Control your information
Just because your documents are in digital format doesn't mean they're easy to track. But it's an improvement over old-fashioned paper: It's 10 to 15 percent easier to access a digital archive than a paper one, according to Kemal Carr, senior analyst at industry consulting firm Doculabs. With data storage growing 80 percent annually, according to IDC, you need more than just terabytes of disk space.
Some $2.8 billion in archiving solutions will be bought this year, according to Xerox; by 2003, that number will soar to $6.5 billion. The company's Imaging and Repository Service is typical of many of them. It archives all of your paper and digital files to a secure Web site. The cost: 1 cent to 10 cents per image.
You can also archive existing paper documents such as invoices, contracts, and correspondenceââ,¬"and send those rows of filing cabinets to the Salvation Army. Simply box up the documents and send them to Xerox's Imaging and Repository Service facility in Arkansas, where they'll be digitised at a cost of 5 to 8 cents per copy.
Once you have an archive, you need a way to easily search and retrieve your data. For that, you'll want a tool like Imagetag's KwikTag. It stores, retrieves, and indexes documents using a sticky-note formatââ,¬"it was developed with 3Mââ,¬"and bar codes. Imagetag estimates that US employees waste more than two hours a week finding, sharing, and storing documents, and that its software slashes these unproductive efforts by 75 percent.
Tucson Medical Centre uses KwikTag to help with the lengthy process of verifying the background and education of health providers. Before KwikTag, the process involved culling through 262 linear feet of filing space for documents. "We were making copies of copies of copies," recalls Donald M. O'Malley, a hospital director. "I wanted to move closer to a paperless system."
After transferring files to KwikTag, the hospital reduced the amount of physical file storage space to less than 40 linear feet. It took eight months to scan the hospital's 800,000 imagesââ,¬"all done at Xerox's scanning unit-and assign each one a bar code for retrieval.
Once you've established an archive, you need to protect it from loss. Don't think it couldn't happen to you. Businesses will spend some $5.7 billion on backup software by 2004, according to Gartner. To safeguard your critical information, turn to an industrial-strength backup program like BakBone.
