Tag Archive: Document Management

  1. The Benefits of Scanning to the Cloud

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    If you’re like many of today’s growing companies, you’re scanning and digitizing your records and internal processes. Cloud computing combined with a document management system can be the catalyst to a nearly paperless office.

    If you’re considering the move to document scanning and digital workflows, you’ll need to decide between a self-hosted or cloud-based document management system. First, let’s discuss the benefits of making the transition to a document management system.

    Document Management Benefits

    A document management system works with scanning and OCR (optical character recognition) software to capture, convert, store, and manage digital documents. The key benefits include fast document retrieval, improved productivity and collaboration, enhanced document security, and lower costs.

    Why Move to the Cloud?

    Should you develop and use your own servers to host your document management system or use a third-party cloud services provider? Here’s a look at the advantages of making a move to the cloud.

    • Upfront costs —A self-hosted system requires some upfront costs for software and hardware. When using a cloud services provider, their company bears the costs associated with bringing your system online.
    • Access —The cloud gives you and your employees 24/7 access to your documents from any location.
    • Scalability —As your business grows, your system can easily be expanded to meet your needs.
    • Access to experts —Data center problems are addressed by a team of experts at no additional cost to you.
    • Mobility —A remote workforce can help your company compete in an increasingly digital business economy.
    • Security —Protecting your information is a full-time task. Cloud services providers have the tools to keep your sensitive documents safe from intruders.

    If your company is ready to learn more about scanning, document management, and cloud services solutions, get in touch with us at MMIT Business Solutions Group for more information today.

  2. 5 Paths to Efficiency with Document Management

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    The way your office handles documents is so important that it can make or break your business. Just ask anyone who’s been impacted by a security violation or lost out on a critical contract due to missing documentation.

    Process inefficiencies are serious matters, but the good news is you don’t need to figure them out on your own. Here’s how document management tackles the problem of document-related workflow deficiencies, one issue at a time.

    1. Productivity

    The average office employee devotes nearly half of their time dealing with documents. Document management replaces the office paper shuffle with streamlined digital workflow solutions, making your documents faster and easier to file, retrieve, and distribute.

    2. Collaboration

    Email is a notoriously inefficient way for employees to collaborate. A document management solution lets your staff collaborate in real-time with no concerns about missing or outdated information.

    3. Version control

    Back to #2. Recent surveys reveal that employees rely on email to share documents as often as six times a day. What are the odds that someone is working with outdated information? Document management deploys version control solutions that show who accessed a document, what changes occurred, and when everything happened. Throughout the entire process, the integrity of the original document remains intact so that no information is lost during collaboration.

    4. Cost control

    Managing paper documents is a costly undertaking, and the labor alone can cost your organization nearly $20,000 in a year’s time. Take back that lost time and money by bypassing paper in favor of electronic document management.

    5. Turnaround time

    How would like to shave a week off your next project? Instead of chasing people around to sign paper contracts, clinch the deal with electronic signatures.

    Ready to start saving time and money? Contact us at MMIT to learn more about document management today!

  3. 4 Document Management Benefits for the Agricultural Office

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    The agricultural industry is no different than any other when it comes to managing paperwork. Like every other sector, business processes center around documents, and all of them must be managed properly to keep costs down and projects moving in the right direction. Here’s how agricultural offices can benefit from a robust electronic document management solution.

    1. Start moving away from paper.

    Electronic document management systems provide agricultural offices a way out of paper-based business processes. Here’s why it matters:

    • Paper requires a substantial investment in storage solutions like filing cabinets, bankers boxes, and off-site storage when archived documents begin overtaking valuable office space.
    • Paper-centric offices must rely on hard copy communications like postal services, faxes, and hand-carrying documents from one department or office to another.
    • Managing paper documents—printing, copying, filing, retrieving—takes valuable time away from value-added projects.

    2. Achieve faster access to your documents.

    Searching for paper documents is a notorious time-waster. When multiple office locations are involved, the difficulties are even greater. Document management gives employees faster access to critical documents by capturing information from converted documents and making them easily accessible from any location. Keyword searches give users access in just seconds.

    3. Reduce costly processing errors.

    Mistakes are commonplace when offices rely on manual data entry. Document management eliminates these errors through the scanning process and Optical Character Recognition software. Audit trails keep track of current changes but still maintain the content of the original document, reducing the chance of errors caused by redundancy and outdated information.

    4. Automate repetitive processes.

    Automating agricultural workflows saves time and money, and reduces the chance of errors due to missing documentation or approvals. Document management combined with workflow solutions can fine-tune your daily processes to help your team get more out of each day.

    Ready to learn more? Contact us at MMIT to find out how your agricultural office can benefit from a document management solution today!

  4. Are You Going Digital?

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    If you’re running a small to medium-sized business and you’re not taking advantage of all that today’s technology has to offer, you’re at risk of losing out to your competition. Modern business is technology-driven, not because that’s a trendy way to operate, but because without it, you’re unable to function at the level needed to compete. Today’s tools of the trade aren’t papers, pencils, and folders—they’re cloud databases, document management, and smartphones.

    Here’s why you should be implementing better technology in your business today.

    The Technological Reality of Modern Business

    Every dollar, minute, and employee counts when you’re running an SMB. There’s no time or resource you can throw around and waste because unlike larger corporations you’re running on razor-thin margins and a whole lot of hard work. Here’s why you should be taking a good look at your technology.

    • Your employees expect it: If you’re hiring millennials—which, because they’re becoming a majority of the workforce you likely are—you already know that they come in a package with their mobile devices. Statistics show that over 85 percent of millennials own and use a smartphone or tablet, and they’re most productive when they can use these tools to get work done. Make sure you’ve implemented mobile printing and mobile-friendly technology policies.
    • You need better security: It may seem more secure to stay “off the grid” and eschew today’s technologies, but the opposite is true. Your outdated devices and document storage are probably making your business much more vulnerable to cyber attacks.
    • You need accuracy: When processes are manual and outdated, they’re prone to error. Automated and digitally augmented processes are much more accurate, and that’s what you need to run a successful company.

    For more information about our digital solutions, contact us today.

  5. The Most Common Security Mistakes: Are You Making Them?

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    There are few areas where you can afford to make mistakes less than in security. Business security is in the news constantly it seems with big breaches happening on the regular. If large companies like Sony and Target aren’t immune, how can you assume your company isn’t susceptible to these kinds of attacks?

    And yet, even with all the vulnerabilities created by fast-moving technology and ever-smarter hackers, many businesses find themselves making the same cybersecurity mistakes over and over again.

    The Most Common Cyber Security Mistakes

    Typically, security breaches are a matter of employees who aren’t sure what the correct procedures are coupled with managers who are too busy with day-to-day operations to take necessary precautions. But frankly, you can’t afford to keep ignoring cybersecurity. Is your company making these errors?

    1. Insufficient or no backup procedures: What would happen if your place of business was lost to a fire, a flood, or theft? What would happen if every computer in your office was inaccessible? Would your documents and other sensitive data be gone forever? Many companies are relying on insufficient backups or worse, no backups at all.
    2. Insecure passwords: Newsflash: password123 is not a safe password. Many employees use insecure passwords because company policies don’t require them to do otherwise. It’s also common for employees to inadvertently provide their login credentials to phishers and scammers via email fraud or other scams. Make sure your IT team provides adequate training to employees to keep login information secure.
    3. Improper printer security: Did you know that your copier could be a security threat? You should be sure that your printers and copiers are behind your network firewall and that all software is up to date, and also ensure that you wipe all hard drives before recycling old machines.

    For more information about how we can keep your office secure with managed network services, contact us today

  6. Cloud Security: What to Ask Your Service Provider

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    There are a whole host of questions you should ask before you sign a managed services contract, especially if you’re concerned about security. When it comes to cloud security, you have every reason to be nosy: it’s vital that you protect your business data and ensure that your information will be adequately handled. When it comes to cloud compliance, it’s crucial that firms in financial services, healthcare, retail, and government choose a service that provides the utmost attention to security.

    In today’s business world, security threats are a constant concern. With data breaches in the news every week, it would be foolish to assume that your business is immune no matter its size. Take precautions on every level, especially your cloud services.

    What to Ask Before Signing a Contract

    If you’re considering a managed services contract for cloud hosting, make sure that you know what questions to ask. Work with your IT staff to come up with a list of questions that will help you decide whether a potential service provider meets your unique business needs.

    1. What information do you store?
    2. Where is your onsite physical storage?
    3. Who has access to your storage?
    4. How do you prevent unauthorized access?
    5. What levels of access are there?
    6. Have you helped customers through compliance audits? How many?
    7. What kind of compliance support do you offer in your service level agreement?

    These questions will get the conversation going for you to determine what level of security a provider is offering. Of course, every company and every industry has different security and compliance needs, so it’s important that you decide ahead of time on your non-negotiable requirements. To learn more about keeping your business secure, contact us today.

  7. How the Cloud is Changing Education

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    Technology has changed the way we communicate, send, store, and share information. In fact, technology has been affecting our modes of communication for millennia—from the moment we began to augment our oral conversations with written words and symbols. From the pen to the printing press to the computer, technology has helped us tell stories and share ideas with increasingly sophisticated tools.

    Did you know that one of the newest tools for sharing information is revolutionizing modern education? Read on to learn how the cloud is making education more accessible, more affordable, and more global than ever before.

    Cloud Computing and Education

    Education has always been an expensive endeavor, and the past few decades haven’t seen much improvement in making school more affordable and available to individuals. But the cloud could be an integral part of lowering the cost of education and putting it in the hands of more people.

    Digital content has become commonplace in nearly every classroom, from smartboards to online course textbooks. This kind of content can make education accessible for people all around the world, even when they live in remote areas. Here are some of the ways cloud computing is revolutionizing the classroom.

    1. Goodbye textbooks? Textbooks are notoriously expensive, and students often feel burdened by the hefty price they have to pay for sometimes outdated content. The cloud can change that with much less expensive digital content.
    2. Updated information: Many students and schools are forced to use outdated textbooks because of the cost of purchasing new ones. Cloud computing can provide a way to keep updated information in the hands of teachers and students.
    3. Less hardware: The beauty of the cloud is that it can often be accessed and even managed through an internet browser, removing the necessity for expensive equipment in school districts or universities.

    Cloud computing is truly the way of the future. If you’d like to learn more about how technology can improve your company, contact us.

  8. Reviewing the Tech Trends of 2016

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    As we begin 2017, it’s worthwhile to look over some of the trends that stuck out in 2016. Particularly in the world of finance and banking, technology has become an ever-present tool that connects customers and institutions in new ways. These are the tech trends we saw in the banking field in 2016.

    Finance Tech Trends of 2016

    • Mobile apps: More banks than ever have chosen to offer a fully integrated mobile app for customers to use on their smartphones and tablets. This kind of mobile experience can simplify the customer’s interactions with a bank branch, reducing the time burden on staff to answer questions.
    • Self-service: Many banks and financial institutions are offering self-serve kiosks in their branches, and some are even using tablets in their offices to supplement the customer experience.
    • Cybersecurity: Far from trendy but increasingly important, cybersecurity is a necessity for fraud prevention in the financial world. New data security methods popped up in 2016, including managed network services.
    • Biometrics: Fascinating developments in biometrics (such as fingerprints, voice, eyes, and imaging) have allowed companies to offer alternatives to PINs and passwords. These are far more secure, and customers enjoy the simplicity with the added safety.
    • Cloud services: Many banks and financial institutions that choose managed network services also opt for a cloud services solution. Cloud services can reduce overall costs and increase agility, and this developed into a solid trend in 2016.

    The trends that will continue into 2017 will be the ones that show their overall added value to businesses, and we predict that the security and cost savings of managed network services will make this comprehensive solution a winner in the new year. Contact us to learn more about our managed network services.

  9. Is Your Cloud Migration Secure?

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    Businesses are migrating en masse to the cloud these days, and the transition comes with some significant benefits. Some companies are achieving that mystical goal of one “single source of truth”—in other words, a single warehouse for every piece of data that was previously scattered across your company’s discreet devices, laptops, and hard drives. Who doesn’t want reliable access to information from one easy-to-use platform? Enterprises are even using the big data technology capabilities of the cloud to their advantage, using Microsoft, Google, and Amazon Web Services to manage big data. It’s a win-win-win.

    But some companies are missing a critical component of this migration to the cloud. When you move your information to the cloud, it’s vital that you upgrade and standardize your security practices. Here’s why.

    Take the Data, Leave the Bad Security

    Too often, data security is an afterthought in the cloud integration process. Your move to the cloud should be safe from start to finish, and you should leave any bad security practices behind you. Here are some areas of security you should be considering.

    • Encryption: Is your data encrypted? Perhaps more pertinently, is it encrypted at rest and in-flight? In other words, it’s not enough to have data encryption for your stored files; they also have to be encrypted during movement from place to place.
    • Appropriate permissions: Be sure that your new cloud storage has appropriate internal security. For instance, you should be able to ensure that your sales team doesn’t have access to your HR department’s records. Remember: security breaches aren’t only from the outside.
    • Use secure login procedures: Make sure that you’re using identities and strong passwords to access your cloud database.

    If your data isn’t up to par, your cloud migration is the perfect time to standardize and upgrade your security. For more information about network security, contact us today.