By Stanley Opara
The need to get a paper management software, file organiser, record management system, filing software, file management programme, records organiser, album organiser, records management software and disk organiser, has become a major challenge in different offices in recent times.
Now, the existence of most businesses remains known to the entire world, notwithstanding the locations.
The fact that a company is duly registered to do business in a country makes it exposed to the whole world.
The Internet is one revolution that has enhanced the level of awareness of business, and experts say more opportunities are still lying untapped as far as the Internet is concerned.
Most companies have little or no idea about the number of people visiting their websites on daily basis. The visit is usually accompanied with various forms of mails sent by the visitors.
Indeed, the Internet has the potential of increasing the customer-base of many companies beyond anticipated proportions, hence, posing a great challenge to them because the data and identities of the clientele must be adequately maintained.
The Head Operations, Brook Consults, Mr. Yemi Akano, says keeping hard copies of files alone has been proven unsafe, unprofessional and unreliable. Rather, the use of the electronic approach, as a back-up, must be imbibed by most organisations.
To him, maintaining facilities like file folder organiser, remains a relief to businesses. He says this gives any business an opportunity of using a software that helps to organise and manage paper documents that are stored in filing cabinets.
According to him, no document scanning is needed. Rather than actually transferring the documents to your personal computer, the program allows you to maintain a database of your filing cabinets contents.
Document titles for recipes, magazine articles, manuals, pamphlets, research papers, proposals, books, product information, client data, invoices, blue- prints and other material are keyed into the programme’s database.
In a bid to beefing up the company’s back-up potentials, software, cassette tapes, CD, DVDs, and videotapes can be organised.
Mr. Amaefuna Dike, a system programmer, says today’s work environment no longer fashions piles of paper sitting on office desks, especially now that filing is made easy with various electronic file folders in use.
According to him, electronic-based filing programmes are intended for use at work and at home. Executives, office administrators, business owners and others can benefit largely from the programmes’ facilities.
He says the benefits of this technology are unlimited, as it is designed to work for people.
This now offers specific solutions like grouping filed material under a super heading called File Folder Owner. Examples of File Folder Owners are specific persons, jobs, cases or geographical locations.
Under each File Folder Owner, you can file an unlimited number of file cabinets, hanging folders, file folders and documents. This feature allows you to separate the files into groups for easy filing and retrieval, Dike says.
The electronic filing system is specifically designed to fully exploit the electronic super highway to minimise not just the physical movement of people and documents in the work place, but also to leverage the benefits of electronic storage within business settings.
He says this facilitates faster document filing and retrieval, eradicates misplacement of files, and in turn make possible concurrent access to view the same file by different parties.
Commenting on the effect of electronic filing system on the work place setting, Akano explains that it allows electronic documents to be automatically routed to the appropriate staff for processing, adding that the system allows further routing within the office; thereby making the whole process fast, convenient and efficient.
Apart from facilitating faster response as well as accurate and up-to-date information, Akano stresses that other benefits like speedy inspection of documents electronically and the ability to request for and receive electronic extracts of documents via the Internet, remain other benefits of the system.
Another area where this development has become useful for businesses is in creating databases.
According to Dike, better and reliable databases are electronically achieved in most cases. Individuals and corporate bodies do not need to visit the physical offices of companies to access needed information, since having the requisite code(s), provides access to such databases, courtesy electronic files.