Digital transformation is disrupting traditional business models and organizations must adapt to the ever-changing digital ecosystem and transform digitally to stay competitive and deliver efficient services.

The recent shift to a hybrid workforce that works remotely and collaborates in digital workplaces has led to many organizations modifying their business processes. An electronic document and records management system (eDRMS) typically manages electronic files and documents as records in many organizations. However, most eDRMSs today lack the technical ability to work with the diverse records produced by digital workspaces.

Document and record management is an integral part of the digital transformation strategy. Agile digital workflows are common in transformation. The digital records produced in today’s digital workplaces take various forms, including PDFs, e-signatures, emails, text messages, audio clips, video recordings, and many more.
These changes have led to a demand for better tools to manage records in an organization. The current document management systems fall short of meeting the demand for today's digital workplaces.

Digital Continuity 2020 Policy

Most companies in Australia are slow to adopt modern technologies, leaving them with an unoptimized technology landscape that cannot match the pace of today's digital world. As the deadline for compliance with the Australian Government’s Digital Continuity 2020 Policy approaches, business and government leaders are paying more attention to their information management systems today and seeking to modernize.

According to a recent survey by Microsoft and Harvard Business Review, 82 percent of global business leaders say that digital transformation makes data security and governance more difficult. Here are some reasons causing these challenges.

Organizations have not been able to keep pace with the digital changes due to various constraints. Implementation of information technology systems in a haphazard manner has led to a mix of incompatible legacy and modern systems. The impact is visible in the way records are managed in organizations. Some documentation records are physical, and some are in outdated eDRMSs. Companies, unfortunately, miss the benefits of digitization.

Business processes lack standardization in how the digital records get used, transmitted, and stored. The downside is that staff spend a lot of productive time searching for documents.

A 2012 study conducted by McKinsey found that knowledge workers still spend 19% of their time searching for and gathering information. A 2018 IDC study found that "data professionals are losing 50% of their time every week" — 30% searching for, governing, and preparing data plus 20% duplicating work.

With the rise in digitalization today, information explosion is all around us with the addition of mobile apps, cloud solutions, social media, and other online platforms. Employees spend a lot of productive time searching for relevant documentation across their emails, online archives, on-premise applications, SaaS applications, and others, along with physical documentation.

With various digital records in today’s digital workplace, there are increasing concerns on data privacy and regulatory compliances. Countries are bringing about regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU to protect the collection and processing of personal information from individuals who live in the European Union (EU). Lapses in data privacy, cybersecurity, and regulatory compliances will lead to legal implications, financial losses, and loss of brand reputation.

According to statistics on cyber-attacks, six in every 10 attacks in 2020 intended to extort money from companies and individuals. The most notable breach was Garmin, which cost the company a whopping $10 million. CTW Global also lost a significant sum of $4.5 million.

Organizations must ensure that their business records are maintained in a secure and compliant manner.

The Way Forward – Mitigating Risk with a Modern records management solution

To safeguard against risk without compromising productivity or incurring additional expenses, organizations must adopt a more efficient, user-friendly approach to information management. New-breed solutions that build secure, configurable records management protocols into the apps and software employees already use offer a way forward.

Spend a couple of minutes to see how one Australian Federal Government agency enlisted our help in transforming its information management system by implementing Microsoft’s cloud Records Management solution.

The highly automated solution integrates with existing applications, saves time by using machine learning to identify and classify regulatory, legal, and business-critical records at scale. In addition, it provides defensible audit trails and proof of destruction to improve transparency.

 Benefits include increased productivity, efficient processes with automated, rule-based operations, and creating a single source of truth for all records, enabling easy access and searching. Learn more.

Click here to download our FREE whitepaper and discover.