Information Management in New Business Models.

• Author: PHILLIPS, JOHN T.

The use of computer technology to manage information and documents is creating new opportunities and challenges for many industries that traditionally have been paper-centric.

Off-site records storage companies, newspaper publishers, reprographic services firms, and architectural and engineering organizations have all been paper-based in the past, as they shipped, stored, and consumed vast quantities of paper. Inexpensive box storage has always been the specialty of the off-site records storage industry, as it provides environmentally controlled warehouses for storing and retrieving inactive paper documents. Newspaper publishers' fortunes rise and fall with the price of relatively inexpensive newsprint paper. Reprographic services bureaus and organizations that create large-format technical drawings both require expensive, high quality print media to produce their document-based products and services. However, when considering total range of documents created in organizations, the need for creating, distributing, and storing paper-based documents has gradually decreased. Digital files have largely become the document format of choice for conducting business. Digital data can be less expensive to ship, store, and retrieve than paper-based documents.

The move to digital files has also initiated strategy changes for paper-based industries and the businesses that serve them. Off-site records storage vendors now seek to store customers' computer media and consider teaming with document-imaging vendors to convert large collections of paper documents, which they already store, into digital document images. Newspaper publishers have created Internet-accessible Web sites to offer news articles. Reprographics firms offer digital-asset management services to clients who want their electronic print files retained long term for future printing and document distribution. Architectural and engineering firms have reduced drafts and final drawing sets produced as they obtain software to create, transmit and store computer-aided design (CAD) files instead of large-format paper, sepia, or vellum documents. Business process re-engineering, workflow analysis, and new software products further reduce the volume of paper-based documents.

Many service organizations do not understand that they are transforming mission-critical documents into digital formats and electronic repositories that are largely untouched by traditional information management policies and procedures. When documents remain as digital files for...