In the digital economy, information is power—and documents are the vessels of that information. Yet, in many boardrooms and C-suites, documents are still seen merely as files to store for compliance or as cluttered liabilities piling up in servers and cabinets. This prevailing mindset treats document management as a necessary evil—a box to tick for audits or a cost center to minimize. Today’s top management must urgently shift this perspective. By adopting a strategic approach to document governance, leaders can transform documents from perceived liabilities into critical assets that drive organizational value. In this post, we’ll explore why this shift in mindset is essential and how Upper Spire (the company behind Cartularius) enables it through a new methodology called Document Value Management.
For years, many organizations have approached their document management duties with an “avoidance” or minimal compliance mindset. Documents are kept around primarily to satisfy regulators or legal requirements, often without a holistic strategy. Consider some familiar sentiments in executive circles: “We’ll worry about records when the audit comes” or “As long as we have the files stored somewhere, we’re covered.” This view frames documents as a compliance burden – something that must be managed to avoid fines or lawsuits, but not something inherently beneficial to the business.
This liability-focused mindset has real costs. Poor document governance (disorganized files, lack of retention policies, siloed storage across departments) leads to inefficiencies and risks that erode the bottom line. Studies have found that employees waste huge amounts of time simply searching for information hidden in poorly managed documents. In fact, an average employee spends 2 hours per day searching for documents – roughly 25% of the workweek lost on low-value tasks. The financial toll is significant: Gartner estimates that implementing a proper document management system can reduce document-related costs by 40%. That implies many organizations are currently overspending by up to 40% on inefficient document handling, all due to a lack of strategic governance.
Regulatory and legal risks are equally alarming when documents are treated as liabilities to be “tolerated” rather than actively managed. Compliance lapses – whether it’s missing records, unauthorized access to confidential files, or failure to adhere to retention laws – can result in staggering fines and business disruptions. One industry analysis showed that the average cost of non-compliance (fines, penalties, and remediation) is nearly three times higher than the cost of maintaining compliance programs. In other words, trying to save money by doing the bare minimum with document governance is a false economy – the “avoidance approach” ends up far more costly in the end. High-profile cases abound where companies paid the price for poor document controls: banks fined for improper recordkeeping, corporations dragged into expensive lawsuits because a critical document was lost or mishandled. All of this reinforces a key point for top management: neglecting document governance doesn’t actually eliminate liability – it amplifies it.
What if we flip the script? Rather than viewing documents as a headache, leading organizations treat them as strategic assets. This means recognizing that every proposal, contract, policy, research report, and email archive contains knowledge and insights that fuel your business. When governed and used effectively, documents can contribute directly to productivity, revenue growth, innovation, and customer satisfaction.
Think about the daily decisions made in your company – from frontline customer interactions to high-stakes strategic planning. In most cases, the best decisions are data-driven, supported by information stored in documents and records. If those documents are organized, accessible, and trustworthy, employees can retrieve what they need in seconds, not hours, and make informed choices. This translates to faster sales cycles, quicker issue resolution, and more innovation. On the other hand, if documents are hard to find or outdated, opportunities slip through the cracks. It’s no surprise that companies with efficient document governance report substantial productivity gains – by one estimate, effective document management saves up to 6,000 work-hours per year in a mid-sized office by eliminating search and rework time. That is time reclaimed for higher-value activities like serving customers and developing new products.
From a financial standpoint, documents-as-assets is just as compelling. We already saw that a good document management system can cut costs dramatically. In fact, beyond cost reduction, the ROI of investing in strategic document management is extremely high. An IDC study found a 404% return on investment (over five years) for organizations that implemented modern document management solutions and practices. Far from being a cost sink, document governance initiatives tend to pay for themselves multiple times over through efficiency gains and risk avoidance. In practical terms, this might mean saving on storage expenses (e.g. less physical paper and cabinets, or optimized cloud storage), reducing labor costs (fewer hours spent hunting for files or manually processing paperwork), and preventing costly errors or compliance incidents. One Gartner analysis even quantified a typical office’s waste: an average firm spends $120 in labor searching for a misfiled document and $250 recreating a lost document. Those are preventable losses. By treating information governance as part of business strategy, top management can redirect such wasted resources back into business growth.
Equally important, strategic document governance enhances business value in less tangible ways. It preserves institutional knowledge – every organization relies on the collective memory in its documents (from best practices to client history). Strong governance ensures that when veteran employees retire or projects end, their knowledge doesn’t vanish in an email abyss; it’s captured and organized for the next person. It also strengthens trust with stakeholders. Customers and partners feel more confident when a company can swiftly provide accurate documentation – whether it’s proof of compliance, a record of transactions, or simply well-branded, error-free communications. Internally, employees feel less frustration and more empowerment when they have the tools and processes to manage documents easily (indeed, nearly 43% of employees say they’d consider leaving a job if they can’t easily access the documents they need). All these factors contribute to a more agile, knowledge-driven organization. In short, documents governed as assets become sources of value – enabling faster work, smarter decisions, better customer service, and a stronger competitive position.
How do companies shift to this asset-centric approach? It starts at the top. Strategic document governance must be championed by top management as a core business priority – not just an IT project or a clerical task. This means creating a culture and framework where managing documents is aligned with the organization’s goals, just like managing finances, people, or products would be.
At its heart, document governance is about establishing the policies, standards, and oversight that guide how documents are created, stored, used, and retained across the enterprise. It provides answers to critical questions: Who is responsible for which documents? What rules govern document retention and disposal? How do we ensure documents are accessible to those who need them (and only those who need them)? What processes and tools will we use to maximize efficiency and compliance? These governance decisions form the backbone of treating documents as assets. Information governance experts often note that it’s about maximizing the value of information while minimizing its risks and costs. For documents specifically, this translates to maximizing their utility for the business (through easy retrieval, integration into workflows, data analytics, etc.) while minimizing risks (through security controls, compliance, and lifecycle management).
Crucially, a strategic approach goes beyond just buying software. Many organizations equate “document management” with installing a Document Management System (DMS) – for example, a content repository or collaboration platform. While having a modern DMS or document management system is important, technology alone will not create a strategic advantage. Process and policy must lead technology. A chaotic approach will remain chaotic even if you pour money into new software, unless you also redefine processes and enforce governance. Conversely, a well-thought-out governance framework can make even basic tools far more effective.
Top management should ensure a holistic plan is in place that covers people, process, and technology:
When these elements are in sync, document governance becomes a virtuous cycle. Policies set the expectation, processes put them into action, and technology accelerates and enforces them. The role of top management is to sponsor this strategy, allocate resources, and break down silos (for instance, ensuring departments don’t each adopt conflicting document practices). Just as you wouldn’t run a company without financial governance, you shouldn’t run one without document governance. It’s a pillar of enterprise management in the information age.
Shifting an entire organization’s document mindset and practices might sound daunting. This is where Upper Spire – the company behind Cartularius – comes in with its Document Value Management model. Document Value Management (DVM) is a strategic consulting approach designed to guide companies (from SMEs to large enterprises) in transforming their document governance step by step. It’s all about helping organizations lay the groundwork (governance, processes, and automation readiness) so they can unlock the full value of their documents.
What is the Document Value Management model? Think of it as a Blueprint and Toolkit that Upper Spire uses to support your digital transformation around documents. Importantly, it is platform-agnostic – this model is not tied to any specific software like Salesforce or SharePoint. Whether you manage documents in Salesforce, on a network drive, in the cloud, or anywhere else, the principles apply universally. The focus is on strategy first, technology second. We will share more insights about the model soon.
Perhaps the biggest strength of the Document Value Management approach is its holistic nature. It doesn’t treat document challenges as an isolated IT fix, but rather as a combination of people, process, and technology improvements. The model is also highly customizable. A small business might engage Upper Spire to create basic governance policies and set up a simple, automated repository that saves them time. A large enterprise might use the model to conduct a comprehensive audit of their information governance maturity, then implement a multi-year roadmap for process transformation and tool integration. In every case, the aim is the same: to shift the organization’s mindset and systems so that documents are managed as a source of value, not just a tick-box for compliance.
It’s time for top management to elevate document governance to the strategic agenda. The documents coursing through your company are much more than records to appease auditors or clutter to be archived – they are critical business assets. By taking a strategic approach to document governance, you turn those assets into competitive advantage: driving efficiency, ensuring compliance, preserving knowledge, and enabling better business outcomes. This transformation requires leadership and vision, but the payoff is a more agile, informed, and resilient organization.
Upper Spire’s Document Value Management model offers a clear pathway to make this shift, helping companies build the foundations (governance, processes, automation) that underpin a value-centric approach to documents. In upcoming posts, we will delve deeper into the Document Value Management model, sharing details and real-world examples of how it works.
Stay tuned to discover how you can start applying this model to unlock the hidden value in your documents – and turn document governance into one of your organization’s greatest strengths.
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