NJLM 2018: Conference Takeaways from GRM Booth Visitors
GRM’s Vice President of Account Management, Carl Schriefer, attended the 2018 New Jersey League of Municipalities (NJLM) Conference in Atlantic City (November 13 to November 15). This year’s conference theme was “Municipalities Leading the Way,” and GRM was there to share our digital records management solutions for the Public Sector. Throughout the conference, Carl had a chance to speak with attendees who stopped by the GRM booth. (Photo: GRM Senior Account Executive, Angelique Mansell and Vice President of Account Management, Carl Schriefer at NJLM 2018) Read on to learn about a couple of key document management challenge facing municipalities…
The NJLM 2018 Annual Conference is the premier gathering of New Jersey’s local municipal officials and one of the largest municipal conferences in the country. The exhibit hall hosts more than 700 companies in 1,100 booths. With over 25 aisles of exhibitors, the show attracts over 15,000 delegate visitors. Commercial vendors are afforded the opportunity to showcase their latest products and services to municipalities across the state.
One of the driving forces behind GRM’s mission at NJLM this year was to investigate how municipalities are dealing with digital transformation. We have found that many are struggling with managing their unstructured data and with maintaining effective record retention policies.
The Challenge of Unstructured Data
Even as the amount of information municipalities are creating and collecting rapidly increases, many continue to rely on manual processes. Municipal websites in particular often require the downloading of PDF forms, filling out those forms, and emailing or faxing them back to their respective departments. This slows productivity and response time while adding to municipal staff’s already heavy workload.
Many of the attendees we spoke with were surprised to learn that cloud-based content services platforms can save them time and effort by automating manual processes. Systems equipped with intelligent character recognition (ICR) and optical character recognition (OCR) software can read handwritten and printed text, extracting relevant information. That data can then be integrated into workflows or used to auto-populate forms and other documents. It can also be used for analytics, all while enabling full visibility and workflow surrounding the documentation.
Implementing a Records Retention Policy
The second issue that often came up in conversation with visitors to the GRM booth at NJLM was the topic of records retention policies. Specifically, many municipalities are in need of assistance creating, implementing and updating their policies. This includes the use of compliant storage environments.
An experienced, reputable document management company can guide municipalities through the creation and implementation of clear and accurate records retention policies based on local, state and federal regulations. They can also store municipalities’ current and archived records in secure, state-of-the-art, compliant facilities, ensuring their proper storage and protecting municipalities against unnecessary legal and financial risk.
Final Thoughts on NJLM 2018
The NJLM 2018 conference was also a great opportunity for GRM to attend social events in the evenings and network for new channel partnerships. We are always looking for partnerships that can complement our services and match up with our customer-centric core values.
This is GRM’s second year participating in NJLM and we look forward to next year as it seems like every year the conference gets bigger and bigger.