AIIM Distributed Capture Report Available

Many of us have been talking about the ROI, trends and value of capture.  Check out the most recent report available on the AIIM.org website.  http://www.aiim.org/research/document-scanning-and-capture.aspx

 

Check it out!

  

The Next Killer App for ECM

Enterprise Content Management for the most part has become mainstream business.  The ability to scan documents from remote locations has been made increasingly easier by applications such as ILINX Capture and other web based scanning applications.  Indexing documents has been simplified with ODBC compliance and the maturity of systems integrators capabilities of integrating with ERP table structures.  System standards have allowed for ECM repositories to interface with ERP sessions where the users can work heads down in their legacy application and retrieve / view images from their desktop with little to no knowledge of the ECM application – see ILINX Integrate.

Accounts Payable has been the traditional starting point for most organizations in testing the waters for document imaging because it has a definable process, set business rules, and shows a reasonable ROI depending on the number of received images, discrepancies, and time it takes knowledge workers to process invoices.  Other repeatable processes include Contracts, Sales Order Processing, Legal, Shipping / Receiving, and HR Personnel Files. 

What will be the next Killer App?  In the past 2 years we at ImageSource have seen a great deal of consideration in HR on-Boarding process.   Understandably, it costs a lot of money to bring in new employees and involves a great deal of resources.  From the application process, to the processing of I-9 information, setting up payroll and direct deposit, insurance, issuance of equipment (laptop, cell phone, scanner) it is no slight undertaking.  Standard ECM solutions as well as products from Autonomy (see Liquid Office), this process can become automated and affordable for most organizations. 

From there, where do we go?  With the adoption of smart phones, almost everyone has a camera in their pocket at all times.  This can allow for the capturing of data – snapshot of a document, whiteboard drawing, and presentations can be captured immediately and then fed into the indexing process for ECM.  This expands the reach of content capture and protects the loss of important information.  Technical architecture is now compatible and flexible to allow for almost anything.  Nexus 2010 will provide some great ideas and visions for upcoming solutions.

What is next?  Feedback is welcome.

Jeff Blissett

Senior Account Executive

ImageSource, Inc.

jeffb@imagesourceinc.com

Multiple ECM Environments?

Multiple ECM environments are common, especially in larger organizations.  Departments are not likely to voluntarily change platforms so what do you do?  You connect the systems!  ImageSource, Inc.   has developed a suite of products for extending and integrating ECM solutions to allow you to leverage your investments.

  

How ECM Solutions can help Reduce Your Organization’s Cost and Carbon Footprint.

Happy New Year! Let’s go to work on Monday and save some trees and the environment! With the New Year upon us, it is a good time to review the way your organization manages its manual paper processes, i.e., Invoice Workflow, HR documentation, etc.

It has been my experience that once an organization has made the decision to investment into an Enterprise Content Management solution, they have significantly reduced the amount of manual processes, which in turn reduces cost and streamlines a once slow manual process. While this is a great thing and usually the main reason organizations make this investment, many have not considered the environmental benefit that an ECM solution can bring. I reflect back to the time that I worked in an office, that did not employ such technologies, and I remember all the paper that I used in order to share information. Did you know that the average American office worker is estimated to use a sheet of paper every 12 minutes—a ream per person every two and a half working weeks—and to dispose of 100-200 pounds of paper every year? Think about that statistic!  That is just one employee. Studies have also shown that the number of pages consumed in U.S. offices is growing by about 20% each year. This is huge when you think about this on a national and global scale. Because of this unnecessary paper creation, forests are being depleted and there is more pollution due to the creation and disposal of this paper. Over the years we have all gotten a little more conscious about recycling, however, only about 45% of the paper generated in the U.S. is recovered.

So with all of this said… what the solution is? One solution is to capture documentation when the document enters the organization. One can do this by using ILINX Capture to scan the document, once this is done the document no longer needs to be copied or recreated, it is now in electronic format. Better yet, if the document is email or faxed, ILINX can pull right from the source, electronically, and it never has to be printed at all, viola you have already saved a tree. That handles the capture aspect, but what about sharing information. Instead of a having a 200 page document copied five times to reviewed in a meeting, through ECM it can be easliy scanned an distributed electronically with our Image/Process Management Software. Now, I can write about many other bad habits that are due to not have having information electronically, but let’s talk about some real numbers. A Global Manufacture estimates an up to $10 billion cost reduction in the coming years through digitizing many of its processes. This company also has identified approximately $1.5 billion in potential cost-savings, WOW! A large Gas Company has saved 100 tons of paper and $320,000 through the use of making their processes electronic. A Global Aerospace company estimates savings of 8 million sheets of paper and $250,000 by digitizing one of its 100-page manuals.

So, when we all get back to the office from the holiday season, rethink what you do and what your organization does when it comes to collecting and sharing information. If you feel like you would like to learn more feel free to contact us ImageSource.

Happy New Year!

Shon D. Mueller
Senior Account Executive
ImageSource, Inc.
www.imagesourceinc.com

  

Tackling ECM in Higher Education Part Two

In Part One we talked about the problems encountered in Higher Education with departmental solutions, now let’s talk about how to fix it or more importantly how to prevent it from happening. The answer actually is pretty simple, if your thinking about implementing an Enterprise Content Management Solution then narrow your search to those companies that provide these products.  The term Enterprise Content Management is used very loosely today but by true definition is defined as “the strategies, methods and tools used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to organizational processes. ECM tools and strategies allow the management of an organization’s unstructured information, wherever that information exists”.  This new term is intended to completely encompass the legacy problem domains (“Islands of Information”) that have traditionally been addressed by records management and document management. It also includes all of the additional problems involved in converting to and from digital content, to and from the traditional media of those problem domains (such as physical and computerized filing and retrieval systems, often involving paper and microforms). Finally ECM has employed the technologies and strategies of (digital) content management to address business process issues, such as records and auditing, knowledge sharing, personalization and standardization of content, and so on. These products are also built on n Tier Architecture which is very scalable and provides easy integration into ERP products and supporting products mixes such as Enterprise Fax Solutions, Electronic Form Products and so on. Here at ImageSource we have built a plethora of tools under the ILINX Products Family that ties all the pieces together both effectively and transparently to provide a seamless solution.

Finally let’s talk about the cost, one of the questions I always hear regarding ECM is how much will this cost? There is no question a true ECM Solution will be more costly than a Departmental Solution, how much more really depends on the customer and how widely across the Enterprise they choose to deploy it. The good news is, you don’t have to do it all at once, and here lies the real attraction of a true ECM Solution, you can start small and eventually grow it to the Enterprise and not worry if this will meet my needs in two years. So ask yourself a simple question when evaluating Content Management Solutions, should I pay a little more upfront or pay less only to find out it will not meet ones needs in a couple of years and finally, think about the costs associated with migration of all that content you already have stored that will need to be moved over when your current solution can no longer support your organization.

City of Richland Wins InfoWorld 100 Award

Congratulations to the City of Richland, Wash. on winning the InfoWorld 100 Award! Richland streamlined their business processes utilizing different technologies, including ABBYY, ILINX, Oracle and others. Check out the Richland case study discussing their solution.

Case Study: http://imagesourceinc.com/CustomerSuccess/CaseStudies/CityofRichland/index.htm

Kristina Parma
ImageSource, Inc.

  

Tackling ECM in Higher Education Part One

It seems whenever I meet with prospects in Higher Education I keep hearing the same thing over and over again, we have a system in this department we have another system in this department but we don’t think what they have will work for our needs. How did this scenario come to be? The answer is pretty simple, in the past, many systems in Higher Education that were chosen focused on specific departments, primarily Admission & Records and the Financial Aid Departments which were prime targets due to the large volumes of content each generated. Thus the beginnings of what we commonly refer to today as “Islands of Information” began to take place,  with each department doing their own thing or nothing at all. Today the business paradigm has shifted with departments such as AP, AR, HR, Student Services, Campus Police, Housing and the above mentioned departments now all requiring Content Management. Each department has its own unique requirements with integration into one or more ERP type of systems being quite common. Tackling all these requirements can be a challenge since the answer lies outside the traditional school of thought and requires us to  look beyond the department and expand our vision around Enterprise Content Management. How we go about doing that will be in discussed in part 2 of my next blog.

Bob Garrido
Senior Account Executive
ImageSource, Inc.

Excellent Planning and Project Management Earn Awards for City of Richland, Washington

Congratulations to the City of Richland, Washington.  Their ECM solution deployed earlier this year has earned  two prestigious awards within the past month. 

In early November, the City of Richland won the   ImageSource Customer Partner Award for best return  on investment.  The award was presented to Jon Amundson, Assistant City Manager and Christina Palmer, Project Manager at Nexus 2009 www.nexusecm.com. 

Last week it was announced that the City of Richland was also named to the Info World top 100 list of IT projects.  The solution consisted of Oracle IPM, Cardiff Liquid Office,  a Bundle of ILINX products http://www.imagesourceinc.com/Products/ILINXProducts/index.htm which were used to extend the capabilities of the Off The Shelf Software.

The vision, professionalism and standard of excellence exhibited by the Richland team is to be commended.  Congratulations, City of Richland!

  

New Directions in ECM

I have been spending a good amount of time talking with ECM users recently.  I am noticing a shift in priorities among these ECM users.  In the past, conversations have been centered around core ECM solutions.  While it is important to select an ECM solution that is appropriate for your organization now, it is probably just as important to have the ability to scale that solution to meet future needs.

The ECM users that I am talking with are interested in integrating their current ECM solution with their line of business systems.  They are also interested in  expanding the abilities of ECM to the enterprise with such enhancements as remote capture, the ability to provide portal access and to rapidly an efficiently respond to requests for information whether in the form of an audit, request for information, or other action. 

Not all ECM solutions providers offer the ability to expand on your COTS solution.  ImageSource, Inc.  has taken the lead in this area.  Check our the ILINX solutions at www.imagesourceinc.com.  ImageSource offers solutions that allow for efficient web based capture, connection with other systems, and sharing of content througout the enterprise.  Check out the website.

  

Nexus 2010 ECM Solutions Conference EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT $195

Nexus 2009 ECM Solutions Conference was a resounding SUCCESS!!

First I would like to thank every single attendee and our valuable sponsors for your enthusiastic participation and support.  Nexus2010 registrations continue to be completed by organizations that understand the value and importance that this event has on the strategic planning of ECM initiatives for their businesses.  Nexus2010 will be held at the Meyedenbauer Convention Center on Nov. 4^th & 5^th – 2010.  We are encouraged of course by the outpouring of positive feedback we have received, we are grateful for each and every comment.  ImageSource will work diligently to again “raise the bar” in all aspects of planning, execution and content delivery.  We are listening on our Nexus Twitter feed for any and all recommendations for speakers, breakouts and special events that you feel would be valuable, so Tweet us!

The Green ECM Video can be found on YouTube so check it out.

We are offering a limited time promotion for early registrations of $195 for a full conference pass. Use discount code NEXUS10SPL.  Register early as we are keeping this event exclusive so seating is limited

Also a reminder of where you can find more information on ECM topics, please add us to your RSS feed and Follow us on Twitter.  Stay tuned for our FaceBook fan sites too.

BLOGS
Nexus ECM: http://nexusecmsolutionsconference.wordpress.com/
ECM Project Managers: http://ProjectManagementForECM.wordpress.com
ECM Systems Engineers: http://ECMTechnicalExpertise.wordpress.com
ECM Solutions: http://IndependentIntegratorsOfECM.wordpress.com
ECM Developers: http://SoftwareDevelopmentForECM.wordpress.com
ECM Products: http://ProductsAndSolutionsForECM.wordpress.com
ECM Support: http://ECMTechnicalSupport.wordpress.com
ECM News: http://newandgoodinecm.wordpress.com

Twitter
Nexus ECM Twitter feed http://twitter.com/nexusecm
ImageSource Twitter feed http://twitter.com/imagesourceinc
ILINX Capture Twitter feed http://twitter.com/ilinxcapture
ECM Support Twitter feed http://twitter.com/ecmsupport

Shadrach White
ImageSource, Inc.