanning, you then have the ability to refer to it and use it many times over in the different ways your business requires.
Organise
Information tends to be accumulated at an alarming rate in organisations of all sizes, so making sure that it is carefully organised and easy to locate when required is essential. Managing this process using filing cabinets and storage boxes is difficult at the best of times and finding information can be a nightmare, particularly if it is stored across multiple locations. With scanned documents, information can be indexed and organised for quick and easy location and access – in addition, you are not restricted to a single person using it at a time, instead many people can have access whenever required.
Distribute
Getting the right information and the right documents to the right people when they require it is difficult even when they are all located in the same office. Add numerous people across multiple offices who need to receive the information and the job becomes a logistics nightmare. With scanned documents, the task becomes as simple as attaching a document to an email and sending it to the relevant people – for non confidential information only of course. Alternatively, an online repository provides the secure access, while email or RSS delivers the means of letting the right people know where to find it.
Share
There is also the need to share information, whether this is related to an individual project or we are talking about a department or company wide programme. Having the ability to share the information between all relevant parties gives you a level of interactivity which means the information can be used even more effectively and the company can benefit from people sharing ideas and information quickly and efficiently.
The next time you are looking for a document or trying to access information that you don’t have available, give yourself a couple of PRODS and see if you could also benefit from having the information you need at your fingertips.
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Document Scanning Triggers: an SED moment
Have you ever been sitting at your PC when an anguished howl from somewhere in the building floats through air followed by a light sobbing which you later discover was some poor soul whose computer had crashed before he had been able to back up the file?
That’s what I call an SED moment – a Somebody Else’s Disaster moment. It’s the time when you silently thank your lucky stars that it wasn’t you and vow to immediately (and always) make a backup of your files … though this would of course have been two minutes too late if you had just suffered his misfortune. I guess an equivalent from the news this week would be government officials once again giving a collective sigh of relief that they too hadn’t contrived to misplace folders of Top Secret documents on a commuter train!
But what about in your business? Well, imagine the problems you would face if you lost some or all of your paper files through fire or flood, possibly documents which you had often considered getting scanned and indexed but never quite got round to it. Without a backup or electronic copy in sight, then years worth of irreplaceable documents would quite literally have gone up in smoke forever.
In terms of disaster recovery, document scanning is always going to be a winner in these circumstances. With everything recorded and backed up, the business impact of something happening to paper files, or even the electronic ones, would be minimal. The information could be quickly restored and your business, together with the customer files and information it relies on, would be unaffected.
So next time you hear “Does anyone know how to retrieve a file?” wafting across the office, before you answer them, pick up the phone and arrange a chat about a document scanning service to back up your files. Then, if anything does happen and someone else looks over at you in pity, experiencing their own private SED moment, you’ll just be able to smile knowingly and get back to work.
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Virtualisation - so what exactly is it?
When it comes to document scanning, virtualisation refers to the idea of storing documents in a virtual environment, creating a secure storage area akin to a vault or a safe where we can keep our information and documents safe … just like in a physical one, only this time virtually. Essentially, it comes down to creating a highly secured area which contains your company’s information and yet makes it instantly accessible to you all day every day, whatever your location.
To achieve this, our own solution for this uses eView+ which is exactly this type of Virtual Vault. It’s also an ideal solution for companies who want all the benefits that document scanning offers, but are unsure if they want to hold the information themselves or indeed whether they have sufficient space on their own servers to do so.
Effectively outsourcing this storage and secure access has proven to be the perfect solution for many organisations and is becoming increasingly popular - with an outsourced or managed service, you can be certain that everything is in place and done correctly for you. Although the size of company looking for this varies enormously, the solution works equally well if you only need a small number of documents stored or are looking to index hundreds of thousands of records. With well over half a billion documents already stored, size is most certainly not an issue.
Added to this, should the worse happen and records you hold at your own offices, in whatever format, are damaged or lost, then you are ideally covered from a disaster recovery perspective and can be back up and running almost immediately – saving you time, inconvenience and expense.
So next time you hear virtualisation, just think of a secure Virtual Vault, safely looking after your most important documents.
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Benefits of Document Scanning
Document scanning is now an accepted key business requirement for any forward looking organisation and has become so for a variety of different reasons. However, while organisations are very aware of the benefits they are specifically looking for, they are often less clear of the full range of benefits that document scanning can offer.
Normally an organisation’s focus is on one or two areas which are the triggers for a document scanning programme, perhaps focused on accessibility requirements, disaster planning issues or the need for legal compliance in particular areas. However, there are other benefits which accrue at the same time and can make the cost justification even more attractive.
In our view, some of the areas where document scanning can have a very positive impact are outlined below.
Access to the Information
With documents scanned and indexed correctly, you have immediate access to the information - a real plus when customers are now used to find the information they require at the touch of a button. The additional benefit is that a number of employees can be working with the same documents at any given time, which can save time and help to increase productivity.
Customer Service
As individuals or as companies, we now expect a certain standard of customer service from the organisations that we deal with. Having the files available as and when required allows companies to offer this level of customer service - no more searching for the right documents and calling the customer back! The improved response time means your customers will be happier and you customer service personnel will be able to deal with a greater number of customers.
Additional / Extra Space
There is of course the actual physical space which files and filing cabinets take up in the office or elsewhere. Reducing the amount of office space and storage space used for your paper files means that you can use the space that you have more effectively.
Cost Savings
Document scanning offers cost savings through both tangible and intangible benefits: the tangible savings come from reducing ongoing storage costs and savings on paper, folders, file boxes etc.; the intangible savings come from elements such as lost time looking for files, improved productivity and improved customer service levels.
Security & Control
Security and confidentiality of information is a high priority for companies, whatever industry they work in. With the information held in digital format, multiple levels of password protection and encryption can be put in place to ensure only the people who should have access to particular documents can view them. At the same time, audit trails can be made available giving details of who has accessed or updated documents.
Compliance
There are a number of legal requirements which also come into play, particularly in terms of the Data Protection Act where secure storage and speed of information delivery is key. Depending on the type of information, other drivers will include HM Customs and the Inland Revenue as well as FSA and industry regulations.
Disaster Recovery
The unexpected can always happen but making sure that your documents are backed up and held digitally can minimise the potential risk that your organisation faces. Secure online backup in the case of fire, flood etc. with multiple copies including offsite storage makes certain that all eventualities are covered so that, should the worse happen, you can be back up and running within minutes with minimal disruption to your business.
Remote Access
With an increasing trend for employees to work remotely, scanned documents mean that they will still be able to access the files and the information that they require from wherever they are based. This can help facilitate better information sharing between offices as well as increase the productivity of working from home. It also increases general speed of information delivery across an organisation.
Environmental
And let’s not forget the benefit of reducing the ever increasing use of paper in offices – having a digital record is not only beneficial for all of the benefits outlined above but is also environmental into the bargain.
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Virtualisation at top of the agenda at the IT Directors’ Forum
Virtualisation – well, that’s a Web 2.0 word if ever I heard one. But what exactly does it mean? Well, in pure IT terms, you will often hear it used in connection with servers where it effectively allows you to run a number of operating systems and their applications on a single server.
However, when it comes to document scanning, virtualisation is used in a whole different context. Virtualisation refers to the idea of storing documents in a virtual environment, creating a secure storage area akin to a vault or a safe where we can keep our information and documents safe … just like in a physical one, only this time virtually. Essentially, a highly secured area which contains your company’s information and yet makes it instantly accessible to you all day every day, whatever your location.
To achieve this, our own solution for this uses eView+ which is exactly this type of Virtual Vault. It’s also an ideal solution for companies who want all the benefits that document scanning offers, but are unsure if they want to hold the information themselves or indeed whether they have sufficient space on their own servers to do so.
Effectively outsourcing this storage and secure access has proven to be the perfect solution for many organisations and judging by the reaction at the IT Directors’ Forum, it is becoming increasingly popular. Although the size of company looking for this varies enormously, the solution works equally well if you only need a small number of documents stored or are looking to index hundreds of thousands of records. With half a billion documents already stored, size is not an issue.
Added to this, should the worse happen and records you hold at your own offices, in whatever format, are damaged or lost, then you are ideally covered from a disaster recovery perspective and can be back up and running almost immediately – saving you time, inconvenience and expense.
So next time you hear virtualisation, don’t think servers … think of a secure Virtual Vault, safely looking after your most important documents.
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Document Scanning, Fires and Disaster Recovery
Over the summer, there was a well publicised fire that destroyed many valuable and high profile documents. The fire occurred in one of the UK’s largest document warehouses located in the Docklands area of London. Partly due to its location close to the City of London, and because this warehouse was operated by a highly reputable world leading Company, many of the documents belonged to large corporations such as banks, legal and property firms.
Due to the ferocity of the fire, a large quantity of these records was completely destroyed. In many cases there was simply no backup material and so the information they contained was lost forever.
Fortunately, nobody was injured and so the term ‘disaster’ is limited to a commercial one for those companies involved. Nevertheless, it highlighted the lack of ‘disaster recovery’ that was in place from organisations that one might expect to be better prepared. In fact, the full extent of the problem will never really be known as the some of the companies concerned have declined to make it public knowledge that their material has been destroyed.
It has also highlighted the fact that the commercial value of the paper is not covered anywhere. Most document warehouses will only repay the value of the paper itself - a typical ream of 500 sheets being worth a few pounds. This of course in no way reflects the value of the data and unless the document owners have specific insurance to cover such loss of data then the real value is lost. Even then the burden of proof of that value will fall to the Company – a task that is far from easy.
It has taken a couple of months for the fallout from this particular fire to filter through into real actions but in the last few weeks we have seen a large number of high profile organisations who lost records, approach us for help in digitising material either instead of storing it or before doing so.
Ahh……., a classic sales pitch from an ambulance chaser I hear you say! But not so, as I am the first to accept that such mishaps can occur to anyone. This particular event has, indeed, prompted a huge flurry of activity for us but the fire will shortly be forgotten by all except those directly affected. A similar event in Southampton several years ago destroyed a vast number of records held by local solicitors – yet has now all but disappeared from the memory banks.
So I think the message is to seriously reconsider whether records need to be stored physically or whether an easily backed up digital image will suffice. Under rules of Legal Admissibility, most regulatory authorities including HMRC now accept properly constituted digital copies and research has shown that almost 98% of all commercial records can be provided in this form.
The moral I guess is to cover all bases: fires, floods and other natural disasters happen and will continue to do so. All we can do as businesses is try to make sure that they impact us as little as possible and make sure that our information is covered from both a legal and a general business perspective.
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