Despite the proliferation of new digital technologies, the reach of the Internet and a decline in data storage costs, business still relies heavily on paper as a communication medium. As a result, organisations tend to have significant investment in the resources required to create, distribute and store paper, even though those activities are unlikely for many organisations to be core to their business. More and more companies are therefore looking to document management outsourcing as a way to streamline and enhance this part of their business.

However, although document management functions may be strategically distant from core business, in practice there is a tendency for the resources and processes supporting those functions to be deeply embedded within the overall organisation. This presents a challenge and potentially,

for the organisation considering outsourcing, and, to make it work, a significant operational transformation may be required to the way in which business is conducted.

On the basis that forewarned is forearmed, this article highlights 10 key issues relevant to document management outsourcing (DMO), a term used to cover a wide range of document-based activities which might be outsourced, including printing, scanning, reprographics, mailroom, print

procurement, direct mail and physical archiving.