Document Imaging Blog

The Impact of Paper within Business Processes

Increasing efficiencies within business processes is at the top of mind of organizations today, especially in light of the economy. By completing tasks in less steps and less time, and therefore using less resources, operating costs and staffing requirements are both reduced. Identifying and reducing the impact of paper within business processes can provide immediate results.

Let’s look at the one of the challenges of paper-laden processes. Businesses only operate as efficiently as they process information and paper – a physical object – takes longer to move from department/person to another (for signatures, review, editing, etc.). Manual processes are more time consuming, error-prone, and costly than electronic processes.

So how do you address this? The fist step is to discover the impact of paper on business processes. To do this, look at your organization’s workflows and ask these type of questions:

• How many times is paper handled during a business process/workflow?

• Where (physically) does a paper document need to move within a process? How is it moved?

• Where is paper stored and who needs access?

• How is information on paper searched for and retrieved?

• Where do paper and electronic processes intersect?

• What is the cycle time of paper-based steps?

• What is the cost of performing paper-based steps?

By asking these questions, you will quickly discover business processes that can be dramatically improved. And once these processes are identified, document imaging technology can be applied at the most appropriate point in a business process to help improve the process, helping organizations accelerate cycle time and drive productivity.

Partner Ecosystems and the Customer

Jeff Shuey, who writes a great blog about the intersection of People and Process, made a very important comment in a recent post about Microsoft partners. Talking about how each partner in an ecosystem benefited (revenue wise) from the ecosystem, he noted one of the primary benefits of ecosystems for customers:

 

"…customers can take comfort in the knowledge that the partner ecosystem will be there to support them. Note that I said the 'ecosystem' – I did not say the specific partners. A vibrant partner ecosystem allows the mix of partners to change over time to meet the ever changing needs of the customer."

 

This is in reference to Microsoft, but it applies to the Document Imaging ecosystem as well. Hardware manufacturers, ISVs, VARs, Office Equipment Dealers and Systems Integrators all sit in the ecosystem, and can all benefit from working together. But rarely do the ecosystem pieces remain static at a customer. MFP vendors change on a regular basis as leases expire. New software applications are consistently being rolled out. And the VARs, dealers and SIs that sell and support these systems change with them.

 

In the Microsoft world, Microsoft sits at the center of the ecosystem as the glue. Choose to work with Microsoft, and you also get the benefit of working with their ecosystem. With Document Imaging, that glue is an open platform that lets any scanning device (MFPs and scanners) connect to any software application. Add some Xerox devices to a Canon environment? – no problem. Decide to roll-out SharePoint to supplement OnBase and Documentum? No need to change how you handle the problem of getting paper into those systems.

 

Ecosystems are an essential ingredient in delivering customer-focused solutions. And they help drive standards. And, they present revenue opportunities for all the partners involved. It’s no wonder that Microsoft spends so much money on building theirs!