ROX Doc-Care – Meeting Market Requirements of Document Warehousing

ROX Doc-Care (RDC) offers a complete documentation management solution for any organization in India. This Indian venture was started by a group of young professionals for providing the ser­vices of warehousing for storage, handling and retrieval of the physical documents over a period, as specified by the depositing company. In today’s cost-conscious and competitive environment, the organization needs to have a complete control over the information documented in the physi­cal or digital form. Organizations are under strategic and legal pressure to keep the documents accessible (to the concerned parties) for information contained therein anytime. These services are, traditionally, organized by the business firms internally. However, many firms pose problems in the maintenance of documentation over a longer period of time due to inadequate resources, or because of an unwillingness on the part of the management to allocate the funds to create such a facility, which is not regarded as a core area of their business operations. The solution to this prob­lem is to outsource this service to someone who is expert in the area and does it for you efficiently and effectively at the least cost. Looking at the growing need of the corporate clients and potential market for such services, RDC started this venture in Mumbai in 1995. This is the first time such services were made available in India to the corporate clients.

RDC provides an efficient IT-enabled storage and physical retrieval system for all major physi­cal documentation media including papers, computer disks, tapes, (master audio and video tapes), films, optical disks, X-ray films, blueprints and product samples. The company’s services include pickup and delivery, filing and organizing, retrieval and destruction of records, database manage­ment, and management reporting. The key business drivers of RDC are:

  • Providing rapid access to data and reaching the physical data at the right time and place
  • Reliability, consistency and confidentiality in services

1. BUSINESS PROCESS OUTSOURCING

Building delivery capabilities and have grown organically. In the medium-to-long term, tier I com­panies seek to scale up rapidly, and the rest will expect consolidation to occur either by acquiring tire II/III companies or through mergers among them. Currently, Indian companies offer special­ized services or multi-process solutions, such as treasure management, fund administration, cus­tomer support, telemarketing, logistics and HR functions. These companies will further build up expertise in multiprocessing in an effort to add value to their offerings. BPO vendors are currently bagging basic people-intensive projects, as the whole movement towards BPO is relatively new and expected to gain momentum in future. The future trends will not be simply to outsource a single function, but to outsource a whole process. This is similar to what clients today prefer: buying a complete system on turnkey basis rather than procuring the individual system components, parts or product and integrating or assembling it themselves. The companies will outsource the entire HR department as opposed to outsourcing only the payroll function.

In the current scenario, organizations store their physical documents either in their office areas or at off-site locations. Some of these documents are required to be stored for statutory purpose, but most are accessed once or twice a year. This leads to inefficient and expensive use of space, which carries a price premium in most central locations in the metros. Hence, systematic record keeping and corporate archiving are important for future referrals.

2. RDC SERVICE OFFERINGS

RDC advises and also undertakes the job of managing and maintaining the past records and doc­umentation of organizations on a scientific basis. Large business companies, corporate houses, insurance companies, consultants, government establishments and banks can use these services, provided there is a requirement of security and accessibility of documents over a longer time period. RDC services portfolio covers the following services:

  • Physical storage of record and documentation in a state-of-the-art warehousing facility
  • Timely retrieval of the data/files
  • Filing management
  • Making the data/files/documents web enabled

3. THE PROCESS

RDC fi rst assesses the need of the client by the documents’ volume, variety, age, criticality and proposed storage period. The legal contract is signed after the terms are mutually accepted. RDC collects the documents from the client’s place. These documents may be in the form of offi ce fi les, tapes, fl oppies, fi lms, and so on. The documents are brought to RDC’s warehouse. The transportation of the documents is done through RDC’s specially designed vehicles. They have various sizes of vehicles suitable for the type and size of documents to be picked up and transported. The documents are verifi ed at the client’s place and also at RDC’s warehouse. Then, they are cleaned, dust-proofed and pest-controlled.

The documents are sealed in polythene bags with the vacuum process to ensure protection from environmental degradation. RDC has developed specialized cartons and packages for unitizing the records for keeping them in easy-to-move package sizes. Currently these cartons are available in 1.1 and 1.6 cu ft volumes and are made up of five ply 125 GSM corrugated paper boxes with customized interlocking buttons. This process is done in the closed room with controlled ambience. The bar code labels are put on the documents and also on the cartons for identification during storage and retrieval process.

RDC has 2 lakhs sq ft of warehouse floor space with a maximum storage height of 30 ft. The specialized storage system is installed for different types of documents. They have shelves, racks and closed cupboards for storage for different types of documents.

The retrieval of the documents will be on the basis of the client’s urgency and at the request of an authorized person. The documents may be retrieved and referred to at the RDC warehouse or they can be taken to the client’s place as per the requirement. These referrals will be on the basis of per-use charges, while the charges for packing are on a one-time basis and for storage on a monthly rental basis.

4. TRANSPORTATION

RDC is committed to deliver the documents stored in their warehouse to the client located any­where in Mumbai within four hours of the intimation. The RDC has dedicated vehicles for handling the transportation of the preserved documents. The vehicles are dust and vermin proof with the proper storage system inside the vehicle to accommodate and place the documents during transit without causing any transit damage to them. RDC maintains the fleet of six dedicated vehicles— (2 X 9 tonner HCVs, 2 X 5 tonner MCVs and 2 X 3 tonner LCV)—for the movement of documents to and from the customers.

5. DOCUMENTS: TRACKING AND TRACING

RDC has developed a special software for tracing and tracking of documents. As soon as the first call from the customer is received, it is loaded in the software, which allows a single file to be shared between all RDC divisions and the staff involved in the service. With web-enabled tracking and trac­ing, the client can view all the relevant details about their preserved documents, using the assigned password. To monitor performance, minimum standards and quality indicators are incorporated into the software, which provides the relevant reports at regular intervals. The software has features such as powerful query and key word searching, automated record retention, real-time retrieval and searching, generation of report for clients on a regular or as-and-when basis, and finally, an edit box for file data.

6. CUSTOMER BASE

the existing warehousing space inadequate to store the ever-increasing volume of documents. In addition to their existing facility in eastern Mumbai, they have plans for another similar facility at a western suburb of the metro.

7. COMPETITION

Looking at the increasing need of clients for document management in the space-starved metros and the expertise required for organizing the same, there is a huge potential for “document logis­tics services” in the corporate sector. One competitor has already joined in the race and another is in the process.

Source: Sople V.V (2013), Logistics Management, Pearson Education India; Third edition.

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