Electronic Document Management: Challenges and Opportunities for Information Systems Managers.

Author List: Sprague Jr., Ralph H.;
MIS Quarterly, 1995, Volume 19, Issue 1, Page 29-49.
Harnessing information technology to manage documents is one of the most important challenges facing IS managers in this decade. It is important because most of the valuable information in organizations is in the form of documents such as business forms, reports, letters, memos, policy statements, contracts, agreements, etc. Moreover, most of the important business processes in organizations are based on, or driven by, document flows. Electronic Document Management (EDM) promises major productivity and performance increases by applying new technology to documents and document processing. The purposes of this paper are to show the value of new technology for managing documents, to illustrate the variety of ways this value can be realized, to develop some structure for understanding this rapidly evolving field, and to suggest some actions IS managers can take now to prepare for this revolution in information management. The paper argues that the IS Department, as the developers and managers of the technical infrastructure for EDM, will be in a position to lead this evolution as major change agents like they did in the EDP and MIS eras; but some specific actions will be needed to assume this leadership role. This paper explores the scope and importance of EDM in more detail and illustrates how it expands our view of information management. It is designed to help structure the field by approaching it from three perspectives: technologies that are making EDM possible, the application areas in which business value is being realized, and the roles and responsibilities of several departments that will be involved in developing EDM. The paper suggests what IS managers can do now to begin preparing for this major advancement in information management.
Keywords: Document management; document processing; IS management
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#80 0.126 organizations new information technology develop environment challenges core competencies management environmental technologies development emerging opportunities levels based change business technical
#299 0.096 office document documents retrieval automation word concept clustering text based automated created individual functions major approach operations prototype identify report
#88 0.087 managers managerial manager decisions study middle use important manager's appropriate importance context organizations indicate field experience management major organizational results
#212 0.087 business digital strategy value transformation economy technologies paper creation digitization strategies environment focus net-enabled services processes insights challenges key response
#188 0.086 processes interaction new interactions temporal structure research emergent process theory address temporally core discussion focuses area underlying deep structures way
#16 0.080 infrastructure information flexibility new paper technology building infrastructures flexible development human creating provide despite challenge possible resources specific advances developing
#63 0.073 mis problems article systems management edp managers organizations ;br> data survey application examines need experiences recent organization reports departments oriented
#222 0.071 research researchers framework future information systems important present agenda identify areas provide understanding contributions using literature studies paper potential review
#170 0.064 information processing needs based lead make exchange situation examined ownership analytical improved situations changes informational examine developed receive perceptions facilitates