Elegant information management

The recent enactment of the Promotion of Access to Information Amendment Act (PROATIA) has added yet another burden onto the shoulders of executives struggling to come to grips with the latest in the seemingly endless series of demands being placed on businesses by legislation and the King II corporate governance recommendations.

The basic premise of PROATIA is that at any time, on request, companies must be able to present information specific to customers or of relevance to authorities that it has been given or obtained during the course of business.

Small companies with a filing cabinet will be able to handle these requirements without a problem, but large corporations that generally have information scattered around various business units and in various formats could find themselves in a bind. Disorganisation is no excuse, however, and failure to comply with requests for information could be construed as a criminal offence and management will be in the firing line.

Xplor has estimated that paper use is growing by 6% to 8% per annum (so much for the paperless office). Gartner says over 90% of corporate documents are still held in paper format.

There are no unimportant pieces of paper anymore.

Paul Mullon, Marketing Director of Metrofile

Therefore the bulk of the efforts for storing and retrieving information still happens in the paper realm. Generally, companies that have dealt with paper contracts for years will not be too concerned about these laws as they are used to filing and retrieving documents for customers. An organised document and records management programme ensures the appropriate access to paper documents, as long as it is applied across the enterprise. However, non-standard processes such as a departmental filing system can wreak havoc if allowed to exist apart from the prescribed document management policy.

And what about non-contractual information? What about instructions delivered via memo, or even worse, via the Internet or e-mail that are stored in an e-mail database on someone`s PC or printed out and stored in a drawer next to a clerk`s desk? An organised document and records management policy will consider all these scenarios. There are no unimportant pieces of paper anymore.

There are also no longer any unimportant bits of electronic information. The Nasdaq now says its member firms must even archive their instant messages for at least three years, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Electronic information is a growing and lubricious form of information. Retrieving information stored in centralised corporate databases is relatively easy to manage, even at short notice. However, with about 80% of electronic information held outside the corporate databases in PC and laptop hard drives; backup files, tapes and CD-ROMs; e-mail messages and even instant messenger files; the ability to retrieve data when necessary and with the security required becomes an increasingly impossible task.

Even if a search can deliver a copy of an e-mail, or a printout of an agreement, for example, how does the company know it is the original item and has not been changed?

The solution to these issues is not in the form of technology - although IT plays a critical role in the process - but, again, in a document and records management solution that encompasses the entire organisation, any document and any format the business uses.

While the basic premise of a system like this is simple, a successful implementation involves drilling down to the lowest levels of the organisation and aligning strategy, policies and procedures with the corporate focus. This requires enterprise-wide policies on how to correctly capture and store information, as well as how to find and retrieve it easily.

If document and records management is going to be done properly, it will cost: in terms of money as well as time and effort. The results, however, extend far beyond merely being able to meet legislative requirements.

Control of documents and records streamlines business process efficiencies, enabling staff to respond faster and deal conclusively with customer queries.

Managing corporate documents effectively delivers benefits in every area of the business, from control of the back-end processes right up to customer-facing CRM processes. Therefore, while not a simple solution, in the end it becomes a legal, enterprise-encompassing, productivity enhancing and cost saving exercise even the most technophobic and cynical CEO with an eye on the bottom line would be forced to describe as elegant.