Companies are investing billions in digital transformation projects. Cloud migrations, new collaboration tools, and the adoption of platforms such as Microsoft 365 have been heralded as the backbone of the modern workplace.
Yet, for all this investment, one of the most basic and most costly problems persists; employees cannot reliably find, manage, or trust the documents they need.
For decades, information was stored on file and print servers, often managed through rigid network drives. These systems have largely been replaced by OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams.
While these platforms have democratised access, they have also created new fragmentation. Documents now sit in a mixture of personal and corporate storage; Teams channels proliferate, and emails each with its own version of the truth; and sharing outside the organisation is often uncontrolled.
The result is familiar to any executive
• wasted time
• duplicated effort
• and mounting compliance risks
Studies suggest that knowledge workers lose as much as 30% of their time searching for documents. In some cases, they recreate information that already exists - an invisible drain on productivity at precisely the moment organisations are seeking efficiency gains.
In a recent conversation with a senior manager, they described the challenge of securing finance at project milestones. To release funds, they needed to assemble all the key project-related documents. What should have been a straightforward process turned into a time-consuming exercise: documents had to be retrieved from emails (including from the mailboxes of former employees), OneDrive, and SharePoint, with significant effort spent verifying which versions were correct.
While this is an extreme case, it is by no means unique. Many organisations face similar challenges: collating documents from fragmented sources, chasing versions, and validating authenticity when trying to execute critical processes. The cost in wasted time, duplication of effort and compliance risk is enormous.
The deeper issue is cultural. Most organisations have historically not taken document management seriously. Indexing, storage and naming conventions are too often left to individual employees or teams to decide and implement. While this may have been tolerated in the past, it is no longer an option.
Organisations that wish to exploit AI tools and unlock productivity gains must ensure their corporate knowledge (data, documents and records) is structured, governed and accessible. Without this foundation, AI has little reliable information to work with.
The case for a structured approach to document management is therefore compelling.
The frontier now lies with artificial intelligence. Tools such as Microsoft Copilot promise to turn the DMS into an intelligence layer. Rather than searching manually, staff will be able to ask natural-language questions of their content e.g. “Draft a proposal based on our latest contract terms and Q2 performance data.” The system will surface the latest approved version from secure content, extract key clauses, and generate a draft document in seconds.
AI-driven classification will reduce duplication; predictive workflows will anticipate the next step in a process; and compliance monitoring will become embedded rather than bolted on.
This is not a theoretical promise. Early adopters are already using intelligent document processing to automate invoice capture, extract contractual clauses, and accelerate HR onboarding. The efficiency gains are measurable: faster cycle times, fewer errors, and demonstrable cost savings.
The way forward is not another proliferation of shared drives or yet more Teams channels. Organisations should be moving deliberately towards structured, metadata-driven document management platforms that embed governance and compliance into everyday work.
These platforms should:
• Provide a single source of truth - consolidating documents into a central, policy-controlled repository.
• Integrate with core business systems - CRM, ERP, finance, and Microsoft 365, so that documents flow seamlessly with processes rather than existing in silos.
• Automate routine workflows - approvals, renewals, validations - to reduce manual handling and accelerate cycle times.
• Embed security and compliance - with role-based access, retention rules and audit trails aligned to GDPR, ISO 27001 and other standards.
• Leverage AI and Copilot-style assistants - not only to retrieve documents more efficiently but to generate proposals, contracts and reports directly from the trusted content already stored.
Crucially, organisations must also recognise that documents created by employees are corporate assets. Treating them as such requires a cultural shift: information must be managed with the same discipline as financial or physical assets. Only then can digital transformation truly deliver its promised returns.
In short, the next phase of digital transformation demands a shift from ad-hoc file storage to intelligent information management: systems and mindsets that not only store content but actively enhance productivity, ensure compliance, and enable organisations to extract real strategic value from their information.
Author Profile
Chris Howard is a senior executive with more than 30 years of experience in the field of document management and business process automation. Over the course of his career, he has advised organisations across finance, public and enterprise sectors on how to structure, govern and extract value from their information assets.
At Inpute Technologies, where he plays a leading role, Chris and his colleagues focus on intelligent document processing, workflow automation, and enterprise content solutions. With over 25 years in business, Inpute has partnered with technology leaders such as Microsoft, M-Files, Hyland, OpenText and ABBYY to deliver practical, scalable solutions that help clients reduce risk, improve compliance, and unlock productivity.
“Documents are corporate assets. Manage them with the same discipline as financial or physical assets.” Chris Howard
Chris’ perspective reflects Inpute’s philosophy: digital transformation is only successful when information is treated as a strategic resource.
i Forrester report for Airtable. “The Crisis of Fractured Organizations.”