A full inventory of the products in use will help with issues such as reaching optimum productivity and ensuring compatibility with future purchases of equipment, software and other products. Factors to consider here include capital procurement costs, labor, consumables, etc. New technologies sometimes require enhanced employee skills so that organizations can fully realize the potential of their new systems. Few organizations are able to conduct a useful assessment, recommendation and implementation process in house. Consider using reliable vendors for some or all of these steps.
Information management is no exception.
While much of the above can be applied to both the public and private sectors, there are unique government needs, such as open records laws and privacy protection. Because the act requires agencies to provide information in a timely manner, FOIA is an important factor in choosing methods of information storage and retrieval. The act requires documents be made available in a timely manner, and some of these documents have the additional requirement of indefinite storage. That's a tall order, and a key to handling it is setting up a retention schedule. Retention schedules help employees categorize documents as they come in, which helps streamline the operation and keep the office in compliance with state and federal laws.