The chances are that implementing any type of document archiving, storage or management system will come with an associated cost so if you want to convince your organisation of the benefits of document archiving you will need to be able to show how the system will affect the bottom line of the business whether as money saved in improved efficiencies or increased profit through, say, increased customer satisfaction. Sometimes due to legal regulations a system will have to be implemented at a cost when there will be no return for that investment. In that case the necessity to be compliant with the relevant laws must be justification in itself for the expenditure.
But assuming a document strategy is expected to return some monetary benefit then you must be able to offer justification for the expenditure in terms of hard cash – or at least predictions of cost-savings and increased profits. The marketing hype of the solution vendors/providers will not suffice in the current economic climate so the senior executives who will approve (or not) the system will want to know in detail how much it will cost, how much will be saved annually or how much extra profit can be made and how long that will take: in short the benefits of document archiving and management systems.
Of course it is difficult to predict these answers accurately, especially at a time of economic uncertainty when other market factors will be having an effect on businesses and priorities may be changing but some type of detailed financial analysis is usually a necessity for a proposal to be approved. It will help to justify your project and gain support from key stakeholders.