The purpose of this section of the guidelines is to examine some of the benefits, costs and risks associated with a business process digitisation program and how to mitigate those risks.

These can be included in a business case for your digitisation program. See Planning for business process digitisation for more information about business cases.

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Potential benefits

If considered, planned and managed well, business process digitisation programs can have a number of benefits for an organisation. For example, organisations can:

  • improve business process efficiency, quality and consistency
  • integrate records with digital systems
  • improve accessibility and facilitate better knowledge sharing
  • improve response time and client service
  • reduce costs
  • promote greater staff flexibility [1]
  • better plan for business continuity.

Further information about these benefits is provided below.

Improve business process efficiency, quality and consistency

The act of digitisation itself will not improve your organisation's business processes. However, the introduction of digitisation programs often provides an opportunity for an organisation to consider its business processes and determine how digitisation can be integrated into them. A digitisation program may prompt a re-engineering of processes, improvement of quality and promotion of consistency. Consistent classification, security and access rules and indexing can be introduced where relevant. Information may be able to be transmitted within a structured workflow. See Planning for business process digitisation for more information on the process issues to consider.

Integrate with digital systems

Your organisation may have an EDRMS or existing business systems. Digitisation programs provide an opportunity to integrate records in digital form with those systems. In the areas where digitisation is introduced, staff may not need to rely on hybrid systems (paper and digital) and can be more confident that the digital records provide a complete account of the business conducted (at least from the date digitisation is introduced).

If the digital images are stored in an EDRMS there is the potential for the images to be controlled and managed as records, i.e. access and security controls can be attached so they are read-only and tamper-proof, they can be kept in context with related records, and they can be managed over time.

Improve accessibility and facilitate better knowledge sharing

Digital images are much more accessible than their paper counterparts. Location is no longer an impediment to access. Images can be distributed across networks and viewed concurrently, copied, disseminated to, accessed and used by multiple stakeholders quickly and easily. Having records in digital form also increases the capacity for knowledge transfer and the reuse of information, enabling staff to be more efficient with their time.

If undertaking a back-capture digitisation program to improve access, it is important to remember that accessibility can only be increased if the digitisation program is well controlled.
 

For example:

If you do not define and collect sufficient metadata from the start, and have quality assurance procedures in place to check it, you may find that retrieval is impeded, not enhanced.

See Metadata requirements and Benchmarks and quality assurance for more information.

Improve response time and client service

If a digitisation program is robust, it is much easier and quicker to retrieve and view digital images rather than the original paper records, particularly for time-critical matters. This can, in turn, reduce the time taken to respond to clients.

Reduce costs

A digitisation program has the potential to reduce storage, management and access costs.

Storage costs can be reduced (from the point digitisation is introduced) if the original paper records can be destroyed after digitisation. If this is an impetus for the program, you should determine upfront whether the originals can legally be destroyed after digitisation.

See Disposal of original paper records after digitisation.
 

Note: When original paper records are destroyed, the digital images become the 'official' records in their place and need to be retained for the length of time stipulated in retention and disposal authorities. It is important to factor into your calculations the costs of managing and migrating the images over time. Be aware that if you are undertaking digitisation just as a space saving measure, the long term costs of managing the images may outweigh short term benefits.

Management and access cost savings can include:

  • reduction in staff time spent on processing records e.g. staff costs for filing, retrieving and transporting records
  • reduction in staff time spent on locating the right records, particularly for legal discovery and Government Information (Public Access) Act (GIPA) or privacy applications
  • transport costs.

Return on investment

You may wish to show that your digitisation program will bring a Return on Investment (ROI). AIIM research in the USA indicated that 40% of organisations undertaking digitisation achieved a ROI in 12 months or less and 74% achieved ROI within 2 years. [2]

One significant cost, which may not have been factored into ROI calculations, is the cost of retaining and providing access to digital images over time. The Europeana project, an initiative of the European Union, examined the costs of digitising Europe’s cultural heritage and concluded that the costs of preserving and providing access to a digital asset for a period of 10 years would be 50-100% of the initial cost of creating it. [3]
 

Promote greater staff flexibility and ability to work remotely

Digitisation can help organisations to take advantage of new technologies and allow staff to access records in any location.
 

For example:

Some organisations are investigating allowing their staff access to digital records, including digital images, in their EDRMS via mobile devices.

Better plan for business continuity

Digital records are much easier to duplicate. Records can be backed-up using the organisation’s normal back-up procedures and included in disaster recovery procedures. Vital records – records essential to the functioning of the organisation – can be protected from disaster and secured in different locations in digital form.

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Potential costs

Do not be misled by advice that digitisation is cheap. Costs can be considerable and may vary according to the scope and aims of a program and the quality of digital images required. Common costs include:

  • digitisation software and hardware and upgrades
  • training and support for staff involved in digitisation work (some training may be offered as part of contractual agreements with software and hardware suppliers)
  • space for digitisation to occur
  • health and safety assessments and measures
  • staff time to plan, establish and document the program with suitable parameters and benchmarks
  • staff time to prepare records, digitise, apply metadata, do quality control checks, monitor and evaluate programs etc
  • managing variables like non-uniform or poor quality originals
  • technical infrastructure and storage space for maintaining new digital copies
  • providing software on desktops to view digital images
  • training and change management strategies for all relevant staff including those accessing digital images
  • ongoing maintenance and update of systems
  • managing digital images over time (where relevant) e.g. costs of migration.

Costs can be compared in the business case to:

  • costs of inaction e.g. if we don’t do anything, what might that cost the organisation?
  • cost savings that can be made by destroying original paper records (where relevant) and thereby reducing paper storage costs
  • cost savings brought about by improving practices, providing better access to the records etc.

Note: Technology and data storage costs may be able to be reduced somewhat by trading quality for speed and smaller file sizes. However, in programs where the records have long-term value or are or required as State archives, or need to be used as evidence of business activity, a high degree of quality must be maintained. This is to promote the longevity of the images and ensure they are authentic representations of the original paper records. See Managing digital images as records.

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Risks of digitisation

The following table outlines some potential risks and means to mitigate them.

Risk... Can be mitigated by...
That money will be wasted or additional risks incurred by poor selection of records
 
  • Ensuring selected records support program aims and are well chosen

That the complexities of digitisation can be underestimated
  • Researching, planning and managing requirements for the program
That the costs of digitisation can be underestimated
  • Defining all expected costs as part of planning and ensuring the organisation has adequate resources over the lifetime of the program
  • Considering how different or complex processing requirements will impact on costs
  • Considering the ICT infrastructure and system architecture requirements for the potential volume of digital images in scope including any costs for new systems to store digital images
  • Considering the long term costs of managing digital images
  • Reviewing program aims and selection decisions if resources cannot be guaranteed

That original paper records cannot be destroyed after digitisation e.g. due to legal reasons to retain them in original format, intrinsic value or other reasons

See Disposal of original paper records after digitisation
  • Ensuring staff and contractors are aware of disposal requirements for the original paper records selected for digitisation before embarking on a digitisation program

That original paper records, including State archives, will be destroyed without authorisation

See Disposal of original paper records after digitisation
  • Ensuring staff and contractors are aware of disposal requirements for the original paper records selected for digitisation before embarking on a digitisation program
  • Building staff training and quality assurance measures into programs to ensure that no unauthorised disposal takes place
  • Requiring senior approval for any disposal to take place
  • Contacting State Records NSW before embarking on the digitisation of records required as State archives
  • Arranging for the transfer of records required as State archives to Museums of History NSW

That digitisation will not produce an authentic representation of the original paper record that is fit for purpose

See Technical specifications

See Metadata requirements

See Benchmarks and quality assurance

See Staffing digitisation programs and projects

See Policies, procedures, standards and documentation
  • Identifying the essential characteristics of records that must be reproduced so they are fit for purpose
  • Creating quality benchmarks to ensure that essential characteristics are reproduced
  • Ensuring that commonly offered digitisation features like image manipulation are not used or do not affect the authenticity and reliability of the digital images
  • Defining suitable technical and metadata standards
  • Providing staff training and supervision where necessary
  • Providing rigorous quality assurance checks (either of images or samples of images)
  • Developing and documenting procedures and standards

That digital images are not stored or protected appropriately

See Managing digital images as records
  • Ensuring digital images are managed according to the organisation’s records management program
  • Capturing digital images into a recordkeeping system where they can be accessed only by authorised users, secure from alteration or deletion, in context with related records, protected from disaster and kept for their required retention periods
  • Ensuring that master images are not stored on removable media where they can be at risk

That duplicates or derivatives are not managed appropriately

See Metadata requirements
  • Ensuring digital images and their duplicates are managed according to the organisation’s records management program
  • Adopting well defined metadata with relationships between records to ensure that it is very clear whether the original exists, which is the ‘master’ and which are derivatives, and what purpose they are for

That digital images will not survive and remain accessible and useable for as long as they are required

See Managing digital images as records

See Technical specifications
  • Ensuring suitable choice of technical standards for the record’s retention period
  • Ensuring digital images are managed according to the organisation’s records management program
  • Ensuring appropriate metadata is assigned
  • Ensuring that their longevity is planned for e.g. migration on an average of 5-7 years to maintain information accessibility and integrity
  • Defining funds for ongoing management in business cases and making them available when required
  • Assessing the impact of technological and storage decisions on the longevity of images
That there will be problems experienced with service providers
  • Ensuring that the organisation has defined, documented and communicated clear benchmarks and standards required to contractors
  • Ensuring that all relevant requirements are built into contracts
  • Regularly monitoring the performance of contractors

Organisations should define in business cases which of these and other risks apply to their program and how the risks will be managed.

Footnotes

[1] Glen Wainer and Louis Ladehoff, Law firm digitisation: Building a solid case for change, New York, p.21, available at: http://www.swisspostsolutions.com/unitedstates/us-sps-home/us-sps-about-us/us-sps-media/us-sps-published-articles/sps-us-law-firm-digitization-building-solid-case.pdf

[2] AIIM research quoted in Wainer and Ladehoff, loc.cit.

[3] The Europeana project, an initiative of the European Union which examined the costs of digitising Europe’s cultural heritage, concluded that the costs of preserving and providing access to a digital asset for a period of 10 years would be 50-100% of the initial cost of creating it. Collections Trust, The cost of digitising Europe’s cultural heritage. A report for the Comité des Sages of the European Commission. Prepared by Nick Poole. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_libraries/doc/refgroup/annexes/digiti_report.pdf

  • reduction in staff time spent on processing records e.g. staff costs for filing, retrieving and transporting records
  • reduction in staff time spent on locating the right records, particularly for legal discovery and Government Information (Public Access) Act (GIPA) or privacy applications
  • transport costs. 
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Benchmarks and quality assurance Disposal of original paper records after digitisation Inhouse or outsource? Managing digital images as records Managing original paper records Metadata requirements Policies, procedures, standards and documentation Selecting the right records for back-capture projects Staffing digitisation programs and projects Technical specifications Why undertake back-capture digitisation?