Digitization has rapidly reduced the need for paper documentation in business. Thanks to smart document management systems, companies don’t have to produce and store nearly as many paper files as they did, which is also extremely helpful since companies keep stockpiling more data every year. But the world still needs documents to run. According to Nitro, 60% of workers think that their current document workflows are inefficient. Considering that the same report suggests a worker needs to access more than six documents daily, proper document management can slow your business’ productivity to a crawl. Luckily, 2024 is a promising year for document management systems. Here’s what you should look forward to.

Widespread Implementation of Cloud-Based Document Management

Cloud solutions have become the reigning champions of document management systems worldwide, and not a moment too late. According to WFH Research, more than 40% of full-time employees work from home for at least a part of their schedule. This exacerbates the need for documentation to be accessible from anywhere at any time.

Cloud systems offer more transparency and automatic backups, alleviating the managerial strain on business owners.

Cloud solutions have also had the distinct advantage of getting progressively more budget-friendly over the years. With the number of providers steadily increasing and the cost of hardware plummeting, cloud services have leveraged competition and economies of scale to lower prices.

This means that cloud services can be available for small businesses at lucrative prices. Entrepreneurs also typically leverage free solutions, which pull them into the cloud service ecosystem, turning them into paid customers when the company grows.

Going Paper-Lite

While most companies have lauded full digitization as the ultimate goal in document management systems, the problem has been determined to be not so cut and dry. Many companies must store some physical documentation for compliance and practicality.

Therefore, a new trend in document management is to identify avenues for determining which files must be stored offline and which can undergo digitization. This can alleviate costs related to both physical and online storage. If businesses can identify documents that are not worth keeping in digital form, they don’t have to spend valuable time transferring them from paper.

This also points to the increased potential of blockchain. If the paper documentation that is required to stay in paper is due to security and tampering concerns, then blockchain resolves both issues. Since the blockchain itself allows a detailed overview of a document’s history, it can replace paper documentation without adding the access risk of cloud systems. While widespread blockchain systems are still haunted by implementation issues, there are plenty of promising options.

Going Mobile

With the increased rate of working from home and the rising technical capabilities of mobile devices, people are shedding computers as their primary working devices. With that comes the need to access and manage files from a smartphone or tablet.

Most systems are built with the mouse and keyboard in mind, limiting accessibility. If you want a truly modern solution, look for document management systems that start with mobile systems first.

Going Social

Social media has overhauled how people interact with the world, and businesses have followed suit. Today, most businesses use intranet technology such as Slack or Teams to communicate and collaborate on daily tasks. These platforms have borrowed much of their base from social media and adapted it for a professional setting.

Modern management systems aim to go a step further. By allowing users to combine the business intranet network with the file management system, companies can reduce overhead costs and let users directly contribute their documents to the rest of the team for further processing.

The Power of AI in Document Processing

Artificial intelligence, large-language-model processing, in particular, has transformed how users can interact with the information available to them. While AI allows employees to streamline how they search for files and documentation online, the technology is also helping the entire digitization process.

Digitization Made Easy

Thanks to advancements in optical character recognition (OCR), an AI could be trained to recognize and edit scanned documents to make them available for processing. Furthermore, machine learning capabilities allow AIs to automatically understand context and apply smart fixes on errors made by the OCR system.

The system could allow you to scan a paper into a PDF format and then seamlessly translate it into an editable document within seconds. It would revolutionize the speed, practicality, and accessibility of digitization.

Using LLMs for Advanced Searching

Chat AIs like GPT and Gemini have showcased just how advanced and accurate machine learning has become. The speed at which an AI can crawl through business records is unparalleled, with impressive potential applications for information recovery.

In theory, you could soon extract exact clauses across all your employment contracts to see how they differ from each other or directly calculate your invoice totals from the documentation you upload to the AI. An AI could even help you compile contracts or suggest how to streamline the documentation system.

Federating Searches

With an AI gathering vast amounts of data, employees can take a much easier route to finding key information locked in paper documents. This also alleviates the concerns made by creating distinct information silos. An AI can more rapidly churn through unstructured data and find bottlenecks or patterns that point to inefficiencies of duplicated files.

Improved Automation Options

Document management is no longer a humans-only game. Modern solutions can leverage automation software like Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and business process automation (BPA).

RPA relies on “robots”—small, efficient pieces of software—to streamline and automate specific rule-bound tasks such as data entry or sorting. Automating business processes is more abstract, allowing a company to identify chains of command within document handling and automate how users gain access to documents, especially if the document needs to be changed or validated throughout its pipeline.

A document system that can integrate these two tools can create more adaptive access roles and create uniform pipelines to reduce confusion, solidify decision-making, and improve processing times.

Client Interfacing

Thanks to increased technological literacy, clients are more tech-savvy, which allows companies to engage with them in more meaningful ways. The parallel advancements of collaboration technology, intranet services, and document management systems allow for a more unified approach to customer relationships.

With smart role management and granular control, companies can create interactive client platforms that allow customers to interact directly with the project pipeline throughout the collaboration, minimizing customer support response times. Customers can become unofficial members of the team, downloading and commenting on documents as they are being processed and uploading necessary changes in real-time.

Go for Modern Systems

Document management systems have gone far beyond traditional files and folders of old. If you don’t modernize, you may get left behind by companies that have streamlined their pipelines and improved their productivity.

However, you need to approach digitization from the correct angle. A qualified document management provider like KDI Office Technology can create a tailored system that accounts for the particularities of your industry and company while allowing the system to scale with your business.

To learn more about how KDI Office Technology can help your business thrive in Philadelphia, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, contact KDI today.