Managing corporate documents is a strategic issue. Poorly organized archives waste time, content and information. So how do you structure, preserve and enhance these resources to optimize their use? Discover the best practices for efficiently managing your archives and improving your company's content management.
Why organize your corporate archives?
Companies produce large quantities of digital files and media. Without effective organization, these archives quickly become unmanageable. Poor management of corporate archives results in lost information, errors and a lot of time wasted searching for documents.
Organizing your corporate archives enables you to find the information you need quickly, ensure compliance with legal obligations, optimize the use of digital content and reduce the costs associated with unnecessary storage. Archiving is not just about administrative management, it's also about capitalizing on a company's heritage by preserving historical and strategic documents, photos, videos and audio files.
Identify and classify company documents
Not all corporate documents have the same value. It is essential to distinguish between administrative and legal documents subject to retention obligations, operational and strategic content, corporate heritage archives that tell the story of the company's history and development, and multimedia and visual media linked to communication and marketing.
Setting up a logical structure facilitates access to multimedia files. A clear and comprehensible filing plan for all users should be based on relevant criteria such as date, document type, project or customer. It should be easy to update, and ideally integrated into an advanced document management solution such as a DAM.
Digitization of corporate archives: a strategic lever
Digitizing corporate archives frees up physical storage space, facilitates access to documents wherever employees work, secures archives thanks to digital management solutions, and simplifies document sharing and collaboration. This transition also ensures better traceability of modifications and saves precious time in information retrieval.
Digital archiving with a DAM makes it possible to structure this corporate digital content and extend its life cycle. In a DAM, multimedia files follow a precise cycle: creation and import with metadata, organization and automatic indexing, use and sharing of media with a specific level of access, secure archiving and - depending on legal retention rules - deletion of obsolete resources.
Secure and manage access rights and authorship of corporate documents
Corporate documents often contain sensitive information. DAM enables fine-tuned rights management according to user profiles, detailed monitoring of access and modifications, and secure storage with appropriate archiving rules. It also guarantees automatic updating of obsolete documents, ensuring that access to company archives remains relevant at all times.
Another crucial aspect of corporate document management is copyright. Some files, images or videos may be protected by intellectual property rights. DAM makes it easy to keep track of licenses and usage restrictions, to avoid non-compliant use and legal disputes. By centralizing this information, the company can ensure compliance with the rules in force, and prevent the risks associated withunauthorized use of archived content.
Documentary expertise is a key asset for efficient media organization. Find out how document expertise can accelerate your DAM projects.
Ensuring the conformity and longevity of corporate archives
Certain company archives must be kept for a minimum period of time, as stipulated by law. For example, accounting documents must be kept for 10 years, commercial contracts for 5 years, tax documents for 6 years and HR files for between 3 and 50 years, depending on their nature. The DAM lets you set automatic retention and disposal rules to meet these obligations effortlessly.
Digitizing your corporate archives and optimizing their management also helps to reduce your company's environmental footprint. With a DAM, you limit unnecessary storage of your multimedia files and rationalize server use.
To find out more, read our article on the environmental impact of DAM software.
Managing corporate documents and archives is of the utmost importance to professional organizations. Well-defined filing, secure storage and intelligent use of corporate content can improve productivity and ensure legal compliance. By adopting best practices and using appropriate solutions such as Digital Asset Management software, you can optimize your company's content management while reducing your environmental impact.
