The Data Paradox: Businesses Are Still Struggling With Documents
Walk into any large organisation today and you will find millions invested in data lakes, data warehouses and advanced analytics platforms. Yet ask someone to retrieve a three-year-old contract or last quarter’s compliance records, and the process can grind productivity to a halt.
According to Grand View Research, the document management and retrieval market was valued at over $7 billion in 2024, with projections of $18 billion by 2030. Other analysts, like Research Nester, expect growth to $55 billion by 2037. Despite rapid digital transformation, the struggle with documents is still costing organisations dearly.
The Document Disconnect
The costs are staggering. McKinsey research shows employees spend 1.8 hours per day searching for information, while IDC places the number closer to 2.5 hours. Crown Information Management found nearly half of employees often fail to locate the records they need. For an organisation of 1,000 employees earning an average salary of $80,000, these inefficiencies can cost $25 million annually in lost productivity.
Digital Doesn’t Mean Done
Structured data such as sales figures and customer records flow easily through modern systems. But documents, legal files, medical records, compliance forms, often resist neat categorisation.
Scanning or digitising records without attention to completeness, compliance or usability results in digital clutter, not digital readiness. Errors such as missing authorisations or inconsistent formats undermine efficiency and compliance.
Law firms provide a stark example: misplaced dates, misspelled names and incomplete scans create cascading delays that can jeopardise entire cases.
Security and Competence Challenges
The stakes are high. IBM’s 2024 Cost of a Data Breach Report puts the global average breach at nearly $5 million. Law.com Radar reported 40–50 professional services breaches each month in 2024.
Human error remains a critical vulnerability. “Too often it’s not the system that fails, it’s the people entrusted to run it,” Marin says. Outsourcing compounds the risk, with sensitive data frequently moving across unsecured networks and jurisdictions where oversight is limited.
AI to the Rescue?
Artificial intelligence is beginning to address these challenges, though adoption is uneven. AI tools can detect missing authorisations, predict provider requirements, and cross-check inconsistencies. Corodata’s 2025 industry analysis highlights AI automating categorisation and retention, while Armstrong Archives shows machine learning improving accuracy through anomaly detection.
Read full article in Forbes Magazine here