There’s a great series on the History Channel, called “Life After People”.  The series explores what happens to our cities, buildings and bridges without people to maintain them.  In just days, our very infrastructure we take for granted, our tunnels and subways will become flooded.  Transportation will cease.  Power will be cut.  Our planet begins to look like this (click on thumbnails).

Here is a trailer to the series.  Living After People.

Most of our competitor’s Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions, a.k.a., document imaging or COLD, are considered ancillary (secondary) products.  What happens when your provider’s resources are pulled from ECM product development to concentrate their resources on their core competency?

There's a series is in the works, it’s called “Living without Legacy”.  It’s about living with an erosion in talent; living with meager or no updates; living with Band-Aid fixes (patches).

Technology is not slowing down, it’s speeding up.  The faster technology changes the faster software applications must change to keep you competitive in your industry.

Integra Business Systems, Inc. develops ECM products for financial institutions and the financial services industry.  We own our technology.    We develop in ASP.Net and .Net.  Our iDentifi.net (follow link) product line is web-based.

To learn more about the products you need and best practices, go to the post, Imaging Horsepower, a post on this Blog which has appeared in both ICBA Magazine and online at Credit Union Magazine.

Imaging Horsepower is now available on Credit Union Magazine's website.

http://www.creditunionmagazine.com/articles/imaging-horsepower?

A successful ECM implementation means credit union staff must find the software easy to use. An ECM application using the ubiquitous browser is a good choice for searching for documents. Who isn’t familiar with the Internet browser? This reduces the cost and time to train employees, especially in positions with high turnover.

"To Scan or Not to Scan - Counting the costs of imaging systems - and of not using them" is an article written by Katie Kuehener-Hebert published in ICBA Magazine's February issue.

As a contributor to the article, Wiessner made the following observations..., "To get a more accurate ROI, community banks should calculate both the hard and soft costs of their current operations and compare those with the costs and savings after investing in an imaging system, vendors advise. "The greatest ROI in deploying an ECM system today is in reducing labor costs by increasing the efficiency of processing and retrieving documents;' offers Alan Wiessner, chief executive of Integra Business Systems Inc., a document imaging provider in Safety Harbor, Fla.

"Banks often discount these soft-cost savings because they fail to recognize they can either eliminate or repurpose employees to reduce costs or to increase productivity, which is essential for growth:' Reducing or  eliminating printing costs provides the best ROI in terms of hard dollars savings, Wiessner says. These costs include faxing, copying and distributing paper, estimated at 6 to 14 cents a page, depending on the printer, fax or copy machine used. "But banks don't always know the true amount of these costs because of all the shadow copies employees may be making;' he says. Those are the copies of documents that employees may be making;' he says. Those are the copies of documents that employees in the branches or other areas of the bank make so they don't have to take the time to retrieve documents from the bank's legacy systems in its centralized operations.  Sometimes it can take days, but customers needing information off of those documents won't tolerate waiting:' 

By potentially eliminating these shadow costs, the costs of hardware such as multifunction printers or scanners can often be easily justified, Wiessner continues. One example he gives: Desktop scanners can cost less than $1,000 for each branch. ROI should come within 6 to 18 months of implementation of an enterprise content management system, particularly if it's a Web based system.

How can iDentifi.net give you a Return on Investment (ROI)?

Contact us at sales@identifi.net. for an indepth study and analysis.

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What’s under the hood of a new generation of document imaging systems?

Best practices in document imaging was defined by large, clunky and expensive scanners for images and optical jukeboxes for storage. In the early 2000s centralized scanning and research was the norm due to limitations in networking technology and the associated hardware costs.  

Desktop computing has morphed into notebook computers and mobile devices.  Every year American businesses generate over 2 trillion documents. At our current rate of information exchange that number will increase every three years.  On the average, a community bank manager can spend 30 minutes to three hours a day (or three months per year) searching for documents.

Internal intranets have replaced local area networks as the preferred method for businesses, including community banks, to share information. This translates into many more documents and many new document types for banks to manage. To deal with the increases in content, document imaging and Computer Output Laser Disk (COLD) has been replaced by Enterprise Content Management (ECM).

More documents to manage on internet time means availability and access to documents must be fast and secure.  Lower-priced scanners and the proliferation of multifunction printers make it easier to capture documents at their source.  Add privacy policies, ever increasing regulation and compliance pressure, compel community banks to use ECM effectively to manage their documents.  Best practices for an ECM system must address several key areas.

Easy to use.

A successful implementation of ECM means the bank employee must find the software easy to use.  An ECM application using the ubiquitous browser is a good choice for searching for documents.  Who isn’t familiar with the internet browser?  This reduces the bank’s cost and the time to train employees, especially in areas of high turnover. It can be as easy as the “Back” button. To compete and to communicate effectively in our new world, documents must be easily accessible to bank employees from a multitude of sources.  Today many documents are “born digital,”  where documents include e-mail and e-mail attachments, text, Web content, word processing documents (such as board minutes and spreadsheets for accounting), digital photos and video.

Fresh off the presses, this post also appears as an article titled "Imaging Horsepower"  that appears in September 2010  ICBA Magazine. It emphasizes best practices and it certainly plays to our strengths! Warning, it's a yawn if you're not looking to add ECM or improve your current ECM solution.

The Web is always on.  Bank customers have online banking and can bank anywhere and at anytime.  Bank employees need access to customer documents too, anywhere and anytime. With ECM software a bank employee in a branch could retrieve an image of their ID or Signature card for identification purposes.  If there was no ID on file they could scan it locally, at their desk.  They could take an application for a loan, scan the application and ID to an electronic folder, notifying the credit department to process the application, get it approved and back to the branch employee to complete the loan.  This can reduce the chance of fraud, satisfy regulatory compliance, such as the USA Patriot Act and save the customer time.

An ECM product can also employ an eSignature application which allows bank customers to eSign deposit and loan documents.  Instead of printing to a laser printer the print job is sent to the eSignature application.  All pages appear on the display for signing on a digitizing pad or tablet PC.  One major advantage to an eSignature solution is the capability to predefine all signature areas, initials and number of signers on a document or document set.  The signing process cannot be completed until all signatures and initials have been completed. This saves time, especially if the bank employee has conducted the signing at the bank customer’s home or office.

eSignature can eliminate or substantially reduces printing costs.  The bank’s eSigned copy is automatically stored to the ECM archive.  The customer can opt to receive the eSigned documents by e-mail, on a thumb drive or the documents can still be printed after the signing.  eSignature comes with the added benefit that bank documents no longer need to be printed, signed and then scanned into the ECM archive.  This saves both time and money.

Easy to implement.

Community banks rely heavily on IT for the latest and greatest technology necessary to compete with larger banks and comply with ever increasing government regulation.  An ECM application that is easy to deploy (one click installation) and receives unattended updates via a secure Web server is ideal for a busy IT department.  ECM applications, once written for the desktop PC (legacy applications), are now written for the Web.  Today’s ECM platform should include one-click technology to deploy the ECM application across the enterprise to multiple locations easily and efficiently.  Again, time and money saved.

Many community bank branches have invested in multifunction printers, which include the ability to scan documents.  An ECM system can compatible with MFP devices is a plus.   The availability of bar-coded documents from most new account and loan origination vendors make scanned documents easier to identify and archive. Documents can be captured (imaged) in the branch, then indexed and store centrally by the ECM system and accessed by any user across the enterprise who has been given the rights to access them.

The ability to drag and drop “born digital” documents into the ECM system, easily identify and file these documents from a multitude of sources is essential.

Secure.

Some would argue making documents available via the browser is risky.  Which is more secure?  A file folder on someone’s desk or encrypted documents in a secure file folder stored on a secure server in a secure location accessible only via a private network?  Many community banks have multiple lines of business, which require multiple levels of document security. For example, someone in new accounts may not be allowed to access loan documents.  Other personnel may need to access both new accounts and loan documents but only customer related documents.  They may need to be restricted from access to employee only documents and human resources. With an ECM system, multiple layers of user security down to the document level is possible.  Only the persons that have been given the rights to view the document can view it.

Compliance, completing a successful audit.

Internal audits as well as audits from state and federal governments can be conducted much more quickly and efficiently with ECM.  An ECM system that employs document tracking allows the bank to define which documents are needed for every type of deposit or loan transaction.  Document tracking can determine if all the associated documents have been archived or if documents are missing.  Reminders are created and e-mail or printed notices are sent when a recurring document (such as financial statements or certificates of insurance) is needed.  If documents are missing reports, notices are sent to the responsible bank employees and managers. Logs show an audit trail.

Your ECM vendor must produce and keep current, a vendor management package.  The package must include information such as SAS70 certification, audited financials, a security agreement, acceptable use policy, password policy, termination policy and a disaster recovery plan, to name a few  documents and policies required by community banks from their ECM vendor.

Legality.

An ECM system should include a log that will record when a document has been viewed, printed, e-mailed or whether a document has been revised. It will display by default the current version of the document and also keep older revisions.  Document retention policies can be set on each document type as to the length of time the documents are will be viewable, when they are moved to long term archive or when they are destroyed.

Documents will not be moved or destroyed without the administrator of the ECM system being notified and given the option to change the document(s) status. Any eSigned document that is altered will cause the eSignature to be replaced by a large red “X” in the signature areas.

Disaster recovery.

A co-location facility is recommended to be either manned by a third-party provider with the technical skills to back up your mission critical applications and be located within one day’s vehicle travel from the primary facility.  Community banks that may not be able to take advantage of the latest ECM technology due to cost or lack of IT resources can employ an ECM solution from a Software as a Service (SaaS) provider.  Most SaaS models will include disaster recovery which essential to an ECM deployment in today’s world of regulation, compliance and security.

Go Green, Save Money.

ECM software can cut down on the cost of printing, reprinting, faxing, postage and courier runs.  If everyone across the enterprise has the ability to view the documents they need, there is no need to keep “shadow” copies of the documents and files in multiple locations.  This saves money and also makes for good press.  Community banks that already have a “Go Green” initiative or wish to implement one can say with confidence their ECM product saves trees.

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Business is improving, despite all the obstacles in this unpredictable economy that remain and those ahead of us.  This is largely self-fulfilling prophecy as our engine runs on premium personnel and our management team isn’t half-bad either.

We have invested a great deal in new products and new markets.  I’m a big fan of Alan Kay’s expression, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

I guess you could say this message comes somewhat diluted by the BP oil spill.  Accidents, like the BP oil spill and natural disasters are unpredictable but they are going to happen.  I can see the raw and gut-wrenching effects as they unfold for our neighbors in the Gulf States and the Florida Panhandle.  We are certainly not exempt from the fallout.  We are also far more fortunate.

There’s little one can do in the moment but there is much that can be done to either prevent an occurrence or deal as effectively as possible with the results.  Unless of course, your government gets in the way.  That’s a whole other topic.

I believe we are as well prepared as we can be to limit the impact of most natural disasters.  Arguably we are and will be impacted on a financial and personal level as well.  To what extent will be born out by the actions, performance and lessons learned by others.  Certainly, we are far more fortunate.

There is still no consensus on when and where the economy will improve.  I spend a great deal of time measuring and evaluating circumstances as they may affect our business.

You can watch Fox News or CNN but our success or failure has little or nothing to do with the economy, politicians or other outside factors.  It has to do with you and me.  It has to do with the quality and functionality of our products and services.  It has to do with how we deliver our products and services!  It has to do with how we choose and treat our customers and our partners.

We are nothing to big business or big government in terms of our success or failure.  We are everything onto ourselves.  We will not succeed or fail due to outside influences.  We will only fail if we are cannot deliver excellence on all levels, products, customer service, implementation and ongoing support. 

Conversely, big business and big government need us to succeed. Theirs has become a global problem.  They have simply ignored the entrepreneur; unless, of course, the entrepreneur is holding the glass slipper.  Small businesses are mostly carriages of pumpkins and mice out there delivering the goods.  There are very few Cinderella stories.  Once delivered, even when the glass slipper fits we continue working well past the ballroom festivities which has become, as intended, a fantasy.  We are soon  forgotten.  When the carriage of big government and horses of big business are stabled and their cats are away, the mice, small business people, you and I, will come out to play.  Small business can be very resourceful, if left alone.

You can save a tree and save money!   It’s true. Eliminate paper and you’ll improve the bottom line. It’s also true that if a vendor says they’ll get rid of every scrap of paper in your office you should run the other way!!! “Document nirvana” aside, there are many things your organization can do right now to cut costs, manage compliance and improve access to critical information by eliminating paper from each process.

This is a comment from one of our customers, "How did we ever do business without the ability to retrieve at the stroke of the keyboard every record in our operation instantly without worrying about looking through file cabinets and charts that were outgrowing the space we had in our office? And we had a great filing system compared to other medical operations!”

Document management has been around for years but often people think of it as just scanning checks or old paper archives. In fact, many folks implement a new system but continue to do everything else exactly the same as before. The only difference is that documents are now located inside electronic file folders instead of traditional ones.   While that makes it a bit easier to find something, a true document management system is capable of so much more in the drive to become paperless.

Another comment after going paperless, "The purchase of their system has allowed us to no longer store the voluminous amounts of paper that is indigenous to a medical practice. We estimate that the use of the identifi.net system has allowed us to store and instantly retrieve in excess of 1.5 million page equivalents. In the past, we needed 1 full time FTE plus ~1000 sq. ft. of filing/storage space plus the necessary supplies to create tens of thousands of file charts, etc. Additionally, there were immeasurable man-hours in pulling charts/files, looking through them for the applicable data and then copying the information needed. Today, we are able to administer our entire system with 0.20 FTE, no significant material costs, and instantaneous retrieval from every work station in our office. Additional hard disk space was one of our few other costs. We still have a number of lateral files that we would be happy to sell at fire sale prices!"  Jeffrey Grossman, KG Health Partners

More on going paperless...follow this link:

Let us know what you are doing to save money, save trees and go paperless?! Post your comments below.

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I want to share a recent presentation I did at the COCC User Conference about advancing the paperless office.  Of course we all know there's no such thing as the paperless office.  The real message to gain from my presentation is that we are dealing with more and more information, much of it content driven by social networking, mobile devices and Web 2.0.  We now own anytime - anywhere customers.  ECM can help manage the information tsunami that already exists today and will increase by a factor of 67 through 2020.  To enjoy the videos PAUSE the presentation and PLAY the embedded videos.  Enjoy!  

Select the link below:

Advancing the Paperless Office (use the Pause button to run videos)