Documented.zone pays money for thought

There are two ways in which creating a document for company purposes can be either expensive or very expensive.

“First, the creation process itself costs money, be it outsourced or in-house,” says Martti Blomberg. “Second, if the final document isn’t very good and doesn’t serve its purpose, it’s just money down the drain.”

Blomberg is the CEO and co-founder of Ceverte, a company behind a service called Documented.zone. Its aim is to function as a marketplace for company documentation.

Take, for example, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into force in May. Virtually each and every company has had to create guidelines and contracts to ensure its compliance with the new law and, inevitably, a lot of the work overlaps.

Thus, if someone has already made an excellent FAQ or employee information sheet, with very little or no customisation it can be applicable in other organisations, too.

“Well-made documents are part of a company’s dormant capital,” Blomberg explains. “Now, many organisations keep reinventing the wheel, when they could utilise the already existing ones.”

A win-win situation

Documented.zone is a prime example of various global trends: digitalisation, the sharing economy and the platform economy. The platform enables the sharing of digital documents all across the globe, providing some with the chance to monetise their content and others with a way to save money by streamlining content production.

“We see it as a win-win situation for everyone, benefiting both those who have already come up with a solution and those who are still looking for it,” Blomberg tells.

On top of the GDPR, all kinds of technical and other documentation can be bought and sold on Documented.zone. The topics vary from process, sales and the environment to directives and standards, to leadership and logistics.

The sellers can be companies or individual experts, such as contract lawyers, who can also offer consultation as part of their documentation package. As many contract formats are legally required, it’s also safer for a company to buy the content directly from experts.

Sometimes the documents can be used as is, but in some cases they can just serve as benchmarks or templates. For example, if a newly-founded company is looking to establish a communications strategy, it can use documents available on Documented.zone as examples or references as to what should be covered and what the content should comprise.

Change in mindset in the making

Although Documented.zone is now riding on trends, the idea was born a fair few years ago, back in 2013. Some of the six founders had a background in management consulting, some in inventing, and all were well familiar with both how the need for documentation is vast and what a chore the creation process can be.

In the past years, the team has focused on developing the platform and finding funding. Blomberg believes that now is the right time for a service like Documented.zone to bloom.

“We want to turn the traditional mindset upside down and help companies see their content as valuable assets instead of internal costs. We can see that in many places the organisational culture is really taking steps to this direction.”

At the moment, Documented.zone exists in English, Finnish and Spanish. Blomberg points out that the service isn’t targeted at any particular region or industry, but so far, the manufacturing sector has been the most active client in both selling and buying.

Documented.zone also blurs the line between customers and solution providers.

“The roles vary case by case, as sometimes you might be buying and sometimes selling,” Blomberg says. “In essence, the service is like a shopping mall where you can do both at the same time.”