The Top 10 Things
You’ll Save by Bringing
Process and Content
Management Together
Real, measurable benefits guaranteed
to cut costs and renew efficiency
across your organization
2
Save money. Save time. These are the key benefits any technology offers businesses. The big differentiators are:
1. How much money and how much time can a particular technology save your
organization and
2. Are these savings in areas that will have a real impact on your bottom line? By exploring process and content management technology, you’re already on the right track to maximizing your savings and ensuring the benefits will be felt throughout your
organization. Business process management (BPM) and enterprise content management (ECM) technology both offer considerable cost savings and efficiencies.
Business processes are the life’s blood of any organization. It takes a process to handle customer inquiries, pay vendors, generate invoices, hire new employees, receive materials, create or renew contracts, enroll students, admit patients and everything else your organization does every day. How well you carry out those processes is a key factor in how successful your company will be in the future. And what about content? Well, you can find that everywhere throughout your organization, too. According to a report from Gartner, unstructured content (i.e., information that isn’t stored within the databases of your core business applications), such as documents, images of forms, photographs, XML components, video clips, podcasts and email messages, now represents up to 80 percent of enterprise information.1 Managing this
information more efficiently means better use of human and physical resources, as employees can spend more time using information and less time looking for it.
But what if you could bring ECM and BPM together to manage content more effectively and offer tangible improvements through process intelligence and process mining? With BPM, you’d have the tools to design better processes and allow management to monitor activities, make changes easily and develop even more efficiencies. Effective ECM technology would enhance those processes even further by offering users and managers access to relevant information when they need it. What kind of benefits could that combination bring to the table? What could this powerful union of technology give you that you’ve never had before … and what can you save?
The Top 10 Things You’ll
Save by Bringing Process
and Content Management
Together
Real, measurable benefits guaranteed
to cut costs and renew efficiency
across your organization
The Top 10 Things You’ll Save by Bringing Process and Content Management Together 3 r e a l S a v ing S
Number 10: Time
According to Coopers & Lybrand, nearly 75 percent of time spent working with paper-based information is wasted in searching and filing. Integrated ECM software provides powerful automated capture, search and workflow options that streamline tedious document-intensive activities like these, so that workers can complete more work in a day.
For government offices in Rockingham County, North Carolina, enterprise content management technology has eliminated the need to transport and wait on documents. With automated workflow functionality, each area of the county can electronically route documents to the appropriate county employee for review or approval based on specific criteria. When managers need to take action on documents in their workflow queues, they receive an email alarm.
Cumbersome processes are also huge time wasters. Poor practices may have grown into place because no standard was ever established or the “official” process is so inflexible, workarounds simply have become the standard. BPM technology allows process managers to map out processes, visualize them and build in best practices. Flexibility can be designed into the system as sub-processes. These subprocesses can be used when certain instances arise, yet they aren’t incorporated as unnecessary steps into the overall process.
Business process management technology was the answer when the Province of North Brabant needed to consolidate multiple processes for issuing grants to organizations and individuals. Located in the south of the Netherlands, the management team of Province used BPM technology to standardize workflow, distribute workload more effectively and set up reports that allowed managers to track grant requests and take action quickly, if necessary.
Number 9: Space
When business processes require lots of paper, that paper requires lots of storage. More storage equals less space for more important uses like people and equipment. With the document imaging functionality of an ECM system, you can quickly and easily capture, store and organize millions of paper documents into a secure, electronic repository.
At North Kansas City Hospital, the weight of more than a million paper files for the hospital’s 3,000 employees had the filing room floor in danger of collapsing. Since the implementation of their ECM system, the overstuffed file cabinets have been completely eliminated, resulting in significant cost savings and additional office space.
“We estimate that, just in HR alone, (our ECM software) saves us about $100,000 a year,” said Karen Arora, systems administrator for the hospital. Now the days of walking all over the hospital for information are gone. Once content is captured, it’s available to authorized users with a single click.
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“ We estimate that, just
in HR alone, (our ECM
software) saves us about
$100,000 a year.
Karen Arora
Systems Administrator North Kansas City Hospital
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Number 7: Your resources
Your resources — human or otherwise — are valuable and using them wisely can save your organization tremendous costs. Paper-intensive activities contribute to a great deal of waste in time, money and energy. We’ve already talked about space and dollars, but what about the energy — keeping your people happy with the work they’re doing and contributing to their full potential?
At Piggly Wiggly Carolina Company (PWCC), implementing an ECM system in the corporate accounting division reduced overhead and manual work. Six employees, whose daily work consisted of repetitious tasks, have found new positions within the company that allow them to better use their professional skills. In addition, PWCC estimates that its ECM system saves the company $223,000 annually. The effects of ECM can create improved productivity for your organization and at the same time give your staff members more satisfaction in their job activities.
Fixing inefficient processes also had a positive effect on employees at the Ministry of Justice in the Netherlands. Each of the ministry’s 19 offices had its own methods for handling the workflow associated with court cases. A robust BPM solution allowed the ministry to standardize processes to ensure compliance with Dutch laws and increase collaboration among offices. Yet the system was flexible enough to allow the users to tailor their services for their local community. These goals were achieved across all regions of the Netherlands without locking personnel into static processes that cannot adapt to change.
Number 8: Dollars
We use the words “efficiency” and “success” to mean a lot of things. But in business, the meaning translates to dollars — how to control costs, yet maintain a high level of productivity and service. ECM by its very definition eliminates manual paperwork and all that comes with it — overhead costs for paper, toner, couriers, postage and additional staff hours are reduced or can be erased
immediately.
Citizens Memorial Healthcare, a regional hospital in Southwest Missouri, calculated it spent over $1M per year in hard costs for paper, supplies and the human resources to handle all their paper documents before they
implemented an ECM solution.
BPM technology can have similarly dramatic effects when inefficient procedures are analyzed and replaced with effective processes that automate simple tasks and make use of better communications vehicles.
Liverpool Direct is the largest public/private partnership in the UK. Its purpose is to improve processes and communications for the local government of Liverpool, so the community can attract new businesses and grow. A robust BPM solution allowed Liverpool Direct to map out departmental processes, so employees could see and evaluate them. Major adjustments were made for optimizing communications and streamlining approvals for projects. The resulting efficiencies, including processes that have been taken online as e-government initiatives, have been credited with lowering taxes in Liverpool and increasing the reputation of the Liverpool Council as being customer- and business-friendly.
The Top 10 Things You’ll Save by Bringing Process and Content Management Together 5 r e a l S a v ing S r e a l S a v ing S
Number 5: A tree or two
Going green is a common theme in both the private and public sectors. So it seems only fitting that organizations increasingly see streamlining processes with document imaging and document management software — two core components of ECM — as a strategic element of their green initiatives. When paper was its only option, Cornell University admissions staff dreaded the daunting task of manually sorting undergraduate applications each fall. Employees lugged incoming student applications to a processing center a mile and a half away from the main campus, drove them to the admissions offices for selection decisions, and then transported them back to the processing center. Implementing the right ECM software solution helped the university eliminate this cumbersome, wasteful delivery procedure, cutting fuel costs and minimizing paper use in the process. Cornell employees benefit from a simplified admissions process, and the environment is spared needless carbon dioxide emissions.
Number 6: Aspirin
Unfortunately, there’s no pill for the headaches brought on by process bottlenecks and resource limitations. And the traditional methods of pinpointing those issues — extensive interviews, long group meetings, miles of paperwork and wall-sized whiteboards — are slow and can create as many problems as they’re meant to solve. A BPM solution lets you bypass manual discovery altogether. Using data from your core business applications, existing processes can be objectively analyzed and modeled, allowing you to really see what’s going on in your existing workflow. Then you can compare current processes to the ideal situation and test different resolutions in a virtual environment — without using real-world time and resources. So you save yourself a lot of time, effort … and headaches. When tasked with modernizing services, Camden Council of Greater London (UK) selected an end-to-end BPM solution that allowed staff to gain a clear picture of current operations from systems logs. Then simulation tools were used to test new scenarios. Since the tests were virtual, constituent services didn’t suffer and implementing the new procedures was much easier because users had already “seen” how the processes would work. If just the idea of adopting new technology makes your head throb, think about choosing deployment options that take the burden off your IT team’s shoulders. Software as a service (SaaS) and hosted deployment are just two alternatives to the traditional means of licensing and managing ECM or BPM technology on your own. These options can provide great flexibility and value, while you focus on your business and customers, instead of BPM and ECM software support and infrastructure.
Admissions leaders at California Institute of Technology chose to employ a hosted ECM deployment option in the face of security, time and resource challenges that affect many institutions. Now they enjoy zero downtime and peace of mind knowing that all Caltech student records are protected and skilled technical professionals are managing their admissions environment around the clock.
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Number 3: Your customers’
satisfaction
“Customer service” can become a meaningless phrase if it often involves long waits, lots of questions, representatives who don’t have access to the right information and the inevitable callbacks.
ECM and BPM, however, can streamline procedures used to answer customer queries by giving your staff fast access to the tools and information they need to resolve issues quickly. Illinois Mutual Life Insurance’s ECM system has reduced the time it takes to answer a policy request by 75 percent, greatly enhancing customer service. At AmFed, a leading provider of insurance and insurance-related services in Mississippi, authorized employees have instant, single-click access to any detail in policyholder files, enabling them to answer customer queries immediately. “We don’t have to call people back, so long distance phone charges have been reduced,” said Jennifer Muse, director of special projects at AmFed. “(Our system) gives us more time to focus on our insureds and claimants.”
When you can automate business processes, the efficiency and accuracy is evident to your customers. Better customer service increases the likelihood of repeat business, customer loyalty and encourages positive word of mouth among customers and their peers.
Number 4: Your data integrity
Regardless of your organization’s size or line of business, compliance and regulations are always a critical point of concern — not to mention disaster recovery. While various regulations may be aimed at specific industries or areas of business, they all essentially require organizations to address three key issues — data integrity, confidentiality and
accessibility. That means you must preserve the integrity and confidentiality of your records and be able to produce them in an appropriate and timely manner. Without a centralized repository to store the vast amounts of unstructured data generated across your organization, meeting regulatory requirements is almost impossible.
Ultimately, compliance and disaster recovery hinge on security. Using ECM that provides a central, secure electronic repository for all important documents and content is the first step. Advanced document and system security measures, such as digital signatures,
authentication and auditing capabilities, also should be built into your ECM software technology to protect every document stored in the system. So whether you are handling sensitive patient information, highly classified documents or just everyday invoices, you can be confident that your documents are safe, secure and in the right hands.
Using the built-in security features of their ECM system, Asante Health System strengthens its HIPAA compliance efforts by automatically restricting access to confidential patient data. Replacing paper folders with electronic document images minimizes the risk of unauthorized viewing as well as document misplacement.
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3
“ We don’t have to call
people back, so long
distance phone charges
have been reduced.”
Jennifer Muse
Director of Special Projects AmFed
The Top 10 Things You’ll Save by Bringing Process and Content Management Together 7 r e a l S a v ing S
Number 1: Your seat at the
big table.
We’ve come full circle to your original mission — finding a solution that will save your organization time and money by addressing a multitude of inefficiencies that may be plaguing a single area or your entire
organization. Your organization’s leadership is looking to you for guidance and results that will bring immediate positive impact on costs and efficiency, and quick return on investment
— but also long-term benefits and opportunities for expansion and growth. By selecting the right ECM and BPM technologies, you can deliver. The University of Minnesota has seen a dramatic return on their ECM investment. In its early stages of deployment in only three departments, the university estimated yearly costs savings of $250,000 and 700,000 pieces of paper. Five years later, with ECM expanded to more than 30 departments across five campuses, the savings in time, storage, office supplies and salary have grown exponentially. Explore the proven impact of ECM and BPM to discover your potential for greater business success. You’ll see that by simply putting your documents and content into the context of your everyday business processes, you can make dramatic gains in operational efficiency and cost-savings, and secure your seat at the big table.
Number 2: Your competitive
advantage
It’s a busy marketplace out there. Businesses are always looking for ways to set themselves apart and outpace the competition. But gimmicks and marketing ploys are no match for creating genuine operational efficiency, quality of service and bottom-line sustainability. By adopting BPM and ECM technology that lays the framework for these benefits, you can solidify your reputation among not just your peers, but the greater business community, as a market leader and an innovator.
TKP, a specialized pension fund organization located in the Netherlands, is known for its close relationship to clients and ability to act quickly on market changes yet maintain low commission costs. The decision to upgrade its business process management solution was triggered by the firm’s need to reduce their current process costs, yet maintain their tradition of excellent customer service. TKP’s powerful new BPM solution can handle straight-through processing, eliminating the need for batch processing and decreasing errors because the system offers immediate notifications of incorrect or missing data. But proof that the new system is a resounding success comes from TKP’s customers themselves. Ratings for customer services have remained high, despite the fact that the firm is now serving more customers with fewer people.
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