Leveraging Your Document Repository

Transcription

1 Leveraging Your Document Repository A Practical Guide to Online Content Management Page 1

2 Key Concepts Page The Document Explosion 3 Practical Reasons to Deploy ECM 5 Gartner s ECM Maturity Model 7 Mapping Your Route 8 Don t Forget to Pack a Lunch 9 Look at Your Document Types 11 Already en Route? 14 The Solution Document Imaging 18 Five Practical Next Steps 21 Page 2

3 The Document Explosion The volume of paper documents that businesses must process has increased ten fold in the last five years, making document management a major drain on resources. This is especially true in organizations that manage most of their documents in hard copy (vs. electronic). In document intensive organizations like Financial Institutions, the quality of customer service delivery is tied inextricably to the ease with which front office staff can access documents like statements, loans and Know Your Customer (KYC) content. The harder it is to get to them, the lower the quality of service you can deliver. Yet customers expect to receive real time responsiveness from their service providers. And if you can t provide it, there s always someone else, waiting in the wings, ready, willing and able to take your place. Your competitors will eat your lunch if you let them Page 3

4 Technology Culprit and Cure Technology has facilitated this explosion in document volumes. Thankfully, it has also provided the solutions needed to manage the problem it has enabled. By adopting a smart approach to your Enterprise Content Management (ECM), you can map and execute a path to online document access one where your staff no longer need to shuffle through storage cabinets and file folders to respond efficiently to customer inquiries or auditor s demands. Giving People Access to Content When you take it down to the bare bones, the argument for adopting a smart ECM strategy is both compelling and obvious: empower your people with easy access to the documents and content they need to do their jobs and they will become more efficient and more productive. There are three key reasons to adopt and execute a smart ECM strategy: Page 4

5 Practical Reasons to Deploy ECM Efficiency Innovation Innovation & Agility are keys to growth Remove barriers to communication & collaboration Help the organization respond to change Give Give people people ready ready access access && enable enable them them to to be be more more productive Empower Empower them them to to make make informed informed decisions decisions Reduce Reduce costs costs related related to to content content creation creation && storage storage Compliance Complying with internal policies, industry regulations and legal requirements Demonstrate that standards and procedures are in place and being followed And these three reasons, in turn, deliver three key benefits: Page 5

6 Resulting Business Benefits 1 Reduce 2 3 Improve Costs associated with printing, Information storage and availability retrieval Information Time wasted on security manual search and retrieval Customer service Ensure Disaster recovery Business continuity Regulatory compliance Page 6

7 Gartner s ECM Maturity Model 1 To develop a smart ECM roadmap, you first need to develop a baseline that establishes where you are on the ECM continuum. Leading analyst organization, Gartner, has developed a very useful ECM Maturity Model that can help you to achieve this. The Gartner ECM Maturity Model defines six levels of ECM maturity for any organization: Non existent Initial Developing Defined Managed Optimized Where do you fit on the Continuum? 1 Gartner and The Gartner ECM Maturity Model are trade marks of Gartner Group Page 7

8 Gartner s ECM Maturity Model Page 8

9 Mapping Your Route As you map out and progress along your journey to master the control and access to documents and content, Gartner s ECM Maturity model will help you understand what stage you are at and what should logically be done next. This helps guide the decisions you need to make regarding the logistical, practical and legal issues you ll face as you evolve the on line document management processes you need to effectively manage content across your organization. By focusing on the ECM Maturity Model, you will be able to: Define your ECM baseline, positioning you to address future needs Define the right expertise required to deploy solutions/projects Prioritize the goals for each ECM initiative, based on wider business needs Understand how each business area can take advantage of ECM initiatives Page 9

10 Don t Forget to Pack a Lunch (or two)! Gartner makes several important observations with respect to the maturity model and how an organization can progress along it. The top three are the ones that you need to be aware of: Achieving broad based improvement in your ECM processes is a multi year journey for any organization and each organization will likely end up taking a unique route to their final destination Document management should not be viewed as just a departmental initiative. It is increasingly becoming a required IT focus that needs an enterprise wide business driven approach to planning and execution ECM maturity is about achieving the right level for your organization in terms of both the end goal and the number of steps and the direction you take to get there Page 10

11 Start Small Gartner goes on to explain that it is much easier to deploy and benefit from ECM if you focus on addressing specific business issues/problems. So, while your ECM strategy should be anchored in enterprise wide thinking, the individual projects that you initiate on your journey can and should be manageable enough to be championed and driven by business unit managers. Next Steps So, if you ve established a smart ECM strategy that makes sense, and used the Garner ECM Maturity Model to understand where you are today and what your next logical step should be, what happens next? How do you know what document management project to embrace? Look at Your Document Types As a Financial Institution you have lots of customers with whom you do steady business. This business requires continual communications and a constant flow of documents. The majority of these documents fall into three broad categories: Page 11

12 1. Point in Time Documents Point in time documents are periodic summaries of business activities, typically incorporating a snapshot of things like account balances. Familiar examples are statements or investment updates. These tend to be high volume, system generated print and mail pieces that are mailed monthly, quarterly or annually. You may have already adopted an e statement solution that is helping to: Provide staff and customers with easier and faster access to these documents online Drive print suppression initiatives, resulting in savings in: Print Paper Storage Postage Staff Costs Three Document Types Page 12

13 2. Activity Documents Activity documents record the individual interactions between companies, customers and regulatory agencies. These include a broad range of documents such as cheques, confirms, contracts and lending documentation. Activity documents are often signed to formalize transactions, which means traditional archival involves the physical storage of large quantities of paper. This storage, and any required retrieval can end up costing a great deal in both time and money. 3. Relationship Documents For Financial Institutions, Know your Customer (KYC) refers to the mandatory processes required to prevent illegal activities such as fraud, money laundering and terrorism financing. In a broader sense, KYC refers to systems and procedures designed to help organizations to positively identify their members. Often this is achieved by keeping hard copies of account opening applications, complete with signature cards and photo identification. Page 13

14 Already En Route? Many Financial Institutions have already adopted an e statement strategy. Often they have also chosen to put their cheque images or confirms online too, which means the vast majority of their key point in time documents are already accessible online for staff and members alike. It also means that they already have the fundamental building blocks in place to execute their own smart ECM roadmap. These include: Access to a document repository or archive that likely has all the capabilities required to check in/check out documents and manage version control Established rules and responsibilities regarding user access and permissions and document security Staff that are trained in the use of the repository and already familiar with the processes to access documents online Page 14

15 What issues are you facing today? In most cases, however, these same Financial Institutions are still producing and storing the majority of their activity and relationship documents in hard copy format. And the issues that come with hard copy document storage and retrieval are numerous: Operational Issues Too much employee time spent locating, retrieving and re filing documents Delays and costs incurred when trying to address customer inquiries Staff can t easily gain access to member related files across multiple locations Problems associated with locating mislaid, missing or simply out of file documents Financial Issues Excessive costs in storing and retrieving paper documents from offsite storage facilities when required Paper documents stored onsite can be lost in the event of a fire or a flood Page 15

16 Compliance Issues Inadequate security associated with hard copy document filing systems Inability to easily locate documents when needed for an audit Inability to efficiently share Know Your Customer information between locations Difficulty to control and audit document access in hard copy filing systems Storing business documents in hard copy format reduces staff efficiency, impacts customer service delivery and leads to compliance issues Page 16

17 The Solution Document Imaging While it makes the most sense to reduce/eliminate the production of hard copy documents in the first place, this is often much more easily said than done. Why? Because it typically means some serious heavy lifting to change/update/ replace core back end business applications. Projects like this can take months to plan and years to complete. But this doesn t mean that the documents you produce in your day to day business need to stay in hard copy format in perpetuity. By implementing a document imaging initiative, Financial Institutions can leverage all the benefits to be gained from online document storage and access and save money en route as well. Page 17

18 Document What? document imaging involves the scanning and indexing of all key hard copy documents into an online repository. By doing this, staff across multiple locations can access them easily and securely, in real time, leading to vastly improved customer service levels, greater document security, improved compliance and a significantly reduced need for on site and off site document storage. Page 18

19 What to Look For? When selecting a document imaging solution there are a number of things you should look out for. It s worth spending a little time researching options to ensure that the solution you adopt: Provides support for both industry standard scanner drivers (ISIS/Twain) Offers easy set up and configuration or will the vendor be able to help Has an easy to understand, intuitive user interface Offers database look up to facilitate auto indexing Offers OCR (Optical Character Recognition) support Provides separator page management for multi document batches Supports missing form/document alerts Has powerful bar code reading capabilities Supports XML meta data creation Is compatible with your existing document repository Assists with indexing existing electronic files like Word and Excel Provides centralized indexing for multiple scanners Page 19

20 Document Imaging Benefits Executing a document imaging initiative has many benefits. Even if you just start with one document type like KYC documents or loan documents, your organization will start to benefit immediately : BENEFIT TIME LINE Cost Savings Increased Staff Productivity Increased Document Security Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery Enhanced Fraud Prevention Enhanced Customer Service Improved Compliance Achieved In Just a Few Months Immediate Immediate Immediate Immediate Immediate Immediate Page 20

21 How To Get Started? OK, so let s assume that you ve decided that you want to leverage your existing online document repository to put more documents online for faster, easier access. What next? Two things: 1. Decide which document types you want to attack first here are some examples: KYC Documents Photo cards Signature cards Acct. opening agreements Lending Documents Loans Leases Mortgages Deposit Items Cheques Teller receipts Remittance slips Confirms 2. Follow our easy five step process designed to help you get started and keep going Page 21

22 Five Steps to Success 1) Do A Business Assessment Industry studies indicate that there are four primary drivers behind ECM adoption : Cost reduction Enhanced customer service Ensuring business continuity Regulatory compliance When setting your strategic ECM goals, it makes a lot of sense to assess your needs in each of these areas, as different drivers will often help you identify where to focus first. 2) Pinpoint your Maturity Level Work out where you are on the Gartner Maturity Model. Page 22

23 3) Take a Phased Approach Find some quick wins that are easy to implement and help prove the benefits of ECM within your organization. This will help justify the continued investment and support. 4) Benefit Realization At the end of each implementation phase, whatever that might be, measure the benefits realized so that you can continue to invest. This measurement should cover both return on your investment and value add on the investment. 5) Leverage Your Investments If you already have an e statements solution in place the heavy lifting associated with providing access to a suitable document repository/archive has already been completed. Now all you need to do is make sure that the archive is leveraged to maximum value. Page 23

24 And Finally. When adopting and evolving your ECM strategy, don t forget to keep these three important watch words in mind: Think BIG Start SMALL And GROW Steadily Page 24

25 End Note Doxim easycapture Doxim provides a turnkey scanning solution designed to work seamlessly with the Doxim ECM repository. Doxim easycapture, is a production level document capture software that combines robust document scanning and indexing with a friendly userinterface, allowing users to easily scan, index and store critical business documents in their repository for secure online access. By using Doxim easycapture, staff across multiple locations can access documents in real time, leading to enhanced customer service levels, greater document security, improved compliance and a reduced need for on site and off site document storage. To find out more about Doxim easycapture visit us at: Page 25