How to get your company excited about Document Management

Written by Ken Kramer. Posted in Blog

Even if your company has a pressing need for a document processing initiative, researching the varied options, understanding the mechanics of information management and attempting to get all of the organizations decision-makers on board can be a formidable task. Mid-management might strive to implement a Document Management solution, but their staff may respond with indifference, while upper-management struggles with cost and lacks insight into the technology.

So how to get your organization passionate about improving their document processes.

Here are 7 approaches that will enable everyone in your organization to recognize the benefits and help management hake an informed decision about whether Document Management is the right choice for your organization:

1. Focus on money savings.

Office space costs money and the average office has to allocate at least 10% to store paper documents. Although it might be difficult to determine exactly how much money your company will save by automating processes, you can look at average statistics to help you determine your cost savings and ROI. Below is some rationale:

• Manually processing one invoice costs an average of $22.75. Automating invoice processing drops that cost to $3.40 per invoice.
• It costs $25-$50 to create a file folder, each lost document costs $350 to $700 to find or replace. If you opt for capturing your documents and storing them digitally, these costs disappear.
• An average 4-drawer file cabinet costs around $25,000 to fill and $2,000 annually to maintain. With a document management system, you’ll no longer have the need to store thousands of paper files in physical filing cabinets.
• Consider employees time where 18 minutes is the average search time for a document while it just takes seconds to find a document with document capture software.
• Document Management forces forms to be properly filled out, reducing time consuming and costly mistakes.

2. Discuss the enhanced search capabilities.

Locating documents can often be synonymous with “finding a needle in a haystack”. Document Management allows searching capabilities to find documents quicker and without having to leave your desk. Just think, no more climbing over boxes or fighting with filing cabinets. There actually have been workers comp claims related to this task.

3. Explain how it will improve employee happiness and satisfaction.

A recent study by economists at the University of Warwick found that happiness led to a 12% spike in productivity, while unhappy workers proved 10% less productive. Review the manual processes relating to bulky paper documents that are reducing their productivity. Allow them to express their frustrations with the current system. This will help determine the major problems and delays. Then show them how the new system with a document management solution will help to improve these issues and make their jobs easier by eliminating unnecessary work.

4. Talk about the how it will enhance security.

There have been many posts regarding the threat of data breaches, hacks, and how document capture software can help you to protect sensitive data and information. A good document capture solution, along with a secure document management system, will not only protect your data, but also help you comply with industry regulations much more easily than if you keep all of your important data stored in physical files. User access can be configured in an infinite number of ways to give access to only the information necessary for employees to perform their respective tasks.

5. Discuss improved customer service.

With Document Management, customer questions can be answered quickly and reliably, and even better, customers may even be able to find the answers they seek themselves. In the age of the customer, anything that can help improve customer experience is significant.

6. Discuss Legal Compliance.

Document Management helps you meet legal requirements and also provides regulatory reporting.

7. Explain the convenience.

With Document Management, access can be done from any office, from home, from your remote office, from a hotel, and anywhere an Internet connection exists. Documents can also be accessed simultaneously with other users without comprising the integrity of the data.

After you examine the benefits of improving your document processes, the case for taking the plunge starts to become something to really get excited about.

Contact us to see if Document Management will provide the return on investment required by your organization or to receive more tips to successfully transform business processes within your organization.

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Protect your private information against data breach with Document Capture

Written by Ken Kramer. Posted in Blog

Most data breaches occur in North America. Can you imagine the dangerous effects on both society and the economy they cause? It is estimated that in 2015 alone, 707 million records were exposed due to data breaches and this number is predicted to cost $2.1 trillion annually. These breaches not only cost companies exorbitant amounts in damages, but they are also detrimental to their reputations. If curious, for a list of know breaches use this Wikipedia Link.

Documents in both paper and digital form are in danger of security risks.

Physically stored documents are at risk of theft, damage by fires or natural disasters, and exposed to unauthorized access. Sensitive information or documents stored in unsecured email servers, network folders and other digital locations lacking appropriate security are exposed to malicious cyber attacks. If this confidential data is leaked or stolen, besides the monetary losses your business could face the risk of losing the confidence of customers, partners and investors.

With the evolving landscape of technology and security, keeping private documents safe is a global challenge, but it can be accomplished. With the help of document capture software your business’ sensitive data and documents can be captured, processed and stored with high security.

Here are 3 ways that document capture can protect your company from a data breach:

1. Utilize a secure digital repository.
A product like inFORM Decisions’ iCapture can capture scanned paper documents or documents imported from a variety of digital storage locations, extract the data and transform the documents in searchable PDF documents. iCapture can also create a PDF password to protect your most sensitive documents. These documents can then be automatically routed to any of 60+ compatible Enterprise Content Management systems including Microsoft’s SharePoint. Also, iCapture is able to integrate with your ECM security system, leaving no gaps in security during the capture process. The result is that sensitive information is better protected and your company has greatly decreased the risk of a document security breach.
2. Assign user roles for security.
iCapture allows you to assign roles to determine which modules and document types (configurations) can be accessed by each operator. This process can eliminate the possibility of information being accessed by the unauthorized personnel. Your ECM system should also provide the ability to assign specific roles to users so that sensitive information is only accessible to those with proper administration rights.
3. Monitor suspicious activity.
The Reporting module in iCapture allows you to review any action to your documents and prevent them from any breaches or harmful actions, such as after-hours access or other irregular activity. Early detection can both mitigate and help prevent future security issues.
Investing in a document capture system like iCapture is the perfect way to protect your business’ documents. Contact us today to learn more!

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The Evolution of Business Process

Written by Ken Kramer. Posted in Blog

Is your business DNA changing?

The transformation of  a business and its processes is always a challenge, and like anything else over time, process management and the flow of work has evolved.  It’s a balance between cost and benefit, pain and efficiency.  And every business has a complete and total mix of how they get work done.  Paper is still ubiquitous in the business world, as are what I call “Franken-processes”, or those that are a combination of paper, Excel, email correspondence and anything else that might be at hand.  Many drive their critical processes with custom applications, and the lucky ones have fully evolved, and implemented app platforms to drive speed and flexibility.  In this post, I will provide an analysis of the 3 key process solutions:  Paper, Custom Apps and App Platform.

So, as a primer, every process can be evaluated on 4 key axes: Degree of Automation, Scalability, Flexibility and Speed to Implement.  Below is a quick overview of the evolution of business process.

Paper-based

Paper processes have been part of business process forever, and it is still a pervasive medium for transactions and the flow of work.  Paper forms and documents flow through businesses every day, exchanging hands, passing through in boxes and out boxes, being copied, placed in folders, and ultimately ending up in a file cabinet as a permanent record.  To evaluate paper on our 4 axes, it is quite fast to implement, and can be somewhat flexible.  Just create a form in Word or Excel, kill some trees through the printing/copying process and distribute.   But we all know that processing paper is painful, and about as far from automated as you can get.   Many organizations attempt to add automation to the mix through scanning and capture, but layering of processes just creates complexity, and decreases the ability to scale.  See the chart above for a visual representation of paper process, the lowest on the evolutionary chain.

Custom Applications

For many organizations, the only option, or next step in the evolution of process is the custom-built application, focused on automating a core set of processes critical to the business.  Custom apps can be a powerful technical transformation tool, and although the benefits can be huge, there are some key draw backs.  Using our axes, you can see the prime benefit is automation (as shown above).  But due to the long cycle times for development and updates, plus the requirement to grow and expand features overtime,  custom apps can be a core constrictor on flexibility and adaptability.  In this day and age, custom apps and all their draw backs are becoming and unacceptable way to automate business and drive process, and are just far too costly.

“Traditional mobile-app development typically costs at least $250K and takes more than 6 months for a single app”

Kevin Benedict, Mind the Gap

Business Apps Platform

Evolution in and of itself, is a process of growth, formation and change based on environmental factors, and the current apex in business process technology is the Business Process Application (BPA) platform.  Built for speed, automation and flexibility, the BPA platform provides a broad reach on all the axes of evaluation (as shown above), and allows agility through a no/low code foundation.

“In the age of the customer, everything runs as quickly as customers and markets – and software delivery must keep up.”
Forrester

With IT departments struggling with the demands of the business for applications, the market and customer requirements have driven the evolution of BPAs.   With delivery time being reduced by a factor of 3-10x, and beneficial cost reduction, forward-looking CIOs are quickly adapting the platform-based approach to transform the way they automate and deliver applications, workflows, forms and reports.   For more info on evolving your business, see our applications for transformation:

Business Process Management and Workflow from inForm Decisions

 

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4 Keys to Digital Transformation Project Success

Written by Ken Kramer. Posted in Blog

How to make your document capture, workflow or document automation project work.

We have all seen failed technology projects, and sometimes search for the reason for failure.  Was it the large scope?  Did we choose the wrong technology?  Did the consultants steer us wrong?  In today’s world, we know that technology works, but many times it is the “people factor” that gets in the way of success.   Below are some keys, in our experience, that are required for any digital transformation project success.

1. Management Support – Imagine the scene, sitting in a conference room with a CFO, having just presented a document capture solution that would revolutionize how the company would do business.  The CFO sat, pondered, and then said, “Wow, I can see how that would change our company for the better.  But my people would just never use it, they like their paper.”  True story.  Like with any project, if you don’t have executive buy in and support, it will never be successful.  Make sure you have an executive sponsor on the business side that has an investment in the project’s success.
2. Don’t Try and Boil the Ocean – moving to any paperless technology can be a massive cultural change within any organization.  It amazes me that organizations like to take on more than they can handle, and usually set their sights on massive projects right out of the gate.  How do you eat a whale?  One bite at a time.  We often recommend customers take on a smaller initial project, and find a high impact problem they can solve quickly.  This helps staff get accustomed to the whole process, and can give a great story for follow on projects.
3. Focus on Process Improvement – Moving a process to digital is a great chance to revisit the way you do business, and re-engineer for maximum efficiency.  Don’t just take your current workflow and translate it to digital.  Take the opportunity to collect input, and really improve the process.  An example might be Accounts Payable Processing.   Maybe you currently have AP clerks scanning documents, and with your new document capture solution, you want to move the first step scanning to the mail room.
4.  Use a Solid Partner – Finding a partner with expertise in document automation, workflow or document capture is an absolute requirement.  There are so many intricacies to laying a solid foundation for growth, and implementing digital transformation technology.  This is a huge key for success of your project, and you should always have experts on your project team to make sure things move along smoothly.

Thoughts?  Other keys?

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Just the FAQs: Info on Digital Transformation Technology

Written by Ken Kramer. Posted in Blog

Our Frequently Asked Questions Directory

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The Paperless Office: Infographic

Written by Ken Kramer. Posted in Blog

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5 Key Benefits of Digital Workflow

Written by Ken Kramer. Posted in Blog

Business Process Management and Workflow Benefits

If you are an organization that still does BBP (Business by Paper),  you have some great benefits you can glean through the use of digital workflow software.  If you are not familiar with workflow software, you can think of it as a digital in and outbox (Broader definition here: Workflow Software: What is it?).  You can do things like simple document routing, advanced approvals and even data collection with the workflow tool.  Below are 5 quick benefits you can achieve with a digital workflow solutions:

1. Insight to your business processes – ever wonder on the status of your vacation request or expense claim?  With workflow process software you can immediately check on the status of any process as an end-user.  As a manager, you can peer into the workings of any process you manage, and find bottlenecks that can help you improve efficiency.
2. Routing of documents – ever lose a document or have it sit on someone’s desk for a week?  With workflow software, you have a digital trail that can route documents throughout the organization.  Need to route inbound mail?  Want to send an email attachment to someone for action?  It’s a snap.
3. Approvals – Most organizations go through a painful process of emailing documents for approvals.  Take a contract that needs to have the input of multiple managers.  With process management/workflow, you can set up an approval process that tracks each step, changes and individual input.
4. Audit Power – need to audit a financial process that happened 3 months ago?  With workflow software, a historical record is logged and maintained.  You can always go back and peer into the process and its data.
5. Beyond the simple – the above are simple and basic benefits of a workflow solution, but understand, most process engines today can take highly complex processes and automate them.  Want to put a capital expenditure process in place that does currency conversions for international offices?  Need an HR on boarding process that spans 5 departments and 30 people?  No problem.

This was just a short list of the benefits of our workflow solutions.  Give us a shout today to learn more.

 

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The Case for the Paperless Office: Justifying Your Purchase

Written by Ken Kramer. Posted in Blog

Buying Software Solutions to Eliminate the Pain

We work with many organizations that initially struggle with spending to eliminate their paper.  Many low to mid level managers just see it as a cost of doing business, and they don’t dig deep into the true costs of running paper-based business.  In reality, they are not alone.  Below are some fantastic stats from the AIIM Paper Wars Study that took a deep, deep look into the problem:

44% of surveyed organizations cited they were only a mere 10% of the way to paper-free process.

23% cited they had made zero progress towards a paper free environment.

17% were chipping away at 5 or more processes per year.

So, why the lack of progress?  Below are the top reasons:

• Lack of management initiatives or mandates
• Requirement for physical signatures
• Staff prefers paper
• Lack of understanding of paperless options
• Suppliers still work in paper
• Notion that legally, they still require paper

These are the top reasons, and they were many more.

So, if you are tired of the paper mess, and looking to justify a move to the digital office, what do you do?  First off, let’s look at some costs associated with paper-based business, with some stats from AIIM:

• It costs an average of $20 to file a document
• It will cost you $120 in labor to find a misfiled document
• It will cost you $220 to reproduce a lost document

These costs incorporate labor and materials.  You can outline many more costs, like mailing, searching for documents, manually entering invoice information, etc.  These costs are well documented, and can be the crux of any justification.  For specific departments or industry verticals, you can also drill into additional costs that might be associated with service level requirements, fines, and the impact of slow operations.  So, take an organization that processes 10,000 documents per month.  Let’s make an assumption that 3% are misfiled, and 1% are lost.  Below is a tally:

1. Filing of these documents will run $200,000
2. Misfiled documents will run $36,000
3. Lost documents will run $22,000

So, you are running a $250K+ operation just in paper $$ for every month you push pulp.  Let’s say you have a rockin’ staff that are immune to paper cuts, and they can do it at a 1/5 of the cost.  You are still at $50K per month.  Now some may argue those staff need to be paid regardless of paper or not.  But the big loss here are opportunity costs.  What if those staff members could use that time for other tasks focused on growth, and not paper administration?  You can see the true advantage of moving to a more efficient digital workflow and using document capture and scanning to facilitate the paperless office..

So, the next question is where to start?  In my next post we will examine success factors, and give some tips on how to ease into the paperless world.  Can’t wait?  Want to read more?  See our frequently asked question pages below for more info:

Document Capture Software FAQ

Workflow Software FAQ

Document Scanning FAQ

 

 

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The Castle Analogy: Core Strategy for a Paperless Office

Written by Ken Kramer. Posted in Blog

Build Your Moat and Drawbridge: Document Capture, Digital Forms and Workflow

When you look at the medieval castle, it had all the protective measures to insure the occupants were protected from outside threats.  In our modern office, the threat is to efficiency and productivity, especially when examining the flow of paper both in and out.  A core strategy is to surround your organization with a virtual moat, that allows no paper to cross.  Below outlines the use of 3 technologies to help with the goal of the paperless office.

Document Capture and Scanning – Today, it is almost impossible to forbid inbound paper.  Whether it is a small business sending paper invoices, a law firm that sends a FedEx package of contracts or a paper bill of lading for a shipment, paper will still exist for most organizations at some level.  The goal here is to create that virtual moat, across which “none shall pass”.  This can be your mail room, with a core policy of digitizing any paper for distribution within the organization.

Digital Forms – Forms technology can insure minimal creation of paper, through the use of a “born digital” mindset.  Want to request vacation?  Fill out a digital form.  HR new hire paperwork?  Go to the new hire portal and fill out the required electronic forms.  This technology can help eliminate new paper creation internally, and can be expanded for external paperwork as well, reducing the need for scanning and document capture.

Workflow Software – workflow provides the ability to fully digitize any work process, and can integrate with both electronic forms and document capture.  This provides a powerful multiplier effect, letting you combine the advantages of all technologies, and enhancing your efficiency and productivity to a whole new level.  Documents and work can now be digitally routed both internally and externally.

These three technologies can be implemented in stages, one by one to start the improvement process, and begin the elimination of the paper threat.  Thoughts?

 

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Document Capture Software: 6 Key Features

Written by Ken Kramer. Posted in Blog

Make Sure You Are Comparing Apples to Apples

So, we often see confusion in customers looking for scanning and document capture software, and trying to figure out what is the right fit.  To give a brief definition, scanning software provides just a means to scan paper to an image.  It provides basic features, and is fine for low volume document imaging when you are just looking to archive or send a document via email.  Document Capture Software focuses on automation, and making the whole process easy.  Below are 6 key features of document capture software, and the power it can provide to any organization:

1. Integration with any scanning device – capture software needs to work with any type of device, or anything that can create an image.  Copiers, desktop scanners, mobile phones, cameras all need to be supported.
2. Document Separation – this feature allows you to “scan the stack”, and let the capture software split the image into individual documents.  This is one of the key efficiency features, and prevents scanning documents one by one.
3. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) – capture software provides an OCR engine for a wide variety of uses, and can create searchable PDFs, zone a certain area on a page and separate by key terms.
4. Document Capture Workflow Steps – scanning documents is a business process, and document capture software supports the division of labor when imaging.  Maybe a mailroom clerk scans the documents, a claims processor enters data, and a supervisor performs QA.  This is essential to a smooth capture and scanning workflow.
5. Complex Extraction – the imaging software should not only be able to extract basic document information, but should also be capable of complex information extraction.  One example is the line items on an invoice.
6. Line of Business System Integration – in addition to document management systems, like SharePoint and OnBase, document capture software should be able to tap into any type of system, and route documents and data.

This is just a short list of features that separate scanning from capture.  You can read more frequently asked document capture questions here: Document Capture FAQ.

 

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