There’s a great scene in the movie “Any Given Sunday” starringAl Pacino where he gives an inspirational locker room speech rightbefore a big game. The basic premise of the speech is that footballis a game of inches, and when you add up all the inches in a game,the sum of those inches determines whether you win or if youloose.

Managing your credit union’s documents and content is nodifferent. “Winning” for a credit union is providing superiormember service. The more documents that are lost, misfiled, damagedor destroyed makes winning harder. The more time it takes torespond to member research requests and inquiries, the poorer yourcredit union’s performance.

Each minute spent tracking down misplaced documents and/orrecreating lost documents costs your credit union time, money andresources. During the course of a year, these minutes add up tothousands of dollars in losses and missed opportunities to provideyour members with the best possible member experience.

Yes, content management is a necessary evil. Yes, it can be adrain on your credit union’s resources and employee’s time. But acomprehensive content management solution can also be thedifferentiator that sets your credit union apart from the one downthe street.

Improved member service, operating efficiency, and less wastedtime and paper are all benefits of a ECM strategy that is rooted inbest practices. Even implementing just a few of the following 10best practices will produce measurable results in less than oneyear.

1. Member-Centric Filing: Credit unions should start by creatingan electronic filing system for each department, and amember-centric file for every member. Most credit unions have neverdocumented their file-folder structure, and this is a criticalfirst step to building an efficient ECM strategy.

2. Ease of Use: If the system is cumbersome or difficult tonavigate, employees will be less likely to adopt the new approach.An intuitive design is key to widespread adoption and improvedproductivity. Documenting the filing system helps ensure the systemis effective and easy to use.

3. Capture Paper at the Point of Origination: It is critical tocapture paper documents as soon as they are generated. Examplesinclude new account opening, capturing checks at the teller stationand at the ATM, or infront of the MSO during a loan application.Once scanned, these documents should be shredded at the earliestpossible time, promoting total reliance on the electronicversion.

4. Keep it Electronic: If a document has been createdelectronically, such as an appraisal form, it should stay indigital form. Printing copies of electronically created documentsnot only defeats the purpose of moving to a paperless environment,but can add up to stunning costs for your credit union.

5. Eliminate Manual Indexing: Indexing is time-consuming, proneto error and expensive. Generally, your core platform willautomatically create index values for many mission-criticaldocuments. Moving the index values from the core to the ECM priorto scanning a document eliminates the need to manually index itemsand results in significant savings over time.

6. Real-time Availability: Documents should be availableimmediately after scanning to the appropriate personnel. Documentstypically have a 48-hour lifecycle and then begin to lose value andimportance. Credit unions that fail to adopt this best practicewill find it virtually impossible to gain widespread adoption ofthe ECM platform, gaining instead ad hoc filing systems in eachdepartment and multiple paper copies of documents.

7. Universal Content Repository: An effective ECM solution mustbe capable of managing all forms of content, including documentsand “objects” such as TIFF and PDF files, color IDs, photos,Microsoft Word and Excel documents, voice and video clips andComputer Output to Laser Disk (COLD) reports such asdelinquent-loan reports. Having different types of content locatedin multiple locations across multiple systems creates a confusingand chaotic environment. A centrally located repository ensuresdocuments are easy to locate and access.

8. Life-Cycle Management: Life-cycle management is a step oftenoverlooked by most credit unions, resulting in additional hiddencosts. Manually identifying and destroying documents that haveexceeded the required retention time is an enormous burden, andtherefore often is not executed. Having a tool that automaticallyidentifies and flags these items protects the integrity of thedocument, assists with audits and frees up resources to performmember-facing tasks.

9. Disaster Recover: In today’s environment having a rigorousand foolproof disaster recovery plan is not optional and should bebuilt into every ECM strategy. Storing documents electronicallyprotects data from threats posed by natural disasters, theft oroutages.

10. Capture Member Interactions: Ideally, an ECM strategy shouldallow every member encounter to be recorded as a unique item withinthe member-centric file. These interactions can then be reported toor retrieved by the appropriate personnel giving a more holisticview of that member’s relationship with the credit union, and theircurrent needs.

Andrew Tilburyis chief marketing officer for BluepointSolutions in Henderson, Nev.