Document Imaging Blog

4th Annual eCopy Paper Connection Forum

I generally try to avoid talking about eCopy specific information in this blog, but wanted to put in a quick plug for our annual conference, the eCopy Paper Connection Forum. It’s a unique event in the industry, as we gather hundreds of representatives from office equipment manufacturers, independent software vendors and office equipment resellers all in the same location to network, learn about document imaging, and help each other succeed. And this year, for the first time, we’re inviting end users to participate in the event and get a chance to meet with all of the different companies that make up the office document ecosystem and learn how they can improve their document workflows.

So, mark your calendars for October 6-9, 2008 for the event in Boston. And please tell us what is important for you to hear at the event -- we’re working on the agenda now and we welcome your input!

Fax isn't dead...but the fax machine may be

The blogger at ScanGuru wrote up an interesting post titled Isn’t fax dead yet. In it, he hit on the point that fax remains a standard for transmission of paper information for many businesses (he is recommending a move to network faxing). One point that ScanGuru made about why faxing is still alive and well in organizations is that it is an accepted and fully adopted standard and that some people just refuse to give it up. Very true…faxing is not going away.

However, I can envision the problems of trying to have people change from using an analog fax machine to their desktop for outbound faxing. And, you still need something to do the document imaging work of converting the paper. What ScanGuru missed out on is that the natural replacement for the fax machine is the copier or MFP. It is just as accepted and fully adopted as the fax machine (maybe more) and can be easily tied into the network fax systems with document imaging software. So, if you are still using faxing for transmission of paper, leverage your MFP…it can do more than you may think.

Welcome to the Nuance eCopy Document Imaging Blog

Businesses are adopting technology to address electronic workflows and processes --- but these processes are slowed by paper. Document imaging can help solve the paper problem by converting paper into electronic images and distributing those images into digital workflows.

This blog provides Nuance's perspectives on document imaging based on 15 years experience working with end users, MFP and scanner manufacturers, software vendors, and reseller channels. It is our goal of this blog to foster better understanding of document imaging technology through examples of companies who have benefited from implementing the technology and by sharing the experiences/problems/challenges.  We look forward to hearing from you!

Printing Costs – it’s not all about output

A lot of work has been done by printer and MFP manufacturers to help companies reduce their printing costs, mainly around improving utilization of printing devices and consolidation of those devices. Many of those vendors even have developed sophisticated software technologies and methodologies to help automatically identify what printers are being used, where companies should place their printers, where color printing is necessary, etc. One example can be seen here.

A good example of the effect that better management of print costs can have is at HP, where they have saved $7 million in annual costs, as reported this week in a Network World article. That was almost a 50% reduction from its $15.2 million printing operating costs.

That's impressive! But what the article doesn't cover -- and HP doesn't discuss in their own research note on the project -- is an often overlooked cost savings opportunity that is widely available thanks to the fact that more and more printing devices are scan-enabled. Reducing print-related costs is good...reducing the overall amount of printing can be even better.

For example, one of our customers (who averages more than 300,000 printed pages per month), began a corporate-wide initiative to promote scanning at their MFPs instead of printing and copying. They recognize that printing and copying aren’t going away, but by offering an easy way for employees to scan documents, they were able to reduce the amount of printing and copying, and increase the usage of their MFP infrastructure. Over the course of two years, they increased the # of employees that they supported by 50% but only increased their output volume by 31%. This has led to a monthly savings of $25,000 in reduced output costs alone. And the savings reach well into seven figures when including device consolidation, reduced support and administration costs, and productivity increased by including paper in electronic workflows.

Further emphasis of the benefits of scanning also just came out in a recent Gartner research note by Don Dixon that talks about how document imaging – once the domain of trained workers in centralized environments – can now easily be handled by office workers at “smart MFPs”. These smart MFPs not only print, fax, copy and scan, but can also integrate with applications, are management friendly, and behave well on the network. And from an IT and user perspective, offering scanning to office workers is becoming even more attractive as a single software platform can be used across MFP brands, offering easy administration and a standard imaging process for all employees. I’ll have more on document imaging standards and platforms in future posts.

So yes, follow the example of companies like HP who are improving the utilization of printing devices. But also look at what you can do in terms of using your MFPs for document imaging to further reduce those print costs. 

Document Imaging Software from MFP Vendors is Darn Difficult to Use

MFP provider Lexmark (www.lexmark.com) recently commissioned a survey of 1,400 businesses in Europe and the U.S. The survey’s key finding was that, while 66 percent of the organizations are using MFPs, only 34 percent are using MFPs to scan or fax (see Lexmark’s press release here.)

So that begs the question, why are small companies paying the extra money for MFPs instead of standalone printers?  Is it because they only need to copy and print? It seems unlikely to me.

There’s no question that the small businesses that are taking advantage of scanning are reaping significant benefits. Take eCopy customer Aero Union, for example. The 160-employee aerial firefighting operator located in Northern California has used MFP document imaging to reduce the time it takes to process invoices from days or weeks to a matter of minutes or hours. They have also reduced interoffice mail by 60 percent. Get all the details from an article in Aircraft Maintenance Technology magazine by clicking here.

The more likely reason why most small business aren’t using scanning is that the document imaging software that comes with MFPs is too darn difficult to use. Office workers find that document imaging systems are buried deep within MFP’s menu structures and, once found, are so hard to figure out that even tech savvy users give up and walk away.

If a document imaging system is hard to use, it’s the kiss of death when it comes to end user adoption and getting people to actually use the MFP for productivity applications. To prove my point, let me ask just one question. When was the last time you were trained on an MFP? Let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

Interoffice mail - how times have changed

Upon arriving for a meeting in a co-worker's office yesterday, he pointed towards a brown envelope with a long list of names on it and said to me, "I didn't even know we had interoffice mail, did you?"

We both looked quizzically at each other and wondered the same thing -- what could possibly be inside that couldn't have been scanned and emailed? Turns out it was a CD...mystery solved.

But this got me thinking. At our headquarters, we work in two separate buildings a few hundred yards away from each other. A lot of work happens between those buildings. Documents are shared, approvals are obtained, common files are accessed. And very few of us even consider using interoffice mail. In fact, thinking about it, the contents of that CD could have been transferred using a file sharing system and any necessary information from the cover or documentation could have been scanned and emailed (but granted, some things are easier to deliver in person).

There's no doubt that business works a lot better without relying on things like those brown envelopes. Beyond speed, which is a big improvement, sharing information electronically is more secure, more confidential and more user-friendly. I'm glad these envelopes are a rarity here. Oh yeah, and it's better for the environment too!!

SharePoint Meets ECM

SharePoint seems to be everywhere these days. Microsoft reports that more than 85 million licenses of the collaboration software have been purchased and many more organizations are using the SharePoint services that come bundled with MS Office. The power and potential of this software is almost unthinkable, yet many companies are struggling to navigate through the "bees nest" of its capabilities and understand how to deploy, use and manage the software.

We were fortunate to be able to speak with Barry Murphy of Forrester as part of an AIIM Webinar on the subject of SharePoint Meets ECM, which provided an overview of SharePoint's capabilities, what applications it is good for, where it falls short and how to use document imaging software with SharePoint. Here's a  recording of the Webinar.

If you are one of the many people rolling out SharePoint and have paper documents that should be included in the system, consider the following when choosing a document imaging solution:

• Ensure that you do not add a footprint on your SharePoint server; the less third-party software that runs on the server, the less likely you are to have to deal with a server crash
• Look for document imaging software that has "out of the box" functionality for your needs; customization costs can quickly run amok with SharePoint roll-outs
• Make sure the document imaging solution can support for SharePoint content types, metadata and workflows (Workflow Foundation Server, etc.)
• Keep security in mind with your imaging solution; the solution should uphold existing security models and policies; it should be able to pick up the authentication and access rights of your environment