Enterprise search instead of DMS software:
How SMEs can break new ground in document management

Why many SMEs now rely on smart search solutions instead of traditional DMS software

The reality in many small and medium-sized companies is characterized by pragmatic solutions: Quotations in Word, contracts as PDFs on the server, receipts as email attachments – and the overview? This is often lost in everyday working life. Structured document management is no longer a “nice to have”, but a prerequisite for efficiency, legal certainty and scalability. At the same time, many digitalization projects fail, especially in small companies, due to one simple question: who is going to implement all of this – and pay for it? “Small companies are under constant pressure to work as smoothly as possible with limited resources,” says Christoph Wendl, Managing Director of Iphos IT Solutions GmbH, explaining the problem. “Although large DMS solutions promise order, they are often too heavy, too expensive and simply not designed for the reality of smaller teams.”

Conventional DMS systems: complexity, training costs, high barriers to entry

Many classic DMS products include functions such as rights management, workflows, version histories and file number management. This may make sense for large corporations. “But for a small architecture firm or an agency with 25 employees, these systems are simply too much of a good thing,” explains the B2B software expert. “You don’t need an enterprise suite here, but a solution that can be used without an IT department – and doesn’t overwhelm employees with a new system,” says the developer of searchit, an in-house search engine for companies of all sizes. In fact, many DMS implementations in SMEs get stuck halfway through due to a lack of acceptance – or are discontinued after a short time.

Searching instead of sorting: How SMEs quickly create order

Instead of forcing every document into a complex folder structure, modern enterprise software solutions rely on intelligent full-text search. Enterprise software are company-internal search engines – similar to Google on the Internet – that make company-internal data sources such as hard disks, emails, cloud storage or databases searchable simultaneously and in a matter of seconds. Whether Word file, PDF, email or scanned contract – searchit finds relevant information based on file characteristics and file content – even from old files. “Many of our customers report that they save an enormous amount of time in their day-to-day work after switching to our search solution – without having to change anything in their existing IT,” says Christoph Wendl. In addition, employees do not have to save in predefined structures or follow rules such as keywording, which is mandatory in many document management systems (DMS) – an internal search engine makes files searchable – regardless of where and how they are stored.