Laserfiche Demos Agile ECM at AIIM

PHILADELPHIA, PA - Laserfiche will today demonstrate its new, agile approach to enterprise content management (ECM) at the AIIM Expo + Conference (booth 2015) at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA.

An agile ECM system is one that balances the need for central control and departmental flexibility. Agile ECM brings a new level of scalability and supportability to existing IT infrastructures, allowing organizations to enhance efficiency by eliminating data silos, automating core business processes and minimizing ongoing maintenance demands for IT personnel.

According to a recent IDC report, the fact that Laserfiche “design[s] and configur[es] its portfolios to address the required control elements demanded by systems administrators while in tandem providing unique customizing capabilities for end users is a win-win value proposition for existing and new customers.”

The report further notes that “Laserfiche is in an enviable position… Both its end-user functionality and its administrative capabilities can help organizations address the majority of their document and records management issues effectively and within a shorter time frame than other large enterprise content management providers.”

“Laserfiche has always been dedicated to providing innovative solutions to our customers’ most pressing content-related challenges,” said Nien-Ling Wacker, Laserfiche CEO. “We’re pleased to showcase our critically- and customer-acclaimed agile ECM offerings at AIIM.”

Download a copy of IDC’s report, “Laserfiche: A Company on the Move,”

About Laserfiche
Laserfiche® creates simple and elegant enterprise content management (ECM) solutions that help organizations run smarter. Since 1987, more than 28,000 organizations worldwide—including federal, state and local government agencies and Fortune 1000 companies—have used Laserfiche software to streamline document, records and business process management.

The Laserfiche ECM system is designed to give IT managers central control over their information infrastructure, including standards, security and auditing, while still offering business units the flexibility to respond quickly to changing conditions. The Laserfiche product suite is built upon Microsoft® technologies to simplify system administration, supports Microsoft SQL and Oracle® platforms and features a seamless integration with Microsoft Office® applications and a two-way integration with SharePoint®.

Laserfiche distributes its software through a worldwide network of value-added resellers (VARs), who tailor solutions to clients’ individual needs. The Laserfiche VAR program has received the Five-Star Rating from Computer Reseller News/VARBusiness magazine.

Laserfiche is a registered trademark of Compulink Management Center, Inc.

Document Management – What is it and Why Do you Need It?

In its simplest form, Document Imaging is the practice of converting your paper-based records to electronic files. Once these files are converted, they are indexed by specific ‘keyword’ information, stored in a structured system, and retrieved through your company’s network or over the Internet. Document Imaging alone can help an organization generate new efficiencies and dramatic cost savings, such as eliminating the costs associated with storing paper.

Document Management takes Document Imaging several steps further. document management is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of paper-based, or electronic (i.e. Word, Excel, email) documents. Document Management provides a simple and efficient way to input, retrieve, manage revisions (managing multiple versions of a document), collaborate, track and retain all of the unstructured data that doesn’t already exist in your organization’s enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), and other computer systems.

Why Document Management is a ‘Must Have’
Document Management experts report that today up to 90 percent of all corporate information resides on paper or some type of unstructured format. Further, the Document Management technology available today requires little or no organizational change while providing amazing benefits. That’s why Document Imaging and Document Management solutions are becoming must-have technologies for organizations of any size.

When we look at running a business, there’s typically an unrecognized cost of operating and maintaining a paper-based filing system. Although companies have to use paper, many industries and organizations become inundated with it. Medical practices, law firms, real estate and lending companies are all paper-intensive industries. Managing that volume of documentation is, for most, a time-consuming, labor-intensive, customer-facing process that eats away at the bottom line.

Take the medical industry, for instance. Doctors’ offices have an entire wall full of paper files and an established routine of pulling and re-filing patient charts. Study after study shows that even in these highly organized paper-based systems, it still takes an average of six minutes to pull and re-file a chart.

Now keep in mind that this six-minute statistic is drawn from highly efficient paper-based filing systems. The small to mid-sized business (SMB) today can expect a slightly longer timeframe to pull and re-file a contract, accounting record, personnel file, or any of the other documents that may be needed on a day-to-day basis. This unnecessary time spent searching for files or pulling documents adds up to money wasted and efficiencies lost.

Here is further research from Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers), on the time and money spent on paper in today’s typical organization:

• Of all the pages that get handled each day in the average office, 90 percent are merely shuffled.
• The average document gets copied 19 times.
• Companies spend $20 in labor to file a document, $120 in labor to find a misfiled document, and $220 in labor to reproduce a lost document.
• 7.5 percent of all documents get lost, 3 percent of the remainder get misfiled.
• Professionals spend 5-15 percent of their time reading information, and up to 50 percent of their time looking for it.
• There are over 4 trillion paper documents in the U.S. alone – growing at a rate of 22 percent per year.

As with many technologies, today’s Document Imaging and Document Management solutions are far more affordable than those sold in the 1990’s. The primary reason for this dramatic price decrease is the lower cost of hardware. For instance, a scanner manufactured in the early 90’s that scanned eight pages per minute through its automatic document feeder (ADF) cost upwards of $30,000 and would easily take up half of a desk. Today, some entry-level scanners can process up to 66 images per minute and are on average the size of a household toaster. In addition, the street price for these efficient, smaller form factor machines weighs in at under $1,000.

And yet with hardware becoming more affordable, the decrease in software price has not followed suit. Most imaging systems available today still carry a low to mid five-figure price tag for the software alone. For an enterprise company, this cost is justified given the large volumes of documents. However, SMBs cannot justify such a high cost of entry and most cost analyses offer unrealistic volume assumptions for the small business. Consider the following scenario:

1. Company generates or receives 100 important paper documents per day that must be filed.
2. documents x 6 minutes to file each = 600 minutes filing per day.
3. 600 minutes per day = 10 man-hours per day.
4. man-hours per day x $15 per hour (inclusive of benefits and burdens) = $150 per day.
5. $per day x 250 working days per year = $37,500 per year.

If a company commands these volumes, the associated costs are accurate and the above analysis is a great tool to show how companies can save time and money by implementing a Document Management system. Yet again, many SMBs can’t afford such a large investment given their smaller volumes.

For example, a typical SMB may only receive or generate 20 important paper documents a day that must be filed. Using the same example as above, if the same calculation formula was used, filing these 20 documents in a paper-based system will cost up to $7,500 per year. And that is only the ‘time cost’ of a paper-based system – there are still many other hidden costs, such as off-site storage expenses, on-site space usage, filing supplies and document distribution expenses including overnight shipping and mailing.

Further, the above analysis does not take into consideration that in paper-based systems, not all documents can be found. Whether someone misfiled the document or it is sitting on someone’s desk, lost or misfiled documents cost companies time and money.

So, what’s the going average for lost or misfiled documents? According to a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, “7.5 percent of all documents get lost and 3 percent of the remainder are misfiled.” This means that, on average, roughly 1out of 10 documents can’t be retrieved as quickly, as they should, if at all. Taking this further, paper-based files can only be in one place at a time. Therefore, files are typically copied and re-filed, both of which can cost businesses a significant amount of money.

Understanding the True Cost of Managing Paper
As mentioned before, there can be many hidden costs to a paper-based system. Storage is a prime example. A larger organization that stores documents offsite through a service averages 20 to 50 cents per box, per month and upwards of $10 per retrieval. However, many organizations overlook the costs of storing documents on-site. The average four-drawer filing cabinet requires eight square feet to operate (that’s accounting for the cabinet’s footprint and the space to open the drawers). These costs can add up. Here’s an example:

Let’s take an average of $1 per square foot lease cost for office space. A single file cabinet will cost a company $96 per year in space cost alone. With electronic document management, the average image scanned at 200 to 300 dots per inch (dpi) requires about 50KB of disk space. That means companies can store around million pages on a 50GB hard drive. For $50 a company can store the equivalent of 100, 4-drawer file cabinets full of paper on a single, 50GB hard drive.

The costs outlined to this point are quantifiable hard costs. In other words, they are costs that can be easily calculated and directly attributed to a paper-filing system. In most organizations, these are the only costs taken into account when justifying the purchase of an imaging system. Oftentimes, these costs are enough justification given they are the quantifiable and absolute.

Soft cost, however, can be difficult, if not impossible to quantify, as part of the cost justification or ROI (return on investment). Yet, they can have a significant impact on a company’s bottom line. Enhanced productivity and better customer service are just a couple of the many soft cost considerations. Others include:

• The ability to answer a client’s questions and email or fax supporting documents with just a few mouse clicks while they are still on the phone can prove to be a great customer retention tool.
• Allowing multiple users access to the same document, at the same time, while minimizing the risk of being misfiled, can also show soft cost savings by improving an organization’s productivity.

Document Management technology today provides many benefits that are impossible to achieve in paper-based filing systems. For instance, imaging systems today typically index every word on every page for search and retrieval. Companies are not limited to specific key fields such as client name or transaction date to search. For example, assume a company wants to locate every document that exists in the organization referring to Product “X.” In a manual filing system, this would take an enormous amount of time if it could be accomplished at all. With electronic filing, this process takes just seconds.

Lastly, electronic Document Management systems can assure that an organization is prepared for the worst of scenarios. The natural disasters that have impacted our world in recent times including tornados, earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes have been a somber awakening. Beyond the tragic loss of life, many businesses and government agencies struggled to maintain business continuity and found themselves at a standstill, uncertain of what to do next. The lack of a solid business continuity plan is crippling. Further, these disasters have shown that having all your companies assets on paper can bring business to a screeching halt.

According to Gartner Inc., two out of five organizations that experience major data or records loss due to a natural or man-made disaster go out of business within five years. With an appropriate Document Management system in place, companies have the ability to store backups of their records offsite, which greatly increases the likelihood of organizational survival if a business is struck with disaster. In many cases, a business can have its documents restored in a matter of hours and be able to continue operations.

Taking a Realistic Approach to Quantifiable Costs
When analyzing a company’s current paper-based filing system versus an electronic system, it is important to look at all costs from a realistic perspective. The safest route to justify the procurement of an electronic system is to only focus on those quantifiable costs. Although soft costs, such as better customer service, are often a lure into the purchase of such systems, the hard cost savings alone should justify the purchase. However, it is important to be certain that hard costs are realistic. If any component of the hard cost models shown above is exaggerated, the justification can be skewed.

Paper Filing System Document Imaging/Management System
Document Retrieval - Can take minutes to days.

• Onsite documents (if properly filed/re-filed) are retrieved relatively quickly.
• Archived files stored off-site take much longer and cost far greater to retrieve.
• Document retrieval is limited to basic file information such as client number, transactions date, etc.
• All documents (working and archived) can be searched and retrieved in seconds from your PC from anywhere in the world via a Web connection.
• Document retrieval is enhanced.
• You are not limited to only key index information but can search every word on every page in your entire document repository.

Missing/Lost Documents - On average, 7.5% of all documents get lost and 3% of the remainder get misfiled.¹

• Lost documents are costly to reproduce and can have legal ramifications.
• Missing documents can take up to 10 times the amount of time to retrieve as properly filed documents.
• Once a document is in the system, it can never become lost.
• With proper backup procedures in place, disaster recovery can occur very quickly.

Document Filing - Can take minutes to days.

• Requires manual document filing.
• PC-based input and/or automated filing features dramatically reduce filing time.

Document Collaboration - Impossible unless copies are made.

• The average document get copied 19 times during its life.¹
• Since the documents are digital, multiple users can access the same file at the same time.

Document Output/Delivery - Mailing physical documents can take days while express courier services can be extremely costly.

• Faxing is a better solution but still carries costs and document quality is degraded.
• Instantly print, fax or email document to anyone in the world.
• You can also grant secure, direct access from anywhere in the world with an internet connection.

Storage Requirements - Roughly 1 file cabinet per 10,000 pages stored.

• Each cabinet will require roughly 8 square feet of office space (enough for the cabinet’s footprint with its drawers open).
• Files reside on electronic media.
• On average, 50KB or electronic storage is required per black & white image. This calculates to roughly 20,000 pages per GB or million pages per 50GB. A 50GB hard drive can be purchased for under $50.

Security - Lock and key security only.

• Either an individual has physical access or they do not. Inability to set multiple security levels for a single file folder.
• Multiple levels of security to access documents.
• Rights-based security levels can be applied so that only specific users can perform specific actions (such as deleting a file).

Disaster Recovery

• Inherently vulnerable to acts of man or nature.
• With proper backup procedures in place, off-site copies of the backup can be used to restore a system on new hardware in a very short time frame.

¹Coopers & Lybrand (PricewaterhouseCoopers)

Conclusion – Put Document Management to Work for You
Today’s businesses are continually looking for efficiencies and cost savings. An end-to-end document management system can provide SMBs with a solid business continuity plan, more efficient use of space and time, as well as, enhanced customer support. With little to no disruption to the business and a justifiable cost of entry, an electronic Document Management solution is a highly efficient solution that provides an impressive return on investment and lets businesses focus on what’s important – the bottom line.

About Davis Business Machines, Inc.
Davis Business Machines offers an integrated suite of imaging, document management, and workflow management software. Follow news, photos and video coming from Davis Business Machines by subscribing to our news feed by visiting http://www.dbm.net/articles?rss or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/dbmnet. To learn more about our products and services, visit us at http://www.dbm.net or call us at 1-800-287-9326.

Everything Channel Awards Laserfiche’s Partner Program Five-Star Certification

Long Beach, CA — Laserfiche today announced that its VAR program has been recognized in Everything Channel’s 16th annual Partner Program Guide as one of North America’s best technology partner programs. The Laserfiche VAR program puts resellers on the fast track to success with comprehensive technical, sales and marketing training around the company’s agile enterprise content management (ECM) suite.

“Even in today’s tough economic climate, our dedicated VAR channel has achieved an unprecedented level of profitability and customer success,” said Chris Wacker, senior vice president at Laserfiche. “We’re proud to offer training, certification and support to help them achieve their goals.”

Everything Channel analyzed 130 vendor programs, rating vendors’ responses to in-depth questions about their partner programs in the five elements of sales support, partner profitability, partner ecosystem development/management, partner communication/marketing and demand generation. The Five-Star rating is bestowed on programs whose overall rating is among the elite based on company size.

“The quality of a technology vendor’s partner program determines how profitable its partners will be,” said Kelley Damore, VP, Editorial Director, Everything Channel. “For their commitment to their business partners and their efforts to build quality programs, we congratulate those recognized as this year’s Five-Star Partner Program winners for helping to drive greater revenue in the channel.”

The complete list of Five-Star winners will appear in the March 29 issue of CRN magazine and online at www.Channelweb.com.

About Laserfiche
Laserfiche creates simple and elegant enterprise content management (ECM) solutions that help organizations run smarter. Since 1987, more than 28,000 organizations worldwide—including federal, state and local government agencies and Fortune 1000 companies—have used Laserfiche software to streamline document, records and business process management.

The Laserfiche ECM system is designed to give IT managers central control over their information infrastructure, including standards, security and auditing, while still offering business units the flexibility to respond quickly to changing conditions. The Laserfiche product suite is built upon Microsoft® technologies to simplify system administration, supports Microsoft SQL and Oracle® platforms and features a seamless integration with Microsoft Office® applications and a two-way integration with SharePoint®.

Laserfiche distributes its software through a worldwide network of value-added resellers (VARs), who tailor solutions to clients’ individual needs. The Laserfiche VAR program has received the Five-Star rating from Computer Reseller News/VARBusiness magazine.

Laserfiche is a registered trademark of Compulink Management Center, Inc.

Deciding Which Document Management Software Features You Need

There are many different features available with document management software. When reviewing all of the different brands and options, it is important to see which company offers the features you need and want for your business. There are many features to choose from and it is best to know about them in advance to know whether or not you will need them before choosing a plan. It will save you both time and money to be aware of you specific needs in advance.

Similar to most software purchases, it is important to consider how easy it is to use prior to buying it. If you are unable to easily understand the software and use it as you intended for your business, you will be wasting a lot of money. In order to decide if it is easy for you to use for you and your company, think about how you will be using the software. Will you need to open more than one document at once? Fill in incomplete forms at a later date? Look up files by many different types of information? Consider all of these and more when deciding which software is best for you. The best software choice will be easy to use and have a simple, organized layout. If you have to click through 20 screens to access each different thing you need, it may not be the best software choice for you.

Document security is extremely important and there are many different aspects to consider when choosing how much security you need. At the most basic level, you will want to make sure only certain people can see your documents. You may also want to make sure only certain people within that group can see specific files and documents. You will need a security system that does these things. Other security options you may want to consider include the ability to track activity within the electronic document management systems. Also, you may want to format your security in such a way that only select individuals have the ability to edit or update the files within the system. You will want to choose a software system that already has serious security measures built in. It will be a hassle to upgrade your system later and you do not want to leave any files unprotected. Find a software system that allows you to create different levels of security for different groups or individuals that can be based on name, title, etc. Also, check to be sure that the security levels are appropriate for the industry you are in. Each industry has to comply with certain standards that you want to be sure you meet.

There are many other features to consider including reporting, searching (make sure it is quick and comprehensive), remote access (so all employees, even those off-site, can access the system, workflow (which allows you to send files to other people in the system to sign off on), and the ability to customize documents in the system.

As long as you keep in mind the features you will need when choosing the best software system for you, you are bound to make the best decision for your company.

Davis Business Machines offers an integrated suite of imaging, document management, and workflow management software. Follow news, photos and video coming from Davis Business Machines by subscribing to our news feed by visiting http://www.dbm.net/articles?rss or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/dbmnet. To learn more about our products and services, visit us at http://www.dbm.net or call us at 1-800-287-9326.

Twelve Things You Should Know About Document Imaging

Document imaging makes up a large part of the technology behind the movement towards a paperless office. Even in offices that have opted for electronic documents, some documents still arrive on paper. Document imaging software converts these into digital documents, allowing the original document to be shredded and recycled.

1. Document imaging involves replicating paper documents, and it's not something new. In the past, paper documents were imaged on microfilm to save space and to store long term. Fax machines copied paper documents and transmitted the images across long distances while local copiers provided additional copies when needed.
2. These days, a document scanner and its software convert a paper document into an electronic document to integrate it into an electronic workflow.
3. The software first creates an image of the scanned document in a preferrered format, such as TIFF, JPEG, PNG, or BMP. The text in the image is human-readable but not machine-readable. Computers will see it as simply a picture and not as words.
4. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software recognizes text characters in images and converts the image into a machine-readable text document. Once OCR processing is over, the documents can be indexed using the full text or additional metadata. Metadata is simply information about the document such as the date of creation, author, and one or more unique identifiers.
5. Before they are scanned, documents can be attached with a barcode page containing customized metadata, and a barcode indexer can index them immediately using the metadata represented by the barcode.
6. Document imaging is an essential component of electronic document management systems. Large enterprises with a continuous flow of paper documents at numerous locations can transfer all these documents to the electronic workflow by scanning and indexing the paper documents as they arrive.
7. Document imaging helps reduce paper-storage requirements and streamlines workflow, easing the management of documents. Significant cost reductions and business-process improvements can be expected as a result.
8. Once imaged, most of the original paper documents can be shredded and recycled, contributing to environmental protection.
9. Document imaging can contribute to faster recovery from disasters like a fire or flood. Electronic documents can be backed up systematically, and the backups can be stored in separate locations, including on the Web.
10. Electronic discovery of particular documents for litigation or audit purposes is possible in an electronic document management system with appropriate document indexing. This is much faster and more dependable than physical discovery in a paper-based system.
11. When selecting a document imaging system, you should consider your specific needs. If you have a large volume of paper documents, you might need a system with automated facilities for batch scanning, automatic indexing, and document classification. Systems these days come with numerous functions, and a look at these can help you select one that is tailored to your requirements.
12. Document imaging can be entrusted to third-party agencies if the volume is high. These agencies will have the experience and expertise to handle all the tasks involved, such as sorting the paper documents, ensuring high image quality, maximizing optical character recognition, and ensuring the safety of the paper and electronic data.

Document imaging is an essential requirement for streamlined business processes in both large enterprises and small businesses. Modern document management systems typically come with imaging and incidental functions such as meta-tagging of documents using bar codes

Davis Business Machines offers an integrated suite of imaging, document management, and workflow management software. Follow news, photos and video coming from Davis Business Machines by subscribing to our news feed by visiting http://www.dbm.net/articles?rss or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/dbmnet. To learn more about our products and services, visit us at http://www.dbm.net or call us at 1-800-287-9326.

Why Businesses Should Utilize an Electronic Document Management System

In today’s business world, the amount of paper a business manages can be endless. With each piece of paper, someone needs to file it, space must be used to store it, and on multiple occasions, someone needs to retrieve it. When you are talking about thousands and even millions of pages of paper, this can be a very time-consuming task, and therefore a very costly task. The costs mount up quickly, in the areas of wages for employees who are responsible for filing and retrieving documents, and the areas of storage space required to house the massive amounts of paper files.

It is also an on-going, never-ending task, requiring the time of countless employees. This is time that could be better used performing the tasks that they have their personal expertise in. The opportunity costs for using a paper filing system include wasted time, delayed customer response time, and wasted floor and storage space. In other words, the efficiency of a business is very much hampered by continuing to utilize a paper filing system.

The benefits of an Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) are countless. With an EDMS, you will be able to take all of paper files, put them through a scanner, and them throw them away, or if your too skeptical to toss them, you can store them in some off-site storage where you will hopefully never have to look at them again. All of your files will be stored electronically, accessible almost instantly by any computer within your office at anytime. You do not have to worry about misplaced files or somebody else already having a file at their desk.

The initial cost of converting to an EDMS is usually what keeps people from doing it. This cost consists of the time and money it takes to scan all of a company’s existing files into the system. To save time, a company can pay a scanning service bureau to scan all their files for them, and this will sometimes be the cheapest method as opposed to paying an employee, who is likely less efficient, to scan the files. Whatever the method chosen, the first year cost might be heavy, but these costs should be offset within the first couple of years.

Another route that a lot of companies take is not to scan all of their backfiles into the EDMS, but to start scanning files today as they come in, and leaving all previous files as they were. This allows the company to bypass a large part of the initial costs, while still enjoying the benefits of the electronic file storage. As time goes by and the companies appreciation for the system grows, they will slowly convert their older files into electronic images, allowing them spread this cost over many months or even years.

Once a company is completely paperless and utilizing an EDMS, their efficiency is greatly increased, their response time for customer support is drastically reduced, and their overall office clutter is eliminated. These improvements convert directly to more business and higher profits.

If that’s not enough to convince you, then this will. The company is no longer at risk to having their critical business information stolen, lost, or destroyed due to some unforeseen circumstances, such as Hurricane Katrina that destroyed thousands of business’s paper records. The EDMS can backup your files offsite so nothing will ever be lost, plus its security features will prevent unauthorized individuals from accessing the documents that they shouldn’t, a very difficult task with a paper filing system.

Document Management Systems Can Enrich The Bottom Line In A Down Economy

In these undecided economic times, countless companies are faced with the challenge of how to maximize returns on stretched budgets. It's a do-more-with-less strategy that requires business operations be optimized now to meet existing economic realities.

One area to consider for improving the bottom line is to look at how information is managed throughout the organization, particularly document management. This involves all the content, things like documents, invoices, etc.; all the actions, things like reviews, and approvals; and all the processes, these are the repeatable steps that drive the flow of information. Improving how information is managed, the content, actions, and processes, will improve efficiency, reduce risk, and lead to cost savings.

There is another benefit to consider with this as well, and it's a silver lining. With any change comes opportunity, and the right kind of change now can position an organization for even greater success long term.

There are least seven ways that improvements in how information is managed can influence the bottom line in terms of efficiency, risk and cost savings, and here they are:

1. Make information findable so people can find information, instantly, every day.
   Studies have shown that among those who are involved with the flow of information, about one-half spend two hours per day looking for what they need to do their jobs. This can translate to hundreds of thousands of dollars in unproductive cost per year. The aim is to cut down on the time it takes for people to find information, making them more efficient and able to complete their tasks much faster.
2. Automate business processes
   Manual processes, especially those that involve paper, have a real propensity to breakdown. As information is routed in steps, for example in review or approval cycles, it's often delayed, there are interruptions, and any number of user-influenced errors can occur. These practices are a real challenge to manage for accountability. At any point in the process, it's difficult to identify at which step the process is currently in. And looking back at completed processes, it's very difficult to identify who did what and when. Consequently, business processes tend to be slow, taking days or weeks to run their course. And it's this lack of speed, not mention the errors, that are the real burdens on efficiency. Automating processes using workflow eliminates the need for people to manage processes and allows people to focus their expertise on making decisions and adding knowledge. The flow of information is handled automatically, which not only establishes consistent processing of information, but also shortens cycle times, increases accountability, and leads to greater quality and accuracy of repeatable business process.
3. Improve collaboration
   A large number of companies still use shared file servers to store information, email to share it, and sometimes FTP to exchange files back and forth. But here's the problem: these methods are unstructured and disconnected. Managing information in this way lacks the necessary controls and collaborative tools to make the most efficient use of corporate knowledge. Files are easily duplicated or lost, information has to be re-created, and versioning is ad-hoc at best. Even worse, in some instances files are silo'd into line-of-business applications, for example a project management application that is only accessible to a few in the company. The answer to improving collaboration is creating a unified, enterprise, work environment where people and knowledge are connected company-wide. This allows all employees, no matter what area of the business they are in, to leverage the collective intelligence of an organization.
4. Capture a record of every change.
   Without a system to manage files as they change, it is virtually certain that information will be lost, it will be difficult to reassemble later on, and there will be confusion surrounding which are the correct versions of files. Documents are not static. They change over time. Automated version control offers a standardized way to capture and organize information in what would otherwise be a chaotic and uncontrolled process. People are more productive and the risk of information loss is greatly reduced. Plus, with version control, everyone immediately knows which is the current version, while previous versions are always retrievable. Another plus of version control is that it can reduce risk. Version control eliminates the potential for losing content in prior versions and importantly, it allows for visibility over content history, for example who approved a document and what did the content look like at that time.
5. Reduce the risk of email.
   Email may be fast, cheap, and convenient, but it's a mistake to believe that it's an informal mode of communication. Email is more and more falling under the scope of regulations such as eDiscovery. For this reason alone, it's important to view email as business records. But even beyond regulation, there are other aspects of how we use email today that make it more and more essential to consider when reducing risk factors. In many cases emails are used as a principle means of communication among employees, as well as with people outside the company, like customers or vendors. The content within emails, and files attached to them, are often times the most complete and thorough record of history over time. Your ability to quickly research and retrieve information from an email archive not only improves your chances of successfully complying with regulations and legal requirements, but it also helps with matters like researching and exchanging knowledge in hand-offs between people, say for example in times of employee transition.
6. Maintain compliance with regulations
   As with email records, some companies also face regulatory requirements that affect all types of information. Information itself can be a liability if it is incorrectly managed. Studies vary widely, but some have indicated that as much as 80% of documents reside on user's desktops, beyond the control and management of a structured document management system. Government regulations, quality standards, and legal requirements are an increasing challenge, and programs that manage for compliance by documenting policies and procedures, applying consistent business processes, and securing information are necessary to reduce exposure to risk. Where quality standards and compliance exist, such as ISO, FDA, and Sarbanes-Oxley, regulated content and processes must be managed using records management.
7. Eliminate paper storage costs and go Paperless.
   Long established storage of paper documents in filing cabinets, archive boxes, and off-site warehouses is a no-value solution. The expenditures of all that paper storage - the space and money spent on it - offers no return in value to the company. It's an unnecessary operational cost. Filing cabinets eat up valuable office space that could otherwise be used for meaningful and productive work areas; and money spent on off-site storage in warehouses could be invested in areas of business that actually have a positive return on the bottom line. When documents are stored electronically, however, there's an added value because information can be filed, searched and retrieved instantly. This is a big factor in terms of process efficiency. And there are other areas to consider as well: electronic document storage makes information more accessible, including even outside the office for employees who might be traveling, working at home, at satellite offices, or perhaps even vendors and customers. When documents are accessed, changed, or approved, everything is recorded in an audit log. Electronic document storage also makes it easier to plan for business continuity, so records can be restored quickly and the business can get immediately back up and running. And finally, electronic document storage is a greener, paperless approach that not only reduces storage and its associated costs, but also cuts down on the need for paper and printing.

Speed Up Customer Service with Document Management

The fast paced world of business requires you to move with it and keep up with the demands of customers who want everything immediately. This means that everything in your office must (if possible) be automated in order for your staff to act swiftly and efficiently.

One of the aspects of your business that you need to invest in to improve processes is document management. Manual ranking and filing of paper documents is time consuming and many business these days invest in electronic document management to help them efficiently manage their files and in turn act on customer demands speedily.

Electronic document management systems, such as those provided by Davis Business Machines (http://www.dbm.net), is not only about instantly retrieving information but it also allows you to text search the actual body of a document together with the title. And what’s even better about it is that it actually highlights the search terms you need so you can go directly to the information you want-therefore saving time spent searching for documents especially when your in a hurry.

This can tremendously help improve your company’s efficiency-everything will be at your fingertips with just a touch of a button. You can load all your customer records within seconds together with other correspondence, even references and emails about the client which have been sent internally.

The superb features of electronic document management speak for themselves. Customer information is instantly accessible so you can answer customer queries on the spot. And since you’ll have an audit trail of past transactions and communications at your fingertips with each particular customer, no risk of error can occur.

What’s even better is that you don’t even have to ask your customer to wait while you find the relevant information they need, or call them back; you are easily positioned as an efficient company that really values and takes all your customers seriously.

It goes without saying that speed of service is crucial if you want to stay ahead of the competition. Electronic document management can help you do this and more. And as everyone is aware of, keeping your existing customers is way cheaper than acquiring new ones. So investing in electronic document management will help your business save more money and in the long run acquire new customers courtesy of the satisfied ones.

Paper that works?

Did you know, on average companies have to hire an additional employee for every 12 filing cabinets simply to maintain organization. This is just the beginning of what it costs to manage paper documents in an increasingly digital world. Whether you are looking for a way to improve personal or professional productivity, capture and distribute paper-based information among workgroups, departments, and small businesses, or even blend multiple business applications from networked printers/copiers or scanners, Document Management Solutions can securely transform paper documents into business value.

Paperwork is paper that works… Document management solutions turn everyday tasks into routine processes that take less time, involve fewer steps, and allow employees to accomplish more. Enabling document management stops the inefficiency inherent in paper files and achieve greater productivity, better information management, and lower overhead expense - a benefit to any bottom line.

• Increasing operational efficiency.
• Making business applications more productive.
• Delivering financial advantage to the bottom line.

A document management solution accommodates any business environment. Ideally, the amount of storage required for paper documents would be reduced, make any document instantly retrievable, and securely bridge the paper and digital worlds.

Contact us today to take advantage of our document management expertise.

The New Document Management and The Help Desk

Countering The Content Conundrum

Have you ever spent hours poring over a document to ensure accuracy and inclusion of all edits made to earlier versions? Have you — or has your company — ever suffered consequences from taking content written for an internal audience and using it for sales or marketing — without thoroughly vetting it for external use?

No matter the department — HR, sales, marketing, legal, administration, etc. — many of you find that kind of content pain to be an unavoidable fact of work life, standard operating procedure. Unaware of a better way to create and manage content, you suck it up. Well, you can stop sucking because there is a better way, and that way is structured content — documents that have been chunked into meaningful component parts and tagged in a systematic fashion.

While it remains one of the best-kept enterprise secrets, structured content has long proven its value in technical communications where it mitigates risks, reduces costs, and increases revenues. Better still, the road to mature, standards-based structured content has been paved by organizations such as IBM and OASIS and standards such as DITA. Now, it’s time for other enterprise functions to realize the same benefits associated with structured content.

In brief, structured content brings organization and automation to content. Structured content lets content creators efficiently create, collaborate, manage and reuse high volumes of information, which can be repurposed into the languages and formats your customers demand. The result? Organizations accelerate the cost-effective delivery of accurate information products — whether those products are for internal or external consumption, e.g., sales RFPs, marketing brochures, HR forms, legal contracts or any other department’s content.

So, what does structured content look like in the enterprise? It depends where you look.

In research & development, you can use structured content to create and manage engineering documents, technical publications, and strategy and planning documents. Here, structured content can help increase revenues by improving the ability of key employees, partners and vendors to share and discover documents, resulting in faster time to market for new products. Meanwhile, costs can be reduced through content repurposing and reuse, which eliminates the duplication and re-creation of existing content. And structured content can mitigate R&D risk, for instance, helping companies avoid noncompliance, and improve customer satisfaction by ensuring the consistent use of authoritative content in product documentation.

In manufacturing, contracts, manufacturing operations, standard operating procedures and regulated documents all benefit from structured content. Revenue growth can come from streamlined creation of contracts and agreements, ultimately accelerating time to revenue. Cost reductions may be seen in reduced rework, recall and aftermarket service costs otherwise caused by inaccurate information in manufacturing documents. Risk can be mitigated by reducing the risk of inaccurate or inconsistent contracts, and by reducing the risk of human error associated with reviewing one-of-a-kind, complex legal documents.

In sales and marketing, structured content can be applied to sales and marketing collateral as well as contact center documents. The revenue opportunities in the sales and marketing department include developing a reusable library of proven RFPs and content to improve win rates. That reusable library also helps to reduce the costs of goods sold by reducing the time and costs associated with developing proposals and business correspondence. Predefined, reusable content components with approved language and standard terms and conditions mitigate risks by ensuring the accuracy of contracts and legally binding agreements.

In service and support, you can use structured content for maintenance and repair, technical support and training documents. To increase revenues, you could increase aftermarket sales through maintenance and repair operations supported with structured content. Cost reductions may be realized through content reuse, which reduces editorial and publishing costs. Structured content helps mitigate the risk of noncompliance and potentially catastrophic equipment failure by ensuring personnel have consistent, up-to-date maintenance and repair information.

In corporate administration, structured content can benefit legal and regulatory, human resources, and finance and operations documents. Revenue growth can come from improving the ability to discover patents and IP documentation for ongoing growth and protection of revenue streams. Cost savings may be realized by reducing redundant editorial and publishing costs, which lowers the cost of publishing and maintaining standard documents. Finally, structured content can help reduce the risks of errors during the review process and through regulatory filings, demonstrating that you have compliance policies in place.

Clearly, these are just a few of many examples in which structured content can benefit the organization. The important takeaway is that you don’t have to live with your current content conundrums. You can relieve the pain and realize significant advantages by embracing structured content, in whatever department you happen to work.

Orginally authored by Dr. Bruce Sharpe, JustSystems

Solving the Provider Credentialing Paper Jam

Healthcare organizations are pressured to improve productivity and reduce costs, while meeting high quality standards and protecting patient confidentiality.

There are multiple workflows within multiple functional groups involved in patient care or physician credentialing that are ripe with inefficiencies. This article focuses on improving the workflow efficiencies in provider credentialing.

What is provider credentialing?
Hospitals are required to keep accurate records to verify that their physicians and other health care providers are adequately trained, certified and/or licensed. For example, all physicians and allied health practitioners must provide evidence of:

• Medical malpractice insurance
• DEA certification (controlled substance)
• State licensure
• Other certifications as required, such as:
• ACLS - Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support
• PALS - Pediatric Advanced Life Support
• PA - Physician Assistant Certification
• NLS - Newborn Life Support
• TLS - certification for trauma practice

Credentialing Paper Jams
Each healthcare organization now deals with a lengthy application process in order to understand the entire background of the healthcare provider professional. The collection and verification of the provider’s credentialing data is a very time-consuming, paper intensive, and deadline sensitive process.

Keeping critical credentialing information in paper form can result in inefficiencies, which can be costly in:

• Lost time manually auditing backup records stored in binders and remote storage, finding misplaced documents, and filing paper documents
• Documentation errors
• Lack of documentation security
• The need to hire Temporary personnel to meet process deadlines
• Physician denial to practice if records have expired

Click here to begin taking advantage of our document management expertise!

What is Document Management?

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Digital Document Storage Reduces Costs

The average office worker spends up to half of their workday searching for simple information! No wonder it’s hard to increase production. A digital document storage system will not only increase worker productivity, but also reduce company costs.

Lost documents create ripples of inefficiency throughout any organization. Although small and medium sized organizations are often hit harder than large corporations, the effect is devastating across the board. In paper-based environments, digital document storage is a great alternative. These systems provide an easy-to-use, secure document storage alternative to ultimately boost productivity and reduce operating expenses.

Digital Document Imaging

The process of converting paper documents into electronic files serves as the catalyst for today’s innovative electronic document storage systems. These systems allow documents to be captured at their source and enable organizations to reduce manual operational errors which frequently result in lost or misplaced documents.

In general, today’s electronic storage systems are less expensive, more secure, easier to use and more reliable than traditional methods. Many companies can also choose to integrate scanning, storage and paper-to-digital technology into existing processes at any time for a more gradual and cost-effective transition.

Davis Business Machines can assist your organization today! Click here to begin taking advantage of our consultation expertise.

8 Document Management Practices that are Cost Effective and Eco Friendly

As leading economic indicators continue to signal a global economic slowdown, companies are looking for effective steps to take – such as lowering costs and streamlining operations – in order to weather the storm and achieve a competitive edge in the eventual recovery. At the same time, recent industry research shows that businesses also want to be more environmentally responsible.

There are several document management practices that can help companies reach both their environmental and cost-reduction goals. From the sustainability perspective, these practices can significantly reduce the use of paper, thereby saving trees, gas in shipping the paper, physical space to store it, and halting the eventual destruction of many files that end up in a landfill. According to the Environmental Paper Network, “If, for example, the United States cut its office paper use by roughly 10 percent, or 540,000 tons, greenhouse gases would fall by 1.6 million tons. This is the equivalent of taking 280,000 cars off the road for a year.”

Here are eight guidelines highlighting document management practices in the office that can benefit the environment and reduce costs:

1. The workgroup alternative

To the extent possible, replacing personal desktop printers with workgroup MFPs (multifunction peripherals that combine print/copy/scan/fax functionality in one machine) shared by departments can have a strong positive impact. One financial services company replaced 1,100 copiers and printers and 1,000 fax machines with 400 MFPs. The initiative eliminated 1,700 machines that no longer consume resources based on their manufacture, transportation, operation, maintenance, and eventual disposal.

2. Adopt scanning practices

Instead of copying and storing physical documents, organizations can scan and store electronically. Employees can retain digital copies that they can distribute electronically, and at the same time avoid accumulating files filled with paper.

As a conservative estimate, scanning can reduce paper consumption by one to three percent. In a recent industry survey, senior executives involved in document management indicated that document scanning has a high impact across the greatest range of business goals that include reducing costs, increasing competitive advantage, enhancing regulatory compliance, and improving customer service.

3. Default to duplex

Most multi-page documents don’t require the text to be printed on one side of the page. Newspapers, magazines and books use both sides (duplex printing). With effective fleet management it is possible to change office practices and make duplex printing of multi-page documents the norm. This can potentially decrease paper use by up to 50 percent.

4. Eliminate printing banner pages

A banner page is the extra page that prints before an employee’s file prints with username and machine name information. Gartner’s research estimates that organizations can reduce their consumables cost by up to 20 percent by eliminating banner pages from office print jobs. Banner pages can represent up to a quarter of pages printed for some typical office print jobs. A 1,000 person organization could cut up 1.6 million pages and save $33,500 per year by eliminating banner page printing (“Cost Cutting Initiatives for Office Printing,” Sharon McNee and Ken Weilerstein, Feb. 2008.)

5. Bulk up

Buying paper and toner in bulk can reduce transportation, packaging, and storage resources. Buying in bulk also often results in cost savings.

6. Leverage “smart” technologies

Enterprises can use MFP “smart” technologies such as Personal Mail Box, Fax-from-Desktop, Scan-to-Email/File Folder, and Document Routing in order to decrease paper and chemicals used in printing. This can reduce paper usage by up to three percent.

7. Implement user authentication

With as many as one in 10 documents sent to the printer and uncollected or sent again before collection to correct user errors, enterprises could reduce ad hoc print costs by up to 10 percent by implementing a PIN authentication system.

8. Put more text on each page

Paper usage can be reduced by changing a few default settings that will result in more text on each page. For example, in MS Word, you can go to “File,” then to “Page Setup” and set the margins to accommodate more text. Compared to the normal settings, this could use up to 14 percent less paper. Additionally, when printing, you can reduce font size to 10 point to decrease the amount of paper required.

Davis Business Machines can assist your organization today! Click here to begin taking advantage of our consultation expertise

Originally authored by Ken Neal, a Certified Enterprise Content Management Practitioner.

Controlling Document Overload

When you have one or more groups in an enterprise, utilizing a document management system will provide storage, easy access and control of large information caches.

As workgroups grow larger, the data in the system continues to grow with it. In document management systems, different sets of data are stored in different styles and fonts. Document management solution companies work on systems so anyone within a workgroup can access information.

Good document management software is judged by the accuracy, simplicity and availability of the information access methods. Most systems have a login that will not allow people without proper authentication to view the data. If the data is stolen, the system should be able to restore the lost document without losing format or information.

Document management systems keep data retrieval fast and simple through two approaches:

1. Knowledge based retrieval.
2. Key wording.

Knowledge based retrieval collects all the information and creates structured groups based on words, phrases, functions, or any other particular subject. Key wording retrieval identifies the content through specific keywords. These systems are great for growing companies to make organization of data simple and easy to search through.

There’s a reason why everyone else is doing it

Some people may ask why most businesses are beginning to implement an electronic document management system when hard copy documents have driven businesses for years?

These electronic systems provide searchable access to scanned information, create a disaster recovery plan and ensure government regulatory compliance. All these things enable better business decisions and smoother customer service interactions.

Many businesses are under the incorrect assumption that paper documents are somehow free. The fact is that the cost of managing paper documents may be more expensive than digital management alternatives.

The Cost of Paper Filing
Consider an average three-drawer filing cabinet. You have the cost of the actual cabinet, the cost of the folders, the cost of the paper prints and copies, and the cost of renting a space to keep the cabinet. Then you have to take in consideration the time it takes to copy, categorize and file documents in paper folders. Every time you need information you’ll have to physically search for the documents that could easily have been misfiled or misplaced.

Documents can be stolen; fires, floods or other natural disasters can wipe out your entire business.

Fortunately, there is a better way.
Electronic Document Management technologies allow you to create a secure and searchable archive of your business information. One 100 GB disk can store over 2,000,000 pages of information and replace over 100 filing cabinets. Documents can be shared over networks so even if one computer is lost, the information isn’t.

What seems to be the better option to you?