3 Factors to Consider While Choosing a Cloud Document Management Solution

A Cloud Document Management System carries a host of benefits for your business. If you currently don’t have a Document Management Solution, or if you are managing documents with a simple file/folder structure on your existing file server, it may be worthwhile making the big switch to the cloud based document management. But before you do so, here are a few important factors to keep in mind.

Cost

The cost of a cloud based document management solution is influenced by various complex features and performance that needs to be scanned carefully. Storage that has low latency tends to cost more than the one with high latency. Secondly, while archival storage comes at an affordable price-point, functions like interactive & batch processing tend to command a mark-up. Data withdrawals, copying data between data centres, frequent large transfers & automatic versioning will also attract a higher cost. Thus, the cost is perhaps not a big deterrent when it comes to switching to a Cloud DMS, not least because of the substantial savings it’ll deliver in the long run. Therefore, you must nevertheless factor-in a full lifecycle of data for calculating the approximate costs, before making the final decision.

Risk

Do a thorough risk assessment, to name a few touches upon the aspects such as security, hardware failure, backups & recovery, power disruptions and vendor disputes. Talking about the security, make sure you evaluate your potential Cloud service provider around the server, encryptions, authentication & authorization controls, virus response, card building access, password policies, video monitoring, ‘intrusion/mal-function’ alerts and industry compliances. However, it is a sensible idea to minimize the risks by choosing a Cloud service provider who has their infrastructure hosted on a High Availability & Redundant virtual cloud system that has multiple network connectivity to mitigate against the server or network failures.

Efficiencies 

Check for speed & ease of core functions such as document creation, storage, editing and retrieval, bandwidth for large files, versatility with all kinds of documents, compatibility with operating systems, storage devices and emerging technologies. Check whether it integrates well with your business software and whether it is accessible across different devices.