Status Means More than Prestige in Lifecycle Management

Lifecycles are normal states of nature. Plants, animals, and all manner of things are born, live useful lives and die.

Documents have lifecycles, too. They are created, used, stored (and hopefully not lost!) and archived or discarded. Stone tablets, papyrus, animal skins, and paper have all been used to construct and manage what its originators believed to be valuable data.

Technology has taken this idea of document lifecycles and improved on it. Where we once had to hand-carry physical data recordings from place to place, we now send it electronically from one location to the next. We can share data with peers, modify it, cut it and paste it, save it and ultimately archive it when the letters and numbers have outlasted their usefulness. This process holds true whether the company is in its infancy, experiencing rapid growth or is an established name in the industry.

As a company grows in size, the number and complexity of its documents usually increases until the business outgrows its file share system. At this point, most companies move to a document management systems (DMS).

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