Using ECM to help municipal government offices reduce paper and improve information management

County and municipality agencies rely on efficientrecords, but often such an investment can be
information management in order to best servecost-prohibitive and limited in its functionality.
their constituents. In order to serve theirFortunately, software is available that can address
constituents’ needs, local governmentthe specific paper-intensive challenges that are
offices have to be able to produce accurateoften intrinsic to municipal government agencies.
results in a timely manner. Advances in technologyEnterprise content management (ECM) systems
have increased expectations on the part of thecan capture paper at its source via scanning.
public for fast, well-organized service.Imaged paper can then be stored along with
Unfortunately, many municipal agencies are stillother image-enabled documents—paper
bogged down by massive amounts of paper andrecords, electronic forms, images, sound files,
the inefficiencies that are associated with paper.contracts, certifications, background checks,
Administrators may consider an electronic systempayroll records, etc.—in a centralized
for storage, access, and management of theirelectronic repository.