Why are companies changing EDMS?

On October 25, 2019, the team of the Ukrainian office of Almexoft took part in the forum “#Businesssecuritypaper“, which was organized by Liga Zakon.

As part of the event, a platform was organized for the exchange of experience between representatives of large businesses and IT solution providers in the field of business process automation, legally significant electronic document management, SaaS tools, and services that help accelerate business growth, optimize costs and time to support the administrative functions of companies.

Indeed, selecting new software by a large enterprise is a rather slow process, with more than 50% of the work done during the prerequisites analysis stage. This is due to the main challenges of the modern world – a high degree of automation and rapid adaptation of processes and systems to the needs of customers and the market. Accordingly, the technologies used in creating software must provide high stability, guaranteed continuity over a long period of time, scalability, and, most importantly, repeatability and portability of the infrastructure.

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  Oleksandr Sochka

  Business Development Manager

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  Mykyta Vasiliev

  Chief Engineer

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  Igor Prykhodko

  Chief executive officer

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  Andriy Koktash

  Product manager

This topic is extremely relevant for modern Ukrainian companies. According to the statistics collected by the sales department of our company, 57% of companies that applied to Almexoft are planning a project to introduce an electronic document management system or a BPM system, while already having purchased or implemented software for these tasks. This means that more than half of the projects failed! Our experts analyzed the main reasons why companies are forced to replace already implemented electronic document management systems:

• Low performance and system freeze;
• Outdated interface lack of web and mobile access;
• Limited customization options;
• High cost of software product ownership;
• Problems with the integration and refinement of the system.

The consequences of such projects for business are always extremely painful. An inefficiently spent budget prevents a company from developing IT and launching new projects for fear of repeating a failed project. As a result, the business is increasing its technological gap, employees are less efficient than they could be, and the competitive advantage compared to technology companies is falling. And the process of supporting an unsuccessful decision eats up all the resources, and, in fact, there is simply no time left for a real digital transformation of the company.

At the same time, the fact that the electronic document management system, as well as the business process management system, is an indispensable component of the success of a modern company remains undeniable. We, at Almexoft, insist that the EDMS must certainly be built on the basis of the BPM platform, these types of systems can be closely integrated, thus closing the tasks for all the processes of managing a company and ensuring its life (both directly document management processes and other auxiliary processes ). Such automation projects really take the business to the next level of development, help support its growth and make it digital.

Igor gave advice on what to pay attention to when choosing a workflow automation system:

• In terms of ensuring system reliability and high performance:

  1. Modern technologies and development methodologies;
  2. The presence of ORM (programming technology that allows you to use different databases for the same software product) will help to save money by choosing the database that is necessary for your organization;
  3. Possibility of simultaneous work with different types of file storages.

• In terms of customization, the solution of any tasks should be possible without the involvement of an external resource:

  Mandatory presence of VRM. The electronic document management system should be built on the basis of BPM and already in the database provide the ability to design, visualize and execute business processes. This approach will allow you not to depend on the vendor in terms of constant improvements. And changes in the processes of the organization or the addition of new ones can be made on the fly. Business wins – IT solution helps to effectively manage changes, not slow them down. Customization of forms and templates. Each electronic document is unique (fields, attachment templates, data views) – the presence of a modern form editor.

• Possibilities of integration and self-improvement:

  A huge advantage is the open API. This enables both customers and implementers to seamlessly integrate EDMS into any software solutions or add additional modules or entire client applications. The open API is especially relevant for banks and large holdings. Where such a system can perform the so-called “orchestration” of systems, supporting the entire process cycle and saturating it with additional data during execution.

• System Ownership Conditions:

  1. Pay attention to the licensing policy of the software solution and hidden fees;
  2. Consider the cost of related software products necessary for the functioning of the system;
  3. It is obligatory to have a working Service desk, preferably in accordance with international standards (for example, ITSM);
  4. Find out the plans for the development of the system, the development roadmap, the frequency of updates.

Choosing the right solution for workflow automation and digitalization of processes is always difficult. It is worth understanding in detail the tasks that such a system will solve, developing internal requirements for the system, and studying successful cases. When choosing an IT solution, pay attention to the references that customers and partners of a potential contractor or software product vendor can provide.

As a rule, the best advertising that speaks for itself has already implemented projects, so the ideal option is to see how the system works in real conditions.