Finds 83 Percent of Document Management users claim a positive ROI; New Benchmarking Practice to Examine Leading Technology Categories

Nucleus Research, a fast-growing analyst firm focused on providing CFOs and CIOs with the expertise they need to evaluate the return on investment (ROI) from their IT investments, today unveiled the first report from its new Benchmark Study series, focused on Document Management (DM) solutions. The findings of the report, which were achieved without input or sponsorship from DM vendors, found that 83 percent of study participants felt they had achieved a positive ROI from their DM investments.

Benchmark Study: Document Management

The study is the first of a series of benchmark studies that will measure the bottom-line results from specific enterprise applications and technologies. Nucleus includes the Benchmark Studies as part of its new ROI Advisory Service, a fully guaranteed research program aimed at helping CIOs, CFOs and the emerging "CFO of IT" and "IT Controller" accurately evaluate the financial impact of technology decisions.

Nucleus Research's study shows that electronic DM solutions deliver significant value to the majority of the companies who adopt them. Specifically, the study revealed that 83 percent of participants were confident that they had achieved a positive ROI from investments made in document management solutions. Overall, participants cited the biggest productivity returns in terms of accelerated document retrieval, faster filing, reduced staffing requirements, and the biggest cost savings in the reduction of printing, distribution and storage costs.

"Technology doesn't have to be new or sexy to deliver a positive ROI," said Rebecca Wettemann, Nucleus Research's vice president of research. "Although document management may be considered 'old' technology, we found customers are getting considerable value from well-deployed document management solutions,"

"We investigated real companies using document management to understand the costs and benefits they experienced," said Kyle Johnson, Nucleus Research analyst. "Companies can use our data to build or reevaluate a business case for document management that is based on facts, not marketing or a vendor's best guess at their technology's value."

Key Findings

In addition to determining that the majority of users believe that they have achieved a positive ROI as the result of their DM investment, including:

• Direct Productivity Benefits: 86 percent of participants that deployed document search functionality as part of their DM deployment said that the feature had produced a positive effect on productivity. Similarly, 91 percent of participants that deployed version control functionality as part of their DM deployment said that it too had a positive effect on productivity. Regarding document retrieval, the average participant reduced retrieval time by 52 percent through their DM solution.
• Broad Deployment Scope: The study revealed that the median number of documents included in the DM systems included in the study was 250,000 per enterprise.
• Pitfalls of Lengthy Deployments: The study did reveal that lengthy deployments could adversely affect the ROI. This occurs when companies allow deployments to take longer then necessary, causing additional costs in terms of employee time and implementation consulting. Furthermore, a longer deployment period postpones the accrual of benefits. As such, Nucleus recommends companies to deploy DM as a series of smaller scale, discrete projects that can independently promise a positive ROI.

Study Methodology

Beginning in November, 2002 Nucleus independently conducted 30 in-depth interviews with companies using DM solutions from Documentum, OpenText, FileNET, and Hummingbird. Participants involved in the study represented a wide range of industries including energy, financial services, government, health care, high tech, and manufacturing. The goal of these interviews was to create a ROI assessment tool aimed at helping other companies calculate the success or failure of their own investments in this technology area.

Each interviewee was asked a set of questions about the costs incurred and the benefits gained in their deployment and use of DM. The responses established ranges and averages for key figures, such as software license cost and estimated timesavings.

The executive summary of this study is available for download, free of charge, at NucleusResearch.com.

About the Benchmark Study Series

Nucleus' new Benchmark Study Series is focused on researching and evaluating the impact of leading technology categories. On an ongoing basis, Nucleus will publish reports on different technology areas to help end-users gain unbiased, credible research geared toward helping them make intelligent technology investments. The intent of the series is to allow CIOs, CFOs and "CFOs of IT" to compare their current and potential IT investments with the technology solutions from several vendors to determine the usefulness and ROI of a technology family as a whole, not just the offering from a single vendor from the category.

About Nucleus Research

Nucleus Research is an independent global research and advisory firm that provides CFOs and CIOs with the financial and technology expertise they need to evaluate and manage their information technology investments the same way they evaluate and manage other capital investments. Nucleus Research is the first firm of its kind to blend "Big Four" financial analysis with comprehensive technology expertise to deliver impartial return-on-investment (ROI) data and financial analysis services to organizations worldwide. Nucleus Research uses an uncompromising set of processes and tools to evaluate the financial return on IT assets throughout a technology's life cycle, from selection and deployment to upgrade and retirement. Nucleus Research's ROI assessment methodology can be applied to virtually any technology investment.

The company was founded in 2000 by former senior executives from International Data Corp., Dataquest and AMR Research, and is headquartered in Wellesley, Mass., with additional offices in London and Paris. More information can be found at NucleusResearch.com.