Organizations have traditionally relied on paper filing systems for document storage and retrieval. However, paper records are extremely difficult to manage because they have to be stored in and retrieved from only one place.

Electronic document management systems (EDMSs) solve many of the storage and retrieval problems inherent in paper filing systems while simultaneously reducing business costs. EDMSs manage storage and retrieval of many different types of digital documents, including word processing files, spreadsheets, database files, e-mail, voice mail, scanned images, and Internet/intranet HTML documents.

While EDMSs provide much faster access to and retrieval of documents (which is a financial benefit in itself), the mere availability of a new technology does not justify its acquisition. The real measure of value "should not be how much faster you are able to respond to a situation with new technology, but rather what value is added to the business process through faster response" ( Koulopoulos, 1995).

Effective indexing can add value to the organization far beyond mere speed of retrieval by enabling users to retrieve documents in many different ways. Think of business records as part of a hierarchy of "containers" which include Folder, Section, Document, and Page. A folder can have many sections, and sections can contain many documents, and documents can consist of many pages. Yet traditional paper-based filing systems require users to retrieve all information at the "Folder" level of the hierarchy.

By contrast, EDMSs allow information to be retrieved at many levels. This retrieval is built on indexing, the bedrock of EDMSs. The accurate and consistent indexing of digital records is absolutely critical to the success of the organization.