by Tom Beasley

The signs of a struggling economy are all around us. Financial markets continue to spiral, credit is difficult to obtain, spending is down, layoffs are becoming commonplace, and businesses and consumers alike are altering their buying habits. What can businesses do to stay afloat?

Cut costs by increasing efficiencies. Easier said than done? Not necessarily. One of the best means of cutting costs is to uncover ways to increase sales while decreasing overhead expenditures. Start by analyzing your current processes and removing the inefficiencies in them. Is there a lot of money and resources tied up in your manual, paper-based processes? If so, it's wise to reevaluate your processing abilities - even (and especially!) during an economic crisis.

AccuImage cannot fix the economy, but we can help you take measures to survive it by making smart investments in process-improving technologies. We can analyze your current processes, recommend areas for improvement and provide affordable automation solutions.

It may seem counterintuitive to consider implementing enterprise content management (ECM) and business process management (BPM) solutions at a time when logic dictates that you rein in your spending. However, as you'll read in this issue of The AccuView, it is exactly these types of high-performance solutions that will enable you to thrive during uncertain times.

Still not convinced? Call us at 615.242.7226 to schedule a needs analysis today.

Best regards,
Tom Beasley
tom.beasley@accuimagellc.com

While economic pressures may force some organizations to forego their document imaging initiatives this year, businesses that have the means should still look to invest in scanning technologies. Document imaging technologies can prove to be a vital way for businesses to support compliance, increase efficiency and reduce costs. The key to purchasing document imaging technology in this economic climate is to make sure you get the biggest bang for your buck. Following are a few suggestions that can help you better justify a document imaging investment in 2009.

• Look for imaging solutions that offer alternative payment strategies aimed to minimize your upfront investment. Repurposing multifunction devices, using SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) imaging applications, and outsourcing imaging services are all ways you can continue to benefit from document imaging while limiting your upfront technology expenses.

• Focus on implementing imaging in areas of your business that will provide you with the quickest hard ROI. For example, automating invoice processing tasks and other data entry operations can provide you with a quick payback on your imaging investment by reducing manual labor and accelerating payment cycles. Simple scan, store and retrieve applications, on the other hand, will have a longer ROI cycle.

• Focus on how a document imaging solution can help your business become more green and link this to the ROI the solution can provide. Look at how an imaging solution will help you reduce your power and paper consumption, as well as your paper transportation costs.

Following these suggestions can help you get the most value out of your document imaging investments, without putting a freeze on your technology spend altogether.

[Source: Integrated Solutions]

In times of a tight economy, one of the first things people do is identify areas where they can cut fat. Similarly, businesses need to look for ways to gain efficiencies. Even in our current economic crisis, many businesses are discovering that enterprise content management is a better mouse trap compared to paper and manual processes. Businesses with the foresight to implement ECM are successful in releasing information that was previously locked within their unstructured documents. ECM has enabled them to get that information to the right people with greater efficiency. For businesses to thrive, efficiency and lean processing are essential.

Addressing Disaster Recovery Concerns while Minimizing Risk

In 2008, records management strategies started to achieve equal status with business process management initiatives. And ECM performed a pivotal role in organizations' efforts to capture, identify, classify and process records before enabling them to manage their records with automated retention, disposition and long-term storage. It also provided organizations with disaster recovery options that are unavailable in a paper-based system. At a time when regulatory issues are at the forefront of our agendas, ECM is leading the way toward compliance.

Legal and regulatory demands are more stringent than ever before, and penalties for noncompliance are more severe. And in the contemporary business climate, smaller organizations are not absolved from these regulations. 2008 saw increased usage of ECM to ensure that records were not accidentally destroyed prior to - or held beyond - their mandated retention times. ECM is the tool that enables businesses to automatically migrate records to cost-effective storage media after they had exceeded the active stages of the document lifecycle. Records migration ensures that retrieval of active records is not hindered by a lack of storage space in the document repository. After an initial configuration, ECM systems with hierarchical storage capabilities make all of these benefits possible without human intervention.

2008 was no stranger to natural disasters, threats of sabotage and abnormal weather episodes. More organizations turned to their ECM systems to enact disaster recovery measures and to establish audit trails as part of their records management efforts. ECM enables businesses to copy documents to offsite storage or to multiple servers at multiple sites. At the same time, it removes the potential for human error.

Doing More with Less

Businesses are constantly looking for ways to process their work faster, with fewer staff. The global financial crisis provides incentive for organizations to pursue this objective in earnest. And in the past year, more organizations used ECM to support enterprise-wide business process management (BPM) initiatives. In the past, it was tempting to use ECM systems solely for storage and retrieval. But budget cuts and economic downturns have empowered businesses to think beyond the electronic filing cabinet mentality.

More businesses are discovering the benefits associated with automated workflow and using it to electronically route documents for routine processing while moving difficult work to the forefront (and to the experts). This is leveling the playing field for smaller organizations that traditionally had difficulty competing with industry giants. Workflow is also helping companies demonstrate who accessed which documents, which assists compliance efforts.

When organizations are able to couple workflow with electronic forms and barcodes, processing is optimized even further. Customers are able to submit forms over the Internet. In cases where forms processing does not require human intervention, customers could receive immediate feedback regarding their submissions. This is also a time when businesses are faced with increasing pressure to be able to produce information on demand. In the new world order, clients, employees and partners alike have become more self-reliant than ever before and expect self-service options. BPM allows businesses to automate many straightforward processes and allow highly trained staff to focus on the exceptions. This provides better, faster and more efficient service to customers and in many cases offers self-service options.

BPM metrics also help businesses outperform their competitors. They provide a dashboard through which administrators are able to monitor their entire systems - including application status, database operation, network functions and business process status - all from a single screen. As a result, organizations can identify bottlenecks and slowdowns preemptively. Metrics also help organizations make better business decisions and identify potential problems before they become serious.

Take Advantage of ECM Expertise

Even within the same industry, organizations' needs are often vastly different from one another. A major trend of the past year was an increase in the use of consultants and service professionals to optimize and personalize ECM systems. And as organizations discovered, an investment in a professional consultation often meant the difference between the success and failure of a new ECM implementation.

Professionals with many years of ECM expertise are able to provide insight as to how to better leverage new or past investments in ECM technology. Business process analysts work closely with organizations to understand not only everyday business needs from a user perspective, but the cultural and environmental needs of an organization. After developing a clear understanding of the objectives of existing routine processes, they are able to make recommendations for successful automation projects.

Even organizations with established ECM systems are seeking input from industry professionals. Whether their objectives are e-mail management, integration with legacy systems and other software, straight-through processing, or overall increases in efficiency, businesses that invest in professional consultant services are finding that their return on investment is significant.

Looking Ahead

In spite of the fact that stores are closing and layoffs are becoming commonplace, some organizations are prospering. They are not worried about economic uncertainty, because business is booming. How are they thriving in a sagging economy? Successful organizations have explored and implemented the benefits that ECM has to offer. They have improved turnaround by optimizing their processing abilities. They have tackled their inefficiencies to become more streamlined and responsive to customers. Isn't it time you did the same?

[Source: ECM Connection]

The obvious step in increasing efficiency throughout your enterprise is a transition from cumbersome paper processes to automated electronic processes. Paper is scanned, indexed for easy retrieval, and stored in an electronic repository along with JPEGs, audio files, electronic forms and other electronic media. Undoubtedly, a simple conversion from paper to electronic processes will result in improved efficiency. However, to get the most out of your investment, look beyond your immediate gains and take your business processes to the next level.

Prior to your conversion, analyze your business processes. You may be enticed by the initial improvements that you receive with electronic access, but don't assume that your work is finished at this point. The real payoffs are associated with business process management (BPM). Enlist the help of a professional if you need to - even when finances are tight, an investment in process analysis will pay huge dividends down the line.

High-performance ECM software offers the flexibility and extensibility to integrate with your existing software systems (administrative, customer service, student information system, accounting, billing, etc.). It will even allow you to access and use information that is currently stored in legacy or proprietary systems. A process analyst can examine your existing software infrastructure, and can help you design blueprints that ensure a smooth flow of information.

Automation and BPM are the tools that will revolutionize your processing abilities. BPM allows you to electronically route your documents behind the scenes, delivering them to the right person at the right time for processing. When you are unencumbered by the constraints that are associated with paper, your productivity is unlimited. A web-based system ensures that authorized staff can access information remotely, from any web browser. Satellite offices, remote workers, branch campuses, agents in the field - all authorized users will have immediate, secure access to your document repository. An ECM system will allow you to transform your organization regardless of the uncertainty of the economic climate.

[Source: ECM Connection]

As organizations struggle to cut down on their operational expenditure, they are hard-pressed to adopt technologies that help cut costs. The implementation of a document management system is integral to an organization's effort to reduce cost, be green, and in many instances, conform to regulations. Furthermore, the implementation of a document management system can save lots of paperwork and inefficiencies associated with manual processes.

Document management systems have evolved over the years into enterprise content management (ECM) systems as a result of increasing customer demand for managing not just documents but the entirety of an enterprise's content. The difference between a pure-play document management solution and an enterprise content management solution is that the latter, apart from managing documents, also manages workflow and the entire content generated by an enterprise such as e-mail messages, reports, web content, records, etc.

Five years back, the University of California, Berkeley, came up with the figure of 800 MB - the volume of content produced per person each year. Obviously, that number is much higher today. With unstructured data growing at a rate of 65 to 200 percent depending on the industry, this is a growing concern. This data can be in any form - e-mail, text documents, spreadsheets, images, audio and video files, etc. An ECM/DM system enables the conversion of unstructured data into actionable and valuable business information.

The Cost Benefits

The cost benefits of having an ECM/DM system in place can be felt both in both tangible and intangible ways. It fructifies the dream of having a paperless office without spending money on buying paper and stationery, and enabling easy storage, search and retrieval of information. In fact, one of the significant reasons for the evolution of document management has been the concern of enterprises and medium-sized organizations to reduce the costs associated with accessing and managing information that is critical to their business.

The cost savings works in many ways:

• Soft copies take up a fraction of the space that hard copies do. This is of particular significance taking into consideration the rising cost of real estate.

• Time saved in easy retrieval of documents. Many productive hours are lost searching for relevant information in a pile of documents, which can be avoided by having a streamlined process in place.

• Creation of an information repository that anyone can access and use for immediate business requirements, resulting in faster decision-making.

• Savings on courier/postage costs across locations.

Mark Petit of Xerox Global Services said that, according to IDC research findings, companies with the fastest growing profits in their industry sectors are tackling document processes and achieving real benefits. "We find a positive relationship between effective document management and two factors - above-average growth of profits and an organization's ability to respond to changing market conditions," he said.

There is the initial effort, of course, in terms of going though old documents, scanning them and loading them into the system. However, after that, the system is quite simple. It is also critical to decide appropriately, the roles and responsibilities within the user department, pertaining to scanning, uploading, etc.

"The right approach to simulate cost benefit analysis of ECM deployment would be to put a price on the statutory compliance, audit trails and document workflow processes," said Puneet Datta of Canon. A report by All Associates states that the cost of a document, as a percentage of total company revenue, ranges from 6 to 14 percent.

Untapped Opportunity

While the cost benefit advantage works out well for large enterprises despite the sizable initial investment to be made in implementing an ECM/DM system, the SMB sector with its vast opportunities, has so far not been tapped.

The typical flashpoint for SMBs has been pricing. As ECM has been traditionally viewed as a cost-intensive deployment intended to target large enterprises, SMBs have shied away from ECM. Vendors have, however, started providing affordable ECM solutions tailored to the needs of SMBs. The need for SMBs is to have a vendor who can not only quickly implement the ECM system but also have an offering specifically targeted for mid-tier businesses.

Compliance and associated legal expenses can turn out to be high for large enterprises, and these can be reduced substantially by implementing ECM. This apart, an ECM system with collaborative facilities allows organizations to reduce travel costs.

ECM also facilitates e-governance in a big way by providing information from multiple sources using technologies such as XML, RSS, etc., consequently reducing the dependence on the hierarchical structure of the government. The records management and document scanning capabilities of ECM suites ensures integrity and timely availability of records for daily activities.

Future Scope

The increasing need for automation in the enterprise has triggered the growth of DM/ECM systems. Many organizations realize that they need to implement DM/ECM solutions to drive efficiency and increase productivity, and compete with global corporations.

[Source: Express Computer]