Dead trees can be expensive

Decades ago consultants told us about the dream of the electronic paperless office. It’s cheaper. It’s easier. It gives you and your employees more flexibility. This paperless utopia has yet to be realized – but we’re a lot closer. Much or our daily work is electronic based. Yet, many of us still spend a tremendous amount of time shuffling, stamping, and filing dead trees.

Paper may never go the way of the Dodo bird. However, there are solutions that can help bring your office a few steps closer to the “paperless dream”. I recently found read an article on Forbes.com describing how small or mid-sized business may find it easier to make the transition (Here is the link to the article).

Here are a few bullet points to consider:

• Small and mid-sized businesses have advantages over lager businesses when it comes to moving to paperless. There is less bureaucracy. They can be much more nimble with their IT projects.
• Electronic is faster. Accounts payable invoices may require several weeks to process. Especially, if the invoice needs to be approved before payment or a discrepancy is found against the purchase order. Shuffling paper takes time. An electronic process can reduce the lifecycle of the payment process.
• Don’t forget about security. A document scanned and password protected on your server is much more secure than sitting on your desk.

Filed under: BPM, Business Process & Workflow, Business Process Management, Data Entry, Document Imaging, Invoices, Workflow, accounts payable

Process to Profit

I’m a programmer. Not an artist.

Sometimes I fail to remember this simple fact. On occasion, I try to play artist. Especially, when I take a look at my corporate logo and realize…”man, that kind of sucks”.

It is the tragedy that happens when a software engineer gets his hands on a copy of Photoshop. I figure I would just “tweak it a bit”. A few hours, a pot of coffee and a sunrise later I realize that maybe I should recruit a pro.

So I signed up for the guys (and gals) at Logoworks to redo my logo. I heard they had a unique process for streamlining the creation process. As a workflow guy, I figured I had to check it out.

I have to say I’m impressed. I haven’t actually seen the finished product yet. (I’ll make sure to share the prototypes with everyone). However, their process of gathering requirements is great. They start with a step-by-step wizard to find out what you want – colors, shapes and text. Then they show you existing logo samples and ask what you like and dislike. In only a couple days, you get to see prototype samples. Then, the samples are routed between the customer and designers for review. The bottom line is a new paradigm that provides professional designs without massive cost.

Typically, companies use workflow to streamline and reduce cost. I spend a lot of time automating accounts payables departments. So, the primary focus is on minimizing overhead. This is an amazing example of turning process into profit. The team at Logoworks uses workflow to innovate the delivery method.

Filed under: BPM, Business Process & Workflow, Business Process Management, Logoworks, Photoshop, Workflow

Document Imaging: Hosted vs. Installed Solutions

Hosted solutions are often called Software as a Service (SaaS) or Application Service Providers (ASP). Such systems offer a diverse array of solutions that can be made available quickly and with a low cost. There are many issues to consider when it comes to a document imaging and workflow solutions. Here are a few of the pros and cons.

Low Startup Cost
An enterprise-wide document imaging solution may cost you thousands of dollars in man-hours, software licenses, and hardware infrastructure. A hosted solution lets you bypass much of the start up cost and begin reaping ROI faster.

Total Cost of Ownership
Most hosted solutions charge based upon volume – based either on page count or disk space utilization. You will also be charged depending on how long you need to retain your documents (often called a retention schedule). There may be charges for the number of users that access you documents. Depending upon these factors, you may reach a tipping point where the installed solution has a lower TCO.

Shorter Project Schedule
The initial time taken to launch a hosted solution may be a fraction of the time needed to organize and implement an installed solution. Generally, hosting providers have the infrastructure in place to quickly launch a project. You could be searching for documents online in a few days. An installed solution may take weeks or months to implement.

Accessibility
Anywhere – anytime – anyone. Hosted solution has the benefit of being available to all your people, regardless if they are in the home office or abroad. Most are available from a web browser. Others may offer dial-in access via terminal services or Citrix. An installed solution may offer this benefit, provided your company has the infrastructure in place. Of course, such an infrastructure will add to the total cost of ownership.

If you are taking advantage of workflow in addition to document imaging accessibility could be even more important. Getting the right information to the right people becomes easier when your people can get their information from anywhere.

Security
Depending upon the nature of our documents, compliance issues might make the decision for you. No hospital will be comfortable archiving medical records with a hosted solution. The demands of HIPPA require such organizations to keep tight control over such sensitive documents.

Even less sensitive documents require some level of security. Invoice, purchase orders and human resource documents all contain sensitive information. Most reputable hosting providers have secure, locked, facilities. Not to mention technical staff that maintains needed security patches. Considering that usually these documents are kept in simple file cabinets, it is easy to argue that a hosted solution is far more secure.

Outsourcing
You might be able to reduce operating cost by letting others process your imaged documents. An interesting solution is to allow the hosting solution provider to receive your documents via fax. They could then provide your ERP system with the required data and a URL to the associated document. Workflow could allow outsourcing personal to easily communicate with your team members to resolve problem transactions. I am not a proponent of outsourcing office jobs overseas. However, I know of a few well qualified office workers in middle-America that would be more than willing to do your data entry work!

Integration
A hosted solution may be more difficult to integrate with your installed solutions. A useful trick is to streamline data capture by auto populating some data with a lookup. For example, while data entering the information from an invoice the operator may enter the purchase order number. The P.O. number could then be used to lookup the associated vendor. Since a hosted solution is not installed at your location, the lookup would be more difficult to accomplish. This problem can be resolved; however, such scenarios should be taken into consideration.

Conclusion
There is not just one simple answer as to which solution is right for your company. Consider how both flavors may benefit your company. A hosted solution might allow you to start using the system in a few days and opens the possibility of outsourcing to reduce cost. However, an installed solution might allow for tight integration with all your legacy application or give you more control over your information. Feel free to contact me if you need help making these decisions. I’d be glad to help.

Filed under: Uncategorized