Three of four organisations suffer serious problems from broken document processes

12/06/2012

By Daniel Hunter

Ineffective document-based processes, a 'blind spot' for businesses, have directly triggered serious incidents at three out of four organisations in the past five years, according to a new IDC white paper commissioned by Ricoh UK.

Document process failures have caused severe consequences: 36 percent of responding companies failed to meet compliance requirements, 30 percent lost key employees, and 25 percent lost major customers. Other consequences include major IT security breaches, getting pulled into a major audit, suffering a PR crisis and being sued.

The good news: addressing failures proactively can head off substantial financial harm. IDC estimates that the overall cost of process failure (in terms of staff time and executive oversight for activities such as required rework and process reviews, as well as opportunity costs associated with lost customers) is at least 10 times the direct out-of-pocket costs (such as paying financial settlements).

“What many [business executives] may not appreciate is the degree to which document-driven business processes affect their organisation’s risk profile: there is a high risk of breakdowns in these processes causing severely negative business outcomes, and the costs of these breakdowns are worse than many executives think,” states IDC in the Ricoh-commissioned report, It's Worse than You Think: Poor Document Processes Lead to Significant Business Risk.

“Although most invest significant resources to reduce low-probability/high-impact risk events, high-probability/high impact risks introduced by broken document processes are lurking dangerously below the corporate radar and merit C-level attention.”

The Ricoh Document Process Imperative is an ongoing initiative to help businesses understand the risks, opportunities and best practices around the documents that drive their critical business processes.

The first findings are based on a global survey of over 1,516 business process owners and iWorkers from large and medium-sized organizations, supplemented by focus groups. Respondents were randomly recruited... continued on page two >

 

 

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