Change is a constant of corporate and business life. This is especially true of staff, who come and go with predictable regularity. Companies can easily manage the news of some staff changes in internal company memos.
Other employee moves, such as leader changeovers or other crucial management replacements, can be very time critical. Often, high-ranking individuals have their names and signatures attached to sensitive and proprietary documents that commit companies to legal or financial responsibilities. These personnel changes and updates need to be communicated quickly and thoroughly to investors, regulatory bodies, customers, employees, and other key stakeholders.
Most organizations don’t realize how many times an executive’s name, signature, or contact details appear on company documents—until they try to update the information! Then, it’s a multi-department hunt to locate all those documents and change the information, often requiring expertise with several document composition systems.
Importance of Updates
The reasons for this level of attention are clear. Concise communication allays any fears and concerns among stakeholders, ensures professional continuity, reduces mistakes, and sends a clear message that the company is in control of the unfolding changes. You can imagine the consequences if your organization released a key, regulated form bearing the name of an executive no longer with the company. The challenge is in the logistics, since executives, directors, and managers have their names and signatures attached to a variety of documents used throughout the corporation. All those forms, letters, emails, and other documents need to be updated at the same time. It’s difficult, time-consuming, imprecise, and almost impossible to find and manually update every document and form. Items are likely to be missed, resulting in embarrassment for the incoming executive and risks for the organization.A Centralized Approach
Document management systems such as DocOrigin, powered by Business Communications Center, make it easy to carry out this task with a global template strategy. When critical personnel changes happen, an organization can update all its forms and documents with correct titles in a matter of hours. Instead of creating documents with leader names embedded in them, DocOrigin uses placeholders such as CEO, or VP Development. A centralized database holds the names of the individuals assigned to each role and DocOrigin plugs the names into the relevant fields each time a document is generated. Titles and individual names only need to be updated once. The software will handle the updates and ensure all the documents that reference a corporate position reflect the changes. Companies can store other elements associated with positions and individuals, such as photos, signatures, and contact information. Document composition software can access the data as needed, increasing efficiency even more.Benefits of a Global Template Strategy
This approach to information management and document updating delivers a host of benefits:- A centralized database with titles, individual names, and ancillary information that can be called on instantly makes the updating process fast and accurate. It saves employee time and promotes consistency.
- It eliminates information silos where departments maintain data and isolate it from the rest of the organization. Keeping names and titles in multiple locations can create a host of complications, from embarrassment to incorrect filings for compliance purposes.
- A global template strategy ensures companies update key documents quickly, while existing systems continue to run, reducing or eliminating the potential for lost time.
- Centralized databases work for all platforms, including print, PDFs, and digital electronic communications.
- Archival capabilities make it easier to keep a historical record of positions and documents associated with critical time periods, creating audit trails and streamlining search and retrieval functionalities.
- A single database is an easier and cheaper way to keep secure, accurate, and verified information. It protects an organization from the negative repercussions of publishing outdated data.
- Better data management creates greater productivity. Employees have an easier time finding, understanding, and relaying information.