Change is only beneficial if you embrace it

How many clichéd mantras regarding change can you think of? If you ‘lurk’ in LinkedIn feeds you will undoubtedly be subjected to a stream of CEOs, motivational speakers, influencers, directors and many more all trying to convince you that “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change” (Albert Einstein) or “Change is inevitable. Growth is optional” (John C. Maxwell) – the modern equivalent of those posters from Athena (showing my age again!) telling you to “Believe”.

The title of this blog is itself dangerously close to being something spouted in such a social post but I would urge you to allow me to elaborate and give some substance behind the title rather than just throw it out by the wayside.

Not one person reading this article has avoided the impact of possibly the greatest seismic shift in working practice since the introduction of the personal computer – the Covid pandemic.

The pandemic forced a change in working practices across every industry and pushed even the most change-averse businesses to evolve because otherwise they ceased to exist. One of the best examples of this forced evolution comes from a PacSol client. For years prior to the pandemic a budget proposal had been submitted annually to update their remote access infrastructure and each year, as finances were allocated, the project was pushed further down the priorities. The review just prior to the pandemic, the project was essentially placed on permanent hold. Well you guessed it, Covid arrived and suddenly the budget was miraculously found, new servers purchased and consultancy paid to expedite the installation. 

Now all this change has occurred, with the supporting personnel and infrastructure in place, it would be ludicrous to suggest that everyone just now reverts back to the old ways ‘because that is how it has always been done’. Following the pandemic, the most noticeable shift within document management has been the rapid conversion of information sources from physical (paper documents) to email, feeds or portals. For PacSol, the main client focus continues to be automation upgrades. The handling of incoming email – automating the storage, index association and process (through workflow) to ensure the business can work efficiently from anywhere.

Whilst some have continued the transformation to digital and harnessed the benefits of automation, there are others that have only moved so far. As an example, the content received to be processed might now be 95% digital (via email, feeds (ftp, rest integration, database query) or supplier portal download) but the same paper process is applied once received – received documents are printed and scanned into the repository because that is the way it has always been done. In this use case, the ‘enforced’ change to digital document formats has not been embraced to drive the digital transformation of the post receipt processes, rather tolerated and ‘made to fit’ the old ways, creating massive resource inefficiencies.

And this is the crux of my title. Change may well be forced on us and at first the benefit of that change may be obscured, however, with the right guidance from (in this instance) a chosen technology partner like PacSol and with a willingness to embrace honest and well intended advice, the short term adverse disruption can become more than a minor benefit to your business. Increased efficiency, decreased time wasted, optimised cash flow, less stressed employees and lowered risk.

Change is always stressful, regardless of whether through choice or necessity. We all try to resist being taken out of our comfort zone.  What is most important is how the outcomes of that change are handled and what benefit can come from it. The same is true across any industry – manufacturing, medicine, education, services – so why not your simple document management system too?

Toby Gilbertson, Customer Services Manager. November 2022

#PacSolUK #DocumentManagement #BusinessProcessAutomation #Change #DigitalTransformation