Many electronic document management companies discuss the savings of time and storage space,  but the fact of the matter is that your organization will be placing itself in jeopardy without the use of proper document management.  That seems extremely strong language for referring to this topic, but let’s stop and look at the situation.  Documents in a business process are a means to measure, manage and improve processes.  Workflow and routing help organizations move information on a timely basis.  Knowledge and the sharing of information must come in the form of documentation as organizations can not afford turnover without a knowledge structure in place.  People are the creator of the facts and the documentation to manage the process.  Processes define the organization’s framework and count on the documentation for defining, auditing and startup.  Change occurs in all organizations, and documents allow for change to take place.  This facilitates the change by a documentation view.

A successful organization must:

· Documents to be sharable, accessible, and locatable (electronically, if possible)

· Open to analysis and adjustments

· Workflow and routing to critique

· Allows people to leverage processes

· Management documents with strategic direction and operational facts

· External documents to contain the market environment

Document systems must allow:

· Creation

· Revision

· Critique

· Analyze

· Synthesize

· Catalogue and keyword searches

Lack of documents will cause bottlenecks, and misunderstanding of the process.