Summary, Conclusions, and RecommendationsPaperless Office
Chapter 5: Summary, Conclusions, and Recommendations
This Chapter summarizes this thesis research work and responds to the management and research questions. It provides conclusions based on this research and survey work and address their applicability and limitations. Recommendations are provided based on this research and these conclusions are meant to assist decision making associated with applying office information technology and the associated transition to a paperless office environment. Also considerations for the degree to which implementation may be considered effective and efficient and under what conditions are discussed further. This chapter also identifies key considerations and consequences of moving to a paperless office. Major obstacles and strategies for overcoming these obstacles are addressed further.
Summary
There has been an Office Technology revolution. So it is natural to consider how these technologies can improve organizational efficiency. Moving to the paperless office had been discussed since the introduction of the Personal Computer. The thinking was that the computer would evidentially make paper obsolete. This appears, as yet, not to be the case. Actually the computer and the Internet have resulted in an unprecedented information explosion. Paper has continued to have a significant role in the communication of information. However, some progress is being made in managing this vast overload of information but much more remains to be done. Paper can now be considered just another communication media in many organizations, although; there are many advantages and disadvantages of paper.
Technology continues to be considered one of the tools for competitiveness. When considering moving to the paperless office a natural management question is: “ Can developing a paperless office environment be an effective strategy to provide a competitive advantage.” A corresponding research question is; “Will moving to a paperless office environment reduce cost, increase productivity, and improve customer service.” These are particularly pertinent questions for organizations in industries that face transitions to a competitive market. One of these industries is the electric utility industry. To attempt to address these questions in this context this research thesis reviewed available literature, case studies, industry survey data, and developed and implemented an information technology (IT) user survey. This information has resulted in a better appreciation for the complexity of the issues that include; leadership, organizational, and cultural issues. Review of available information has lead to Electronic Document Management (EDM) as a potential implementing technology.
EDM technologies are large, diverse, and rapidly changing. They are infiltrating most businesses because of their ability to manage and share information. EDM systems can store, retrieve, and manage unstructured information objects such as text, spreadsheets, images, audio, multi-media, and compound documents. The proliferation of unstructured information and the associated challenges facing organizations has caused the role of electronic document management to expand into what has been called Enterprise Content Management (ECM). EDM vendor systems have ranged in functionality, flexibility, and scalability. In the past single-vendor solutions have been limiting, and multiple-vendor solutions have result in isolated incompatible applications. Internet technologies have begun to change this. However, organizations must still be careful to choose the products, vendors, and applications with the characteristics that best meet their business needs and strategies. No one product, vendor , or application is likely to provide the perfect solution for diverse markets and business requirements. Some standardization has been credited for some level of interoperability. Multiple-vendor systems and applications can be seamlessly linked and new technologies are enabling integration with legacy systems. Evaluation of the EDM industry and the assessment of the future potential of EDM are best considered by identification and review of the associated benefits, challenges, and trends.
The more comprehensive view of moving to a paperless office environment has been found to involve a concept sometimes identified as Knowledge Management (KM). KM is a concept that has been defined as a business model for embracing knowledge as an organizational asset to drive a sustained business advantage. This concept is a management and business practice that needs to be supported by the total organization, leadership, culture, and technology. The technologies that support KM are not unique and can be thought of as natural developments of the application interoperability and enterprise integration trends that have been enabled by Internet technologies. The KM concept has been around at least since the early 1990’s and was developed to find innovative ways to leverage the collective knowledge of large organizations. Research has found that the organizations that were among the early adopters of KM products typically faced significant technical, managerial and corporate cultural challenges. These organizations found it difficult to quantify the value of KM and determine its return on investment. No single KM product was able to solve an organization's KM needs. Deploying a KM product often required considerable integration effort and resources.
This research found that it appears that there is the potential to create at least a temporary competitive advantage by the proper implementation of appropriate office technology. It is also apparent that many information intensive organizations with a basic level of Information Technology well in place and a well educated but aging worker force may not yet be ready for a fully paperless office. However, this does not mean that a transition to a paperless office environment may not be considered viable. In fact the transition has already begun in many organizations. This transition has begun by utilizing the electronic version of the form or document to control the workflow while paper becomes a transient media. Many case studies including those presented as part of this thesis demonstrated that these activities can be successfully implemented resulting in improved productivity, reduced cost, and better customer and employee relations. However, this is not always the eventual result of these activities but is possible utilizing proven concepts and developed practices. This includes a basic understanding of the business needs, processes, and culture of the organization. To better realize the fuller potential and possible benefits of implementing an effective and efficient integrated information management program more detailed recommendations need to be considered in the context of the organization being studied.
Conclusions
The Electronic Document Management (EDM) market is large, diverse, and rapidly changing and does not lend it self to simple or easy comparisons and evaluations. This market has experienced tremendous technological progress in digital document imaging, workflow, work management, messaging, and document management technologies. These groups of related technologies and the associated management concepts although not necessarily distinct can be thought of as potential sources of competitive advantages that are rapidly becoming competitive necessities. The Association for Information and Image Management’s (AIIM’s) Emerging Technology Advisory Group (EmTAG) had identified both Electronic Commerce (E-commerce) and Knowledge Management (KM) as two of five related areas of management concern for 1999 (Dale, 1999). These are continued areas of concern two years later as can be seen by recent industry surveys and literature. The primary reason for this has been identified as rapid changes in technology that have been driven by competitive global markets enabled by the Internet (Roe, 1999; Hudson, 2000).
One of the consequences of the move to E-commerce means that paper is becoming less important. E-commerce tools include the Internet, Electronic Document Interchange (EDI), e-forms, workflow, e-mail integration, electronic catalogs/databases, procurement cards, digital signatures, digital certificates, electronic payment system architectures (Dale, 1999).
Knowledge Management (KM) appears to address the next stage in our information technology evolution. KM can be an effective tool for Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization. (Calabrease, 2000). KM can be viewed as the art and science of creating, identifying, evaluating, capturing, creating, measuring, distributing, and aligning the intellectual resources of an enterprise (KPMG, 1999). Figure 5-1 depicts key elements that have been found to be indicative of many effective enterprise knowledge management programs.
It is apparent that Electronic Document Management (EDM), E-commerce, and KM all have potential overlaps in implementing technologies and management concepts. Where there are overlaps there are potential integration opportunities. The current trends in EDM include strategic role out and integration of applications by users into the overall enterprise network. In addition there is a realization for the need to better train and manage the work force and resources and avoid becoming dependent on proprietary, single vendor, non-standard solutions. The vendors have increasingly begun to market integrated enterprise EDM solutions that cover the full range of document management functions. These solutions include web-based document sharing and the utilization of Internet technology to setup intranets that can be managed by the enterprise intranet. Each of these applications have strengths and limitations and the appropriate solution requires careful review of the users technology infrastructure, document management requirements, how the users will be working with the documents, and the organizations currently information technology applications. This has lead to a renewed realization and understanding of the importance of Knowledge in the current competitive information age business environment.
One of the main challenges for EDM technologies is to many businesses it has been deemed of secondary importance. Other Information Technology (IT) like ERP appeared to be more at the core of the business. However, once an organization has been through the struggles of implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system then the demand for effective document and information management becomes more necessary. Operation of an ERP system can create a significant document and information management challenge. ERP has created an opportunity to build a system that more naturally requires the use of document technologies. The issues of EDM technologies have been identified as relating to ERP systems in three primary ways (Richardson, 1999):
(1)EDM can provide enabling technologies that allows transactions and other documentation to be accessible and available for processing through ERP processes;
(2)EDM can add value through additional capabilities in managing and tracking work-in-progress documentation, for quality and process management purposes, project and process management documentation, which are important in ERP systems for process management;
(3)EDM technologies of Workflow and business modeling processes can play a central part in the planning, deployment, and use of ERP systems across a spectrum of industries and applications.
The industry association of users and suppliers for document and business process management technologies and services, the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM), has expanded it’s focus (Mancini, 2000). This is primarily due to the proliferation of unstructured information and the associated challenges facing organizations. This has caused the role of electronic document management to expand into what has been called Enterprise Content Management (ECM). ECM has been defined as the creation, capture, delivery, customization, and management of content across an enterprise. ECM includes the continued management and integration of legacy documents and Web based information and processes. Figure 5-2 depicts the AIIM model for ECM and identifies the layered integration of the information, applications and infrastructure that constitute its domain.
There are numerous case histories of companies reducing their paper consumption, reducing costs, and making productivity improvements through the use of appropriate information technology strategies and methods. Table 5-1 summarizes the four case studies explored as part of this research.
Benefits: The potential direct benefits of implementing Electronic Document Management (EDM) for organization activities appear rather straight forward and were characterized well by Sprague to include (Sprague, 1995):
(1)quicker access to documents and information,
(2)more efficient document handling,
(3)simultaneous access to the most current document version, and
(4)reduced cost of printing and distribution of documents
The potential indirect benefits of EDM that may be more difficult to measure have the ability to provide more profound value to the organization and the activities performed by its workers. These benefits have been characterized by many in various ways but Sprague’s characterization again seems most concise and can be described as (Sprague, 1995):
(1)improved management and communication of concepts and ideas,
(2)upgraded business processes,
(3)supporting training and education, and
(4)leveraging organizational memory to improve productivity and performance.
Contemporary organizations need improved productivity and enhanced performance to compete in the rapidly changing and increasingly competitive business environment. EDM has the potential to leverage information technologies to generate these productivity and performance improvements, but realizing these benefits present major challenges and opportunities for organizations, managers and users.
Challenges: Realizing effective management of technology can present a big challenge. Most of the literature reviewed agrees that the challenges that lie ahead in the implementation of increasing levels of office information technology and moving to a paperless office environment are not primarily technical; although, technology will continue to offer newer, cheaper and more effective solutions. There in lies one of the biggest challenges, to effectively manage this rapidly changing technology. Dr. Francisco J. Mata, Dr. William L. Fuerst, and Professor Jay B. Barney; professor of Management, Ohio State University; identified managerial IT skills as the related IT resources that could maintain a companies sustained competitive advantage (Matta, Fuerst and Barney, 1995).
Behavioral, cultural, environmental and political issues are some of the biggest challenges to the implementation of office technology. People are used to working with paper and resist change. Many feel that it can be counter-productive to move too quickly to a paperless office and paper is still handy in many situations. However, the implications are that information technology is eventually going to result in less and less paper. If this is the case it is only beginning to be realized in some areas (Guy, 1996).
Some industry experts have predicted organizations will need to make a strategic investment in internal training and skills building as opposed to high-priced external resources in order to become effective. Training in the applied technologies can save the organization time and effort by providing a foundation of technical understanding and a strategic perspective on the evaluation, implementation, and use of document management systems, imaging, workflow, and business process redesign (Florida, 1996).
Security is a critical issue, and is not simply a matter of installing a firewall. There are different types of documents and different audiences on the Internets and extranets and that may have different security requirements. When security is tied in with workflow, groupware, distribution, replication, quality control, and achieving it can be pretty overwhelming (CAP Ventures, 1998). However, constant improvements in authentication, data encryption, and transaction validation has helped address security concerns to the point that E-commerce has been allowed to develop in the Internet environment. (Kalakota & Whinston, 1997).
Integration of EDMS features in a total package has been an issue. Both electronic document management and Web based document sharing products have continued to coexist. Electronic document management systems are starting to solve the problems of document sharing over corporate intranets, and Web based document sharing systems are starting to include library services. However, both systems have had product gaps. Neither system had provided E-commerce capabilities that let organizations charge certain classes of users for information nor neither type system provides much integration with middleware components, such as transaction management or fault-tolerance capabilities. Such integration is necessary for enabling these systems to be used in business-critical applications in large enterprises (Patel, 1998). However, Enterprise Application-Integration (EAI) and Web sever products are addressing these issues (Sweat, 1999; Liebmann, 1999). In fact Web application server software has been identified as a key technology for implementing EAI. This software can provide an environment for building and running Web applications that interact with diverse and distributed back-end resources (Desai & Kane, 1999).
Document fragmentation on the intranet can be even more difficult to deal with than with traditional document management. The entire concept of hyperlinking means that all intranet documents can be uniquely interdependent. A break in a link can tear a hole in the web, which if not catastrophic, can be at least annoying and unproductive. File proliferation on the intranet can be a more insidious problem because current online viewing calls for breaking up large documents into smaller files that can result in the proliferation of inter-linked files across multiple tiered folders, directories, and sub-directories (Bernard, 1997).
Performance of Internet-enabled applications has been an issue and will continue to bean area for improvement. The use of object oriented application based interfaces are an improvement in this situation but increased bandwidth is required to assure the appropriate performance in retrieving today’s complex multimedia documents. Although, much progress has been made in these areas, there remains work to be done and the sometimes, opposing EDM industry forces for standardization and competition can make progress in this area difficult.
Trends: Savvy users concerned about proprietary solutions have driven application interoperability. Proprietary solutions have been found to lack the flexibility to adapt or require the user to rely on a single supplier. Browser-based document management tools are gaining market share in the EDM market. Internet tools that had presented some integration challenges with other Web-based applications are catching up. Many EDM Internet viewers have been HTML plug-ins, such as ActiveX controls or Java applets, which are based on older Internet technologies. XML standards promise to better enable integration and communications. These standards are becoming more fully developed and are being incorporated into successfully implemented tools (Alsup, 1999; Ellertson, 1999).