Your Document Management System needs an Upgrade!

Imagine old offices, back in the 70s. Stacked with heaps of files, each carrying hundreds of documents!

Some of us have not just seen, but been in these environments. Before computers became a norm, every single project report, every checklist, site visit and notes, and diagrams used to be printed and filed. And you’ll see remnants of that even today. Just visit an old government office, and they will all have that one room, stacked floor-to-ceiling with files and documents. This was neither easy to manage, nor easy to use for employees at the workplace. But limitations of technology made it the only option for companies.

The shift into digital started in the 1980s with the advent of computers and basic digital storage. Organizations began to digitize documents, but that made the situation only worse. Each computer became one little universe, where files, folders, and diagrams were locally stored. Meaning multiple copies and versions, causing an imbalance of information.

Companies soon realized that only digitalization wasn’t enough, there needed to be centralization of documents to avoid confusion and mistakes. That led to the building of what we know today as Document Management Systems - A company-wide centralized repository where critical documents of the organization are stored. Employees access DMS using their company IDs, and documents are accessible only on the company internet.

Benefits of a Document Management Systems

Built originally to eliminate the chaos of physical documents, over the years companies have seen tremendous benefits of a centralized document storage system.

Centralization of Documents: A DMS centralizes all your documents, making them easily accessible and organized in one location. This drastically reduced the confusion that went into employees using multiple versions of the same document, creating one single source of truth for large and spread-out organizations.
Increased Productivity: As employees started leveraging one single portal for their documents, it cut away the time they wasted in search. Companies thus saw employees free up some time from their work, to focus more on core work. One-click access and automation built on DMS enabled quick retrieval of documents, streamlining productivity.
Enhanced Collaboration: As employees shared documents in a DMS, it also fostered collaboration, teamwork and cohesion in the workplace. Employees can access and edit files simultaneously, improving project outcomes and team performance.
Better Version Control and Organization: DMS were also able to track and control document versioning and history, ensuring employees always had access to the latest versions of the documents. This helped improve compliance and accuracy, while also building accountability and consistency in employees.

Key Features of a DMS

Standard DMS solutions, built on open-source platforms or even popular ones like Microsoft Sharepoint offer a basic set of features. Most companies in the early 2000s adopted Sharepoint to create a digital library of documents. Here are five key features of a Document Management System (DMS):

Folders for Every Team: A DMS allows you to create dedicated folders for each team, ensuring documents are organized and easily accessible within the relevant department. Access to these folders is based on your department, so employees automatically gain access when they join the organization.
Keyword-Based Search: Standard DMS portals allow a simple search based on the title and keywords associated with every document.
Access Controls: With every folder, comes access rights. Access controls ensure that only authorized personnel can view or edit documents, enhancing security and compliance. Access is usually restricted to Subject Matter Experts, department heads, team leaders, and even key IT team personnel, to ensure veracity of the information.
Versioning: This feature tracks changes and maintains a history of document versions, allowing users to access previous versions and monitor updates.
Workflow Automation: A DMS can automate document routing and approval processes to simplify document management for employees.

Challenges with Traditional Document Management Solutions

DMS was built to solve the challenges of the 1980s and 90s. Today, here is where the opportunity lies. Today’s employees and their challenges are far different. Your employees, in their personal lives, use modern, AI-powered, personalized apps that bring curated experiences for them. Why give them a clunky folder structure and then wonder why employees still prefer calling to using your DMS?

Traditional document management solutions often come with several challenges. Here are some common issues along with use case examples:

Poor Search Experience:

The extensive folder-in-folder structure leads to search fatigue. Employees may spend excessive time searching for documents buried within multiple layers. Often, employees search by a keyword, find 10 documents, and the real content they need is inside the 10th one. But imagine the irritation of the employee to have opened 9 previous documents only to find nothing!

And this directly impacts their productivity. Think of a marketing team member struggling to find a previous campaign report among numerous subfolders.

Silos Within Teams and Departments:

Employees often repeat work because they are unaware of existing documents. For instance, an engineer might recreate a design template already developed by another team due to lack of document visibility. This tends to happen more with large, multi-locational setups, or between a distributed sales and procurement team. The impact - repeat work, even mistakes, and document versioning.

Does Not Capture Wisdom or Tacit Knowledge:

Traditional systems often overlook the importance of informal knowledge and expertise. For instance, think about the valuable insights a senior manager might share during casual conversations by the water cooler. These impromptu discussions can include best practices, personal experiences, and nuanced understandings that are not formally documented. When such tacit knowledge isn't captured and recorded, it leads to significant knowledge gaps within the organization, as this wisdom is lost when the manager is not available to share it directly.

Building on SharePoint:

Setting up and managing a SharePoint-based system requires extensive support and technical expertise. A small business may struggle with the complexities of setup, requiring constant IT assistance.

No Intelligence:

Traditional systems cannot enable Generative AI experiences for employees, such as automatically summarizing documents or suggesting relevant content. This means employees have to do the grunt work of finding relevant documents and piecing together information. Imagine your sales team member reading through 5 documents - thats 20 mins, plus an additional 10 minutes to streamline customer interactions for a followup. Versus quickly asking the AI for the background of client X and getting an answer in less than a minute! You’ve freed up 29 minutes of precious time for your employee.

Does Not Care for Personalized, Intuitive User Experience:

These systems often lack user-friendly interfaces, leading to low adoption rates. Employees may find the interface exhausting and not tailored to their specific needs, reducing overall system efficiency and effectiveness. BHyve offers a user-friendly, intuitive platform designed to meet each employee's unique requirements for a personalized feed, enhancing engagement between the organization and productivity.

Cost of a Bad Document Management System

In some cases, vendors make more money when your data stays dirty which can require monthly data processing costs or generate higher postal mail volumes.

Wasting Time:

Employees spend an average of 2 hours per day searching for documents.

For instance, a production manager might spend hours locating machine maintenance logs, delaying production schedules. This includes looking through folders, emails, and other undocumented knowledge sources. This inefficiency not only wastes valuable time but also delays critical tasks, lowers productivity, and increases frustration among staff. That amounts to 25% of an entire 40-hour work week, and it represents wasted energy that could have been spent on high-value-added activities.

Repeat Work:

83% of employees must recreate missing documents. Part of the reason for all that lost productivity is that when employees can’t locate the documents they need, they often have to make them all over again. An engineer might rebuild a CAD file because the original was misplaced, leading to project delays. With traditional systems, an employee at Plant A might spend hours searching for a document on a specific maintenance procedure that was originally created at Plant B but is stored in an inaccessible format or location.

Brand Inconsistency:

Without a central knowledge base, your sales and marketing teams will lose alignment on key messaging, pricing, quotations, terms of delivery and other critical knowledge that brings a consistent brand image for your organziation.

Poor Search:

In a 2023 Adobe Acrobat survey, 48% of respondents said they struggle to find documents quickly and efficiently, while 47% feel their company’s online filing system is confusing and ineffective. Navigating through files to find outdated blueprints can cause search fatigue. A quality control inspector might spend excessive time verifying the latest specifications, affecting inspection efficiency.

Legal and Compliance Risks:

Missing documents during audits can lead to project cancellations or fines. For example, an aerospace manufacturer could face compliance issues if it cannot produce the required safety certifications during a regulatory inspection.

Client Impact:

Inefficiencies affect service quality and timelines, damaging reputation. An engineering firm might miss client deadlines for infrastructure projects, leading to dissatisfaction and potential loss of business

Knowledge Management vs. Data Management

A Knowledge Management System (KMS) focuses on enhancing staff communication and breaking knowledge silos by capturing, sharing, and leveraging both tacit and explicit knowledge within an organization. It aims to improve user experiences in searching for information, thus boosting collaboration and innovation.

Document Management: A Document Management System organizes, stores, retrieves, shares, and tracks documents. It acts as a centralized digital library supporting various file formats like Word documents, PDFs, and spreadsheets.

Knowledge Management: A Knowledge Management System takes a broader approach by gathering, organizing, and sharing an organization's collective knowledge, including internal processes, policies, and expertise beyond formal documents.

Move Beyond Documents, Focus on Knowledge

A hard look at a DMS versus a KMS show a broader scope, vision, framework for engagement and value proposition that a robust, Knowledge Management System can offer companies. Today in a VUCA world, where new insights can overnight change the nature of business and expectations of customers, looking at knowledge as a comprehensive system, not just documents, will help companies bring the edge in their work.

Key differences between a Document Management System and a Knowledge Management System

Document Management System	Knowledge Management System
Manages documents with features like version control and access management	Leverages collective intelligence, capturing and utilizing embedded knowledge
Handles only structured data (e.g., Contracts, SOPs, Manuals, Invoices)	Manages both structured and unstructured data (e.g., Insights, Success Stories, Interviews, Workshops, Key client interactions, Meeting notes)
Ensures documents are accessible with advanced search and permission-based access.	Ensures usability of information, fostering innovation and improving decision-making.

Move over DMS, and bring in a savvy KMS that your employees will love

Lets look at what makes a Knowledge Management System the best enablement you can offer your employees today.

Tacit Knowledge: Knowledge often resides with people rather than in structured documents. This knowledge also mainly gets discussed over watercoolers, and disappears with attrition. The right tool should enable employees to discover and share this knowledge in real-time. BHyve provides a platform where employees can document and share their tacit knowledge in real-time through forums, Q&A sections, and collaborative spaces.
Generative AI: Modern AI can process long-form documents, extracting and contextualizing vast amounts of information, thus saving employees time and effort. This capability enhances decision-making and innovation. This capability enhances decision-making and fosters innovation by providing real-time, data-driven insights.
Self-Serve: Today's software should be user-friendly, requiring minimal setup and support, allowing employees to focus on their tasks rather than on managing the tool.
User Experience: Unlike traditional Document Management Systems (DMS), modern tools prioritize personalization and intuitive user experiences, driving higher adoption and engagement.

Adopting these advanced systems can significantly boost efficiency, collaboration, and overall productivity in an organization.

Conclusion: Time to Upgrade Your DMS

The era of traditional Document Management Systems (DMS) is ending, giving way to AI-powered knowledge bases that offer real-time knowledge discovery, enhanced user experience, and efficiency through Generative AI. Embrace the future with BHyve, an AI-powered Knowledge Management Platform that revolutionizes how your organization manages and utilizes information. Schedule a demo with BHyve today to experience the benefits of advanced knowledge management.