Malcolm Gladwell, the famous author of ‘David and Goliath’ once gave an equally famous quote: “I don’t understand, given the constraints physicians have in doing their job and the paperwork demanded of them, why people want to be physicians.” He was lamenting about how healthcare professionals in the developed world have to struggle with an enormous and sometimes unreasonable amount of paperwork just to do their jobs right. Lengthy paperwork is still the reality in multiple industries like healthcare, education, and government institutions. By looking at these facts, companies that believe in efficiency and compliance will always need world-class document control systems.
What are document control systems?
That’s an oversimplification. The best document control systems go beyond these definitions and are critical to the smooth functioning of organisations. Industries that must ensure absolute privacy and product safety will always need these systems to achieve those goals.
From the customer’s perspective, such systems help maintain product quality while helping the company stay up-to-date with its competitors. From the employees’ perspective, such systems help create and maintain a work environment that’s efficient, lean and compliant with laws and regulations. The employment of effective document control systems helps streamline operations across departments while ensuring easy access to relevant documents. This also results in fewer errors as document verification and scrutiny is carried out by different team members at different levels.
The electronic solution
The digitisation of documents has been going on for decades now. Along with this grew the need for software-based document control systems and a document control procedure to help companies easily create, manage, and access their documents. This need gave birth to a wide range of software solutions that also evolved along with the end consumer’s needs. Microsoft SharePoint has grown from a software to a vibrant platform with very advanced features and an even more significant amount of customisation, making it ideal for users across various industries. Custom SharePoint Development has become a specialisation of sorts, which helps companies create highly customised solutions that aid in automating business processes.
How to set up document control systems
Setting up a document control system in the company is an elementary and straightforward requirement. Still, keeping aside the technological challenges, the company has to also look at preparing the groundwork for it. One of the first things companies must do is identify the right documents needing management. Set up SOPs like a document control procedure to ascertain the hierarchy for approval and oversight. Following a naming convention for files is always a good idea. A naming convention ensures efficient retrieval for employees based on their needs in the relevant departments.
Documents in any organisation need revisions at some point. Creating procedures and assigning a dedicated team is essential to ensure timely, accurate, and efficient corrections. Companies have the moral and legal responsibility of safeguarding consumer data, and it becomes necessary to have rules that manage data access across the organisation. Companies should also create data backups and a solid archiving system to store obsolete or near-obsolete documents for future reference.
Which is the right system for me?
Good question. Identifying a robust, feature-rich document control system is essential for any company. While looking for a design, companies must look for facets like easy search and navigation and seamless support for multiple document types. PDF .doc, .docx, .ppt, .pptx, .xml, .xls, .xlsx etc., are just some formats that document control software handles these days easily. The file types could become more and more diverse when the company operates in a specific niche. Compliance with existing laws and regulations, integration with learning management platforms, adherence to existing quality management systems, domain-specific customizability, and round-the-clock service support are other factors for evaluation while choosing the right software solution. These factors help decision-makers in companies pinpoint the right software platforms that suit their specific needs.
Conclusion
Effective document control is the default setting for all highly regulated industries. Even for other organisations, employing best practices and a document control procedure for document control systems means better results in data security, streamlining, compliance, transparency, collaboration and quality management. In a data-driven world, companies find it helpful to manage their documents and facilitate the flow of information that results in better business outcomes.
As a leading SharePoint Development Company in the UAE, we have always believed that SharePoint is a platform that can check all these boxes for almost all kinds of industries and organisation sizes. Our experience in the local market has shown that the platform has rapidly evolved over the years and continues to be the preferred choice for companies that believe in effective document control. It is certainly not the only software in the market, but it is one in which the chances of you going wrong are minimal.
Document control systems are complex technological solutions that always need specialised talent in-house and externally for effortless deployment. If you have any queries regarding the topic, please contact us at info@neologix.ae or +971-521043226. We will be more than happy to answer your questions and work on a plan to deliver the right document control system for your company.
