Uber, the world’s largest taxi company owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media company, creates no content. Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. We recognize technology is changing the way we live and interact with other people, businesses and the world around us. We need to embrace change and recognize new technologies.
New products and services can be our opportunity to differentiate and outperform competitors. We at Identifi have to challenge ourselves everyday to recognize change and create new opportunities for ourselves, our customers and Identifi.
Leadership is changing too. Leadership today is about sharing. One of the ways to share is to challenge those around you. We all know the grind. Sometimes it is all consuming. Pile on to the grind, a customer, boss or coworker presents us with something we don’t agree with for whatever reason, how should we respond?
We need more than company mission statements and vision statements to help us. We need reinforcement. We need core values to guide us.
Who better to define our core values than those of us who are hands-on people we can lean on, guiding you every day to make you successful? Toward that end we asked our Leadership team to craft them. We want to thank Chris Oppenheimer, Christie Russell, Jim Bryant, Matt Ullery, Stacy Paz and Tricia Lolkus for taking on the challenge and through months of meetings of minds produced Identifi’s Core Values. These Core Values also couldn’t have been done without the help of all of Identifi. We did an exercise whereby everyone at Identifi had an opportunity to whiteboard and choose the words that best define us. Our Core Values define our business and the people who are Identifi.
Check out our new Identifi website where you can find our Core Values on our new About Us page!
We at Identifi can "identify" with how hectic and demanding the holiday season can be. It was Billy Jean King who said "pressure is a privilege."
At the same time, we all need to take a deep collective breath, relax and enjoy our family and friends.
Here's some advice from someone who shall forever remain anonymous.
"Break the rules. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly. Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably, and NEVER REGRET anything that makes you SMILE."
Happy Holidays from Identifi!
Yes. The old man in the middle is wearing a sweater with a Santa sloth.
A big "Thank You!" to our Identifi customers, partners and our friends at Canon for attending this year's conference and making our conference a success!
Comments from Identifi Customer Conference Attendees
Photo Gallery - A good time was had by all!
We had some fun #teambuilding at Identifi's home offices in Safety Harbor , Florida on a hot day. Each of four teams competed to creatively dress large inflatable ducks we floated on the pond behind our sales and admin/conference center buildings. We then voted to determine the winner of the Duck Wars. Rather than reveal the winner, you are welcome to vote yourselves (use the Get in Touch link at the top right of your screen) on which duck, captioned below, you determine to be the winner! Check out our Fire Quacker video!
What are technology gaps? HR sends an email to a new hire Gmail account who’s not yet on-board. In the email are attachments that need to be completed, signed and returned before his first day of work. The email goes to the new hire’s spam folder, that’s a technology gap.
A technology gap is where your manual business processes and loosely coupled technology creates a gap between work steps. Work that needs to get done doesn’t get done. In-between all of the steps, where one task ends and another starts is where can get lost.
These technology gaps exist because there is no one system managing all the work steps in a process. One step could be a manual step, another step may use email, another step could use Salesforce, another step uses a spreadsheet, and another uses PDF forms.
Manual inefficiencies happen when you have too many manual steps with different technologies or no technologies, for example, you are emailed a PDF form to fill out, sign and return. You have to fill it out, print it, manually sign it, scan it in and then email it back. Technology inefficiencies happen when too much technology or too difficult to use technology to accomplish a simple task.
Technology gaps go unnoticed because there is no system making sure work gets done. Using a system like Identifi to control the entire process makes it possible, so nothing falls into technology gaps.
With a system managing all the steps, all work gets completed, gaps cease to exist. It’s a good feeling when you know customers, prospects, vendors, and employees won’t be upset because something vital to them didn’t get done. Then you think about it, and wonder are all the steps getting done efficiently? Do you have manual inefficiencies or technology inefficiencies getting in your way? Since the system gathers data and provides reports online for every step in the process, we have information that can tell us which steps have inefficiencies. The data will tell us which work steps in the process are slowing down sales, customers, employees or vendors. We will have information to compare employee performances to others to identify those who need more training or recognize which steps have too high of a learning curve.
Using the strengths of the system and the strengths of the people together create the most accurate and efficient processes.
1. People are better at solving problems where rules don’t exist, and systems are better where rules are defined. Your process is a known set of business rules, and the system is better at managing the entire process. Each step in the process represents different work to be performed; some work steps are clearly defined, like ordering a background check and making sure it gets done, and the system can achieve this better. Other steps like collaborating with a customer on design are better if done by a person.
2. People are better at dealing with unexpected results, where systems are better when results are predictable. A customer service person is better at dealing with a customer when the customer's three-year-old child has a meltdown. Systems are better at dealing with items that have a defined timeframe to be finished and what to do when it does not get done.
3. People are better at tasks in 3-D, like cooking, cleaning, and driving, all lower-skilled jobs. People are also better at complex mental jobs, highly skilled jobs, like surgery. Today you may question if a person is better at driving than a system. In the definition of better, if we include costs, then people are better at 3-D lower skilled jobs. Sure a system may soon be able to drive better, however at what cost. Vast amounts of money have already gone to driverless research and development, and a lot more money will be needed before we have systems capable of doing all the driving. It is not possible for most companies today to spend the research and development necessary to replace all 3-D low skilled jobs. Despite what we read, artificial intelligence is not going to replace all jobs anytime soon.
4. People are better at being Human, showing empathy, creativity, making people laugh, the human touch is essential and at least for some time will not be duplicated.
Benetrends Financial implemented Identifi’s Business Process Automation and Document Imaging system for their new client onboarding. They were able to eliminate the emailing of PDF forms, clients filling out PDF's, manually signing documents and returning them via scanning or the post office. With Business Process Automation they were able to convert all the forms to online web forms, add online electronic signatures, integrate their CRM data to the Business Process Automation and allow the client to do everything on a smartphone, tablet or PC while gathering data on the overall process performance.
Tim Jagodzinski is the VP of Business Development at Identifi with 28 years working with Business Process Automation and Document Imaging. tjagodzinski@identifi.net
Identifi enjoys the company and considerable banter from our four Veterans. Billy Hartman, Marines E5, Chris Baston, Air Force E-5, Frank Marcario, Army E6 and Tom Pioli, Navy Chief Petty Officer . They are always trying to best one another, Army Navy, Air Force or Marines!
In Billy's own words. While I was in DC for a running event, my wife and I decided to take a walk through Arlington National Cemetery. I watched the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, looked at the names and dates on various headstones, visited a special hero from our area, and watched people throw their coins on the JFK burial site while staring at the Eternal Flame. At each of the locations I visited, I noticed handfuls of older veterans.
It wasn't until the Marine Corps War Memorial that I realized that something special was happening, but I wasn't sure what it was. The veterans were all being wheeled up to the memorial and I was approached by one of the people lining these men and women up. She asked if I would mind taking some pictures of her and her friends.
I always want to help out where I can, especially for a group of veterans. I must have taken a few dozen pictures. I was having fun and they seemed to be OK with me taking lots of pictures too. While I was taking their pictures, everyone that was not part of the group was pushed back behind a barrier and my wife snapped the picture of me taking pictures of the group. When I realized another 2 of 3 rows had been formed behind me (in front of the steps), I gave their phones back to them and they asked to take my picture and thanked me for helping them out. I told them it was my pleasure to help out some fellow veterans.
At that point, I showed them my USMC t-shirt and they all lit up smiling, shaking my hand, and became much more talkative. I snuck off to the side and found my wife. I walked back to our hotel and talked about how cool it was to be able to help out the group of veterans. I posted a few pictures of our day. About an hour past when a family member told us what was happening in the picture. These weren't just any random group of veterans. These were Honor Flight Veterans from South Florida. I had never really heard of Honor Flights before that weekend. It is truly an honor to think that I was a very small part of their trip.
Veterans Day is the anniversary of the signing of the armistice, which ended the World War I hostilities between the Allied nations and Germany in 1918. On this day our Veterans are thanked for their services to the United States. Thanks guys! No doubt there will be plenty of banter over why Billy is getting all the attention. Billy ran the 2018 43rd MCM Marine Corp. Marathon in Arlington, VA. Not bad for a Marine. Identifi is proud of Billy, Chris, Frank and Tom. Thank you for your service!
To keep you up to date on some new Identifi Work Business Process Automation product enhancements we have a video that focuses on the accounts payable approval process with Oracle integration. Keep in mind that you can apply workflows to any business process to increase efficiencies. At Identifi we are always improving our software.
Please call 727-725-4507 ext. 2 or email sales@identifi.net if you have any questions or would a quote for the workflow software.
Next year 2019, in October is the Identifi User/Training Conference, we hope to see you at the Sheraton Sand Key Resort on Clearwater Beach, Florida October 23rd – 25th 2019.