April 11th 
Comments Every document conversion project is its own unique event, and every project has to be customized based on the needs and specifications of the client. But despite the many variables, there are a few things that every document conversion project has in common.
Here are four big questions that every client needs to ask themselves prior to starting a document conversion project with an outsourced scanning service:
1. Are you willing to hire temporary employees?
At microMEDIA, we often help our clients hire temporary employees to work on-site and help conduct the document conversion. Many companies are reluctant to entrust their document conversion work to temporary workers – but this is a mistake! Temporary employees get kind of a bum rap in this area. Temps can do just as good of a job as regular staff – it’s the process and the project management that matter most, not whether the work is done by regular or temporary staff.
The key to a successful document conversion project is project design and project management. If your leadership team does a good job of laying out the specifications and creating a steady and efficient work process (with the right level of controls and quality assurance built in), it won’t matter whether your regular staff or temporary personnel are doing the day-to-day work of scanning your documents.
2. Do you want to do the scanning on-site or off-site?
In general, document conversions can be done in two ways: by sending the documents to an off-site scanning service, or keeping your documents on-site and having the scanning service come to you.
Companies are often tempted to just send all their documents away to be scanned – and this can be a good solution for smaller projects – but for larger document conversions it may be not much more costly to keep the documents on-site and bring in equipment and personnel to do the scanning at your own location.
Benefits of on-site scanning include:
- Information security: Keeping your documents on company premises reduces the risk that any sensitive information will be lost or misplaced during shipping.
- Packing and shipping costs: While offsite conversions are generally less costly, the expense of shipping documents (and perhaps having them shipped back) should be considered.
- Efficient labor costs: Instead of taking your in-house staff away from their regular job duties, a scanning service can hire and manage temporary employees to work on-site and be exclusively dedicated to your scanning project.
The biggest determining factor in the cost of a scanning project is not the location, it’s the process. Managers need to know the most efficient way to approach the document conversion project to ensure that the work gets done the right way – and a good scanning service can consult with your company to help you design a process for your specific document conversion needs.
3. Are you aware of the “hidden costs” of a document conversion project?
Many companies decide to work with outsourced scanning vendors to handle their document conversion projects because they want to get the work done efficiently and save money. While it’s true that outsourced document scanning is often more cost-effective than doing all of the work in-house, keep in mind that there are still some costs of outsourced document conversions that may not be obvious.
Most costs will be reflected in the vendor’s costs that are billed to you – equipment usage, temporary employee labor costs, consulting fees, set-up fees, and any data indexing and final delivery costs.
But in addition to these costs, there are internal costs (time and labor) that your organization will need to keep in mind – just because you’re hiring a document scanning vendor doesn’t mean that you can just “hand over” the project and have it off your plate. Every document conversion project needs to be monitored by an in-house project manager and deliveries should be inspected and validated as with any outside purchase. It may not equate to full-time jobs, but someone at your organization needs to be assigned to fill these roles on the document conversion project.
4. Who is in charge of the project?
For every document conversion project, the client needs to appoint someone in-house to be involved with the project from start-to-finish and be accountable for the project’s results. Every document conversion project’s success depends on the client’s in-house project manager. A good scanning service can help design a work process and provide quality assurance, but it’s ultimately the responsibility of the client’s in-house project manager to sign off on the work.
Many companies don’t realize this when they first decide to do a document conversion project, but it’s important: you need to have a dedicated resource within your company who can manage the project and supervise quality control. If you’re scanning 100,000 documents, you need staff to review the scanned images and ensure that they meet your specifications.
Outsourced scanning services can be a great help, but the final responsibility for the success of the project lies with your in-house project manager and his/her team. Even if you need to re-assign some people or re-shuffle some job responsibilities, the biggest responsibility of the client is to make sure that you have the right people in place to make your document conversion a success.
Related Posts
- When NOT to use barcodes for your document conversion project
- How to control costs for your next document scanning project
- 6 questions to help choose a scanner for your business (part 2)
- 6 questions to help choose a scanner for your business (part 1)
Learn more about how microMEDIA can fulfill your imaging services needs.