Test Drive Ricoh’s Documentmall Solution

Test Drive Ricoh’s Documentmall Solution

For those who are interested in looking at a SAAS model for document management, Ricoh offers a service called Documentmall. Hosted in a secure data center and based on the EMC Docuentum platform, Documentmall provides a secure off-site document management platform.

Some of the features of this particular application are cabinet and folder based document structure, multiple layer document security on cabinets, groups and user levels. Optional workflow with GUI based workflow creation tools provides the ability to set routes with various options for approval. Ricoh also provides functionality on their MFP devices to securely scan documents directly into a Documentmall account, which can be a good solution for distributed capture solutions.

Another interesting function which I personally like is the various replication features. Ricoh provides a couple of replicator applications which all do basically the same thing. While running the replicator application, you can set mappings from your local file structure into your Documentmall account, and your files are replicated to Documentmall.

Ricoh currently offers a 30 day trial account which anyone can request. If you’re interested in looking into a SAAS model for your document management needs, you might want to sign up for an evaluation account and start to look at Ricoh’s offering. You can sign up at the following link:

http://documentmall.com/products/freetrial/

One thing to be aware of is that not all features are available on the trial account. If you have specific questions or needs, I’m sure your local Ricoh representative would be more than happy to address them, or post your questions here.

Special thanx for this, it was posted on the P4P Hotel and I reposted here.

-=Art=-

Top 10 Management Excuses NOT to Implement Document Management -- #1

Here's a nice video I picked up from AIIM, if you'd like to know more take a trip to their web site at AIIM.

Did you know that 12% of your annual revenue is dedicated to producing and managing documents. Also check this link out for more information "10 Fast Facts About Document Management"

eCopy ShareScan ScanStation on Ricoh

Video clip of eCopy ScanStation running natively on a Ricoh MFD showing scan to secure email and scan to EDM.

The Cost of Paper Documents

There are so many reasons to not pay attention to the cost of producing and managing documents today. After all, with sales down dramatically and the economy horrible,
You just don’t have time to pay attention to things like ink and toner costs or how long it takes your HR department to locate a personnel file from 2 years ago. Never mind the fact that according to Gartner that it can cost up to 15% of a business’ total annual revenues to produce and manage documents. 15%!!!

Gartner has also stated that those companies that develop and implement a document management strategy can save up to 40% of those costs. So…if your company does $1,000,000 in revenue per year, not paying attention to how your company produces and manages documents can be costing you up to $60,000 per year…got your attention now? How much revenue does your company have to generate to earn $60,000 in gross profit?

The nice thing is that whatever the size of your company, taking a close look at those costs can save you money, improve productivity and reduce risk. Simply things like right-sizing your multi-function copier can help. In a study done for an architectural interior design firm in Indianapolis, simply right-sizing their color multi-function copier improved productivity within their design department by over 60%...and saved them nearly $15,000 per year per designer in improved work flow productivity.

So next month when you are studying your P & L and wondering how you’re going to improve your GP numbers, think about the document you’re studying, how it was generated, how it was produced and how many times over it’s lifetime it will be reproduced and you may realize that you’re looking at the answer to your question

The Cost of Documents

Okay, you just brought in a new client, great! It's smooth sailing from here. But stop for a moment and think, the proposal, the billing statements, the service records...those are all necessary and lord knows you need to keep records.
I have a question for you; have you ever thought of the cost of documents, and I just don't mean the cost to put the toner on the paper. Let's look at some statistics:

A recent study shows that it costs over $2,000 per year to maintain a single 5-drawer cabinet.
Source: Oregon State University

According to The Association of Information Professionals, a 4-drawer file cabinet:
Holds 15-20K pages
Costs $25,000 to fill
Costs $2,000 per year to maintain

The major costs in paper filing systems are:
15% is spent on equipment
10% is spent on space
75% is spent on salaries
Source: Price Waterhouse

Of all the document that are handled each day in the average office, 90% are merely shuffled. Currently, 90% of the corporate memory exist on paper.
There are over 4 trillion documents in the U.S. alone-growing at a rate of 22% a year
Source: Price Waterhouse

Professionals spend 5-15% of their time reading information but up to 50% looking for it.
Source: Price Waterhouse

Corporate paper-based documents are growing at a rate of 200% a year
Source: Price Waterhouse

19 copies are made from each paper document
22% of all documents are lost
7.5% of paper documents are lost completely, 3% of the remainder get misfiled
$20.00 is spent on labor to file a document
$75.00 is spent on labor to process a document(The Gartner Group)
$120.00 is spent on labor searching for the misfiled paper documents.
$250.00 is spent on labor to search for lost files.
Quoted reference: Coopers & Lybrand

Document processing includes labor and materials for the printing, storing, filling out, receiving approval and putting the information into the business system.
A simple form, such as a vacation time request, costs a company over $150 per form to process
(Microsoft study)

The Gartner Group has found that for every dollar spent on producing forms, between $30 and $60 is spent processing those forms, and estimates that $360 billion is spent annually on processing data from forms.

With increasing regulatory controls, this process will only get worse in government, insurance and financial industries as increasing amounts of information must be extracted and processed from increasingly varied sources.
Source: Digital Publishing Solutions March/April 2001

It is predicted that the sheer amount of information requiring processing will grow at a rate of 200% a year
Source: The Yankee Group


Gartner has indicated that between 5%-15% of a companies total annual revenues are spent for the producing and managing of documents, but that those companies who have implemented a document management strategy can save up to 40% of those costs.

The questions is: do you have a document management strategy?