Electronic document management saves Hong Kong university $500,000

Colleges and universities are large entities that can also benefit from electronic document management systems because they too, process many files on a daily basis among many departments. Since the City University of Hong Kong (CityU) began transitioning toward these solutions in 2011, the institution has already seen one-third of its investment returned, according to Future Gov. 

Beginning with the finance and human resources departments, the $1.5 million project will happen in three phases. The first portion of CityU's plan consists of scanning and archiving information on full-time faculty and their payroll records, and so far HR has completed more than 3,500 files while payroll transferred 3,000. CityU chose to implement the program in these offices first because together they manage information on more than 4,000 staff members. 

"When the documents were stored in hardcopy, a large amount of clerical effort is needed to photocopy and physically transfer documents from building to building, as well as sorting through pages and pages of document to tag them with post-it notes for review," Wy Wong, CityU's HR Executive Officer, told the source. "This workload is particularly serious during periods of annual review. "[W]e can now access employee information whenever needed at our desks without any delay."

Since the plan started in 2011, the university has already saved at least $500,000, about 30 percent of the organization's initial investment. The university's enterprise content management helped staffers increase information security and financial savings while reducing overall waste. Andy Chun, CityU's chief information officer, expects that production will be "six times or more" efficient than it was before.

"The value of instantaneous online search compared with manual sifting through piles and piles of paper documents cannot be overestimated," Chun added.

As CityU becomes more internationally recognized—it was recently ranked ninth among the world's young institutions—it will greatly benefit from a paperless office.

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