Digital Landfill

We've all done it.  Admit it. Tearful confessions are the first step to forgiveness.  And an appearance on Oprah.

No, not sex, drugs, or rock-n-roll.  I'm talking about pulling rank on the IT people, coming in with a great idea you thought of over the weekend, and convincing everybody to roll it out as quickly as possible. To push out that new "System of "Engagement" and damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

Except for one thing.  True customer engagement is more than just creating a social veneer.  Because once you bring the customer into the business, once they truly engage, all of the weaknesses of your back end systems and processes will be exposed.

The reality of most organizations is that there is a lot of cleaning up to be done in core backend processes. We've all experienced the irritation of keying in our phone number or account number multiple times in a call response system, only have the very first question asked by a customer service representative (assuming we get one) be, "Can you tell me your phone number?"

I won't even go into the recent customer experiences that generated the following tweets (company names masked to protect the guilty; my wife calls these my old man rants):

- 1:40 pm via HootSuite - If someone doesn’t contact me today and let me end run your #Satanic call center, I’m blogging tomorrow

- 3:40 pm via HootSuite - This is Day 87 that I am held hostage by ’s ridiculous #mortgage refinance process. Please call.

No matter how elegant the front-end, Systems of Engagement cannot operate in an environment in which the processes that support and complement them are engulfed by paper and inefficiency. The reality is that most organizations exist in a hybrid environment in which process information may come from paper documents, paper forms, web forms, faxes, emails, SMS, mobile and social. 

Automated capture as early as possible in the business process produces cleaner data, resulting in higher quality information, less exception handling, and better process management. The more important the process is to a business, the greater the impact such improvements will have.

Forms processing is a particularly important element in process automation.  Forms -- both electronic and paper -- are used to collect data, to carry signatures, to drive the business process, and to provide an auditable record of the outcome. Each of these can be readily carried out in all-electronic formats, but until recently, the paper form has been somewhat stubborn in its hold on even the most modern offices.

A few data points illustrate the reality that exists in most organizations:

• The median cost to process a paper invoice is still > $9. (Automating Financial Processes: User Feedback on the Real ROI)
• Overall, 52% of organizations surveyed have yet to adopt any automated AP systems. One third of organizations receiving more than 25,000 invoices per month are still using paper-based processes. (Automating Financial Processes: User Feedback on the Real ROI)
• A third of small and mid-sized companies and 22% of the largest have yet to adopt any paper-free processes. Only 20% of any size orgs pro-actively evaluate all processes for driving out paper. (Process Revolution: Moving Your Business from Paper to PC to Tablet)
• Median % of processes that could be paper free that actually are = 14%. (Process Revolution: Moving Your Business from Paper to PC to Tablet)
• On average, 45% of documents that are scanned are 100% “born digital” – just as they came from the printer. And many of the rest would be all-digital if not for the added signatures. (The Paper Free Office: Dream or Reality?)
• 77% of invoices that arrive as PDF attachments get printed. 31% of faxed invoices get printed and scanned back in. (The Paper Free Office: Dream or Reality?)
• For 40% of organizations, half or more of their electronic workflows are interrupted by physical sign-offs, generally requiring multiple paper copies to be printed (Digital Signatures for documents, workflow and SharePoint)

Perhaps the most astonishing thing about true progress relative to digitizing processes is how compelling the existing results are relative to the lack of progress outlined above.

• Electronic-only filing would halve the storage space needed for paper in 5 years. The average proportion of office space taken up by paper is now 15.3%, and it would drop to 7.4% with an all-electronic filing policy, a saving of nearly 8% in overall office costs. (The Paper Free Office: Dream or Reality?)
• 61% of Accounts Payable system users report a payback period of 12 months or less. 77% consider they have achieved a payback of 18 months or less. A significant 20% report a payback in as little as 6 months. (Automating Financial Processes: User Feedback on the Real ROI)
• The median cost per invoice to process is $9. Costs reported range from less than $2 to more than $30, with an average of $11.6. Half of survey respondents are processing 5,000 or more invoices per month. At this level a 33% saving at $10 per invoice is $200,000 per year. (Automating Financial Processes: User Feedback on the Real ROI)
• On average, respondents using scanning and capture consider that it improves the speed of response to customers, suppliers, citizens or staff by 6-times or more. 70% estimate an improvement of at least 3-times, and nearly a third (29%) see an improvement of 10-times or more. (The Paper Free Office: Dream or Reality?)
• 42% of users have achieved a payback period of 12 months or less from their scanning and capture investments. 57% are posting a payback of 18-months or less. (The Paper Free Office: Dream or Reality?)

The business needs to demand that we ruthlessly drive paper out of every process we can find. It must demand that we view the connections between systems with as much rigor as we view the individual systems themselves. It must demand that once we drive paper out, we keep it out. It must demand that we automate just enough, but not too much.

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Have you registered for the AIIM Content Management Boot Camp yet?

A few slots are left; the event is free, but first come, first served.  

May 01, 2012	Renaissance Houston Greenway Plaza Hotel	Houston, TX	Register/Agenda
May 03, 2012	Renaissance Dallas Hotel	Dallas, TX	Register/Agenda
May 08, 2012	Hyatt Regency Denver Convention Center	Denver, CO	Register/Agenda
May 10, 2012	Sheraton Anaheim Hotel	Anaheim, CA	Register/Agenda
May 15, 2012	The Westin Bellevue	Bellevue, WA	Register/Agenda
May 17, 2012	Palace Hotel	San Francisco, CA	Register/Agenda

9 reasons to attend...

1. Your organization needs to change the way they handle paper – it’s everywhere and it’s slowing down your business processes.
2. Your marketing team wants to reach customers where they are and how they consume content – social, local, and mobile.
3. Your company has offices around the globe and you need to collaborate better.
4. Your Business Executives want to put everything in the Cloud. Should you?
5. You need to build a strategy to handle “Big Data” in your organization.
6. You want to ban email in your organization - just for one day.
7. You want to find out how your peers are solving their business challenges and get some insight in to key considerations.
8. There are so many solutions out there. Which one do you choose?
9. For you records managers and information professionals, the event has been pre-approved for 4 hours of ICRM Certification Maintenance Program (CMP) credits when you attend. You'll also get CIP credits.