It's Worse Than You Think: Poor Document Processes Lead to Significant Business Risk

**RSS Robot** · 05-30-2013, 07:40 PM

Executive Summary

Failures in Document-Driven Business Processes Are Higher Risk and Costlier than Many Executives Think
Many business executives understand that improving their document-driven business processes — the processes in their businesses that are governed and controlled by documents in electronic or paper format— can deliver operational efficiencies and drive cost takeout. What many may not appreciate is the degree to which document-driven business processes affect their organization’s risk profile: There is a high risk of breakdowns in these processes causing severely negative business outcomes, and the costs of these breakdowns are worse than many executives think.
A recent global IDC study of 1,516 document-driven business processowners and information workers suggests that the costs and risks associated with broken documentdriven business processes are extremely high. Process owners reported that over one-third of document-driven business processes are defective, and a staggering 75.9% of respondents —more than three out of every four surveyed— reported that their organization experienced serious business risks and/or compliance issues as a direct result.
Specifically:

75.9% ofrespondents experienced serious businessrisk and/or compliance issues as a direct result of ineffective document processes over the past five years.
These failures had severe consequencesforrespondents: 36.2% failed to meet compliance requirements,30.2% lost key employees, 24.9% lost major customers, 24.8% had a majorIT breach,20.4% were pulled into a major audit, and 19.1% suffered a major PR crisis — all due to document process deficiencies.
Depending upon the type of process,between 35.9% and 45.3% of respondents reported that documentdriven processes they had personal knowledge of were not efficient or effective.