Another indicator is a presentation given by Eric Grandeen, CFO of Idaho Pacific Lumber (IdaPac). Eric’s company implemented an EDM system over two years ago (before Fisher’s had a strong competency in the area). IdaPac's solution was intentionally not from Fisher’s since these seminars are intended to be informational and not a sales pitch for Fisher’s.

 

Eric talked about how EDM was a significant advancement for them in terms of customer service. Rarely will you hear a CFO of any company, let alone a company the size of IdaPac, say something like, “Don't let ROI be the only driver on a document management system. Although you likely will be able to justify a system on hard costs, that really doesn't matter as much as the enhancement to customer service. We have had so many intangible benefits from our system that it has been a no-brainer. If you are involved in a business that has customers, which is likely everyone in this room, you need to strongly consider electronic document management.” This was Eric's conclusion to the group last week.

 

Most technologies take time to be adopted into mainstream. As we look back over time, we did not have desktop computers for every employee, farms of servers to help us manage our businesses, or PDAs organizing our schedules and contacts. But, over time, most of us adopted those technologies to improve our efficiency. EDM is one of those technologies and it won’t be long before we say, “Do you remember the days of filing cabinets and hand written signatures on paper?”