# Technical documentation: reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction

## Definition

Technical communication is like a light bulb. An energy-efficient bulb costs more up front, then quickly becomes cheaper to run — and an industrial documentation process behaves the same way. For a comparable, or only slightly higher, initial investment, it lowers costs, shortens time to market, and improves quality.

  
### <span role=

Lower cost</span>'>
    - less volume to create
    - elimination of repetitive updates
    - less volume to translate

  
### <span role=

Reduced time to market</span>'>
    - maximum reuse of content
    - zero risk of data loss

  
### <span role=

Improved quality</span>'>
    - easily optimizable information blocks
    - perfect consistency of corporate content

## Key principles

Industrial documentation rests on three foundations:

-  [a modular document format](https://docs.redaction-technique.org/en/formats/modular-documentation/),
-  [a structured authoring format](https://docs.redaction-technique.org/en/formats/structured-vs-unstructured-formats/),
-  a reliable document production and publication chain,
-  [a tiered approach to documentation maturity](https://docs.redaction-technique.org/en/costs/three-levels-of-documentation/).

When that chain is built on open-source software, the cost of setting it up and training the team can even be offset by the savings on software licenses. Yet too many high-tech companies have industrialized every business process except one, leaving the creation, management, and publication of their own content to go fallow. The hidden costs add up — documentation written by engineers instead of specialists, intangible assets left underused, lower customer satisfaction, higher support costs. None of it is inevitable: the solutions and the skills already exist.

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Source: https://docs.redaction-technique.org/en/costs/