Documents, whether printed or electronic, are to a company what blood is to the body. They feed the body (company) with the oxygen (information) that enables it to operate.
However, the importance of documents extends far outside the confines of the company as they provide the life blood of communications with customers, prospects, suppliers and partners. The use of documents within organizations — whether in the form of memoranda, communicating the latest product/service messages, to billing/invoicing and direct marketing — serves a multitude of purposes.
Certainly organizations thought that documents were crucial to the successful operation of their organization. Some claimed that poor DPM processes could impact the operational agility of their organization. Clearly the ability to communicate quickly and accurately without confusion can be severely impacted if the processes are not in place.
This is especially true if there is a lag between changes in business policy and the time it takes for this to be reflected, communicated and used in an organization's documents. This is something IDC refers to as document speed.




