Today, governance and compliance are critical company priorities, particularly in light of the growing regulation
and legislation environment relating to how information is retained and disposed of, such as FICA and the
upcoming Protection of Personal Information (POPI) act.
How document management solutions
can help with growing governance and
compliance concerns
Vol 4 Issue 3 • HOW DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS CAN HELP WITH GROWING GOVERNANCE AND COMPLIANCE CONCERNS
A
s these regulations are compelling companies to keep more data, for
longer and with greater security measures, document management
solutions are playing an increasingly important role in compliance,
allowing organisations to capture, identify, organise, prioritise, store,
secure, archive, preserve, retrieve, distribute, track and (when the time comes)
responsibly destroy documents.
More value, greater flexibility
Thankfully, document management compliance responsibilities have grown
less onerous through the advent of more flexible technology. In fact, an effective
document management system is capable of increasing business value,
streamlining workflow and simplifying regulatory compliance. While a digital
document management system cannot automatically make a business compliant,
it can ease the burden of fulfilling stringent multi-regulatory rules and retention
requirements. And, with the right technology, organisations can gain efficiency,
improve profitability and increase productivity, all while reducing the cost
of compliance.
Today’s document management offerings can leverage existing platforms, while
being customisable and bringing additional security measures into place. Having
said this though, while many digital imaging players can provide this type of
capability, document management can only assist by looking beyond the device
itself and the information generated therewith, to the people and processes that
determine success. To ensure document management success, there are only two
requirements that a company needs to follow; the first is make it mandatory and
the second is to make it easy.
Make it mandatory. Make it easy.
To begin with, a company must establish internal controls for maintaining,
preserving and accessing its electronic records, so as to ensure that these
records are accurate, true and complete, as well as safe from loss, destruction
or tampering. These internal controls must include written procedures that all
company staff are obliged to follow.
The ultimate goal of these procedures should be to create a document
management infrastructure wherein the veracity and security of the company’s
records cannot be questioned. Once captured, the information must be organised
in a manner that permits easy location, access and retrieval.
It’s all about the integration
Traditionally, a relationship with an office automation solution supplier was
transactional and one dimensional – essentially the supply of a device along
with a maintenance contract; yet with the provision of document management
solutions, the device can now provide immense business value, enhance both
efficiencies and performance and assist with compliance to legislation.
Today, people are buying a printer for the access it gives to data rather than the
device itself. At the same time, the machine must also be able to integrate with
the client’s existing business solutions and processes, such as enterprise content
management (ECM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions.
With a vast amount of experience in integration with third party solutions, such
as SharePoint, Documentum and SAP, Konica Minolta South Africa is the only
company within its market segment to have been named as a Microsoft Silver
Partner with an Application Development Silver competency, positioning it within
the top five percent of Microsoft partners worldwide.
By Andrew Griffith, product manager: office products at Bidvest company,
Konica Minolta South Africa
72
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The GAPP
magazine
www.
thegapp
.co.za
