Document Overload Is Taking Over Organizations

With industry research revealing that there are more than 2.5 trillion PDFs created every year, organizations are drowning in docs. In fact, the majority of professionals indicate that the current, nearly relentless pace of business—coupled with ceaseless tech connectivity—is requiring them to produce and manage more docs than ever, according to a recent survey from the Business Performance Innovation (BPI) Network and Foxit. The resulting report, titled "Dealing with Document Deluge and Danger," states that an increasing number of docs are being produced to satisfy the need to document and formalize processes, policies and practices, while helping manage growing business complexities (such as those created by mergers and acquisitions). The abundance of docs has raised considerable concerns about information security, while creating bottlenecks in the form of lost time due to misplaced docs or "wrong versions" being mistaken for correct ones. "Controlling, managing, tracking and protecting documents has become a more difficult challenge in an age when they can be duplicated and distributed across global networks within seconds," according to the report. "Tracking them, making sure they're up to date, verifying their authenticity and ensuring they're not in the wrong hands—while also expediting their creation, modification, approval and distribution—is a vexing issue for almost all of us." CIOs and their tech teams should know that cloud solutions—especially those which enable users to retrieve, update and post change notifications—would help, according to findings. An estimated 500 global professionals took part in the research.