The IT Nerd

Enterprise content management (ECM) used to make sense only for large companies with the size and budgets to make the conversion to digital worthwhile. Now, with the introduction of Xerox DocuShare Flex, small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and company departments can digitize processes like invoicing, sharing files, editing, managing databases and storing documents, just like large companies do.

SMBs tend to rely on inefficient paper-based systems and often lack centralized storage of digital information. According to respondents to a 2016 Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) survey, poor content management practices result in taking too long to find content (62 percent), duplicated efforts (52 percent) and insufficient re-use (46 percent)¹.

The new DocuShare Flex platform is cloud based and provides the automation, security and scalability of large-scale ECM systems in an affordable package that’s easy to configure and use without IT support.

DocuShare Flex systems will save SMBs hours, days or weeks. Users can complete a range of document-intensive tasks such as:

• Routing documents automatically to facilitate approval processes and version control;
• Automating necessary documentation for ease of compliance with government and industry mandates;
• Simplifying management of the multitude of documents required for transactions, accounting, billing and other document-intensive operations.

Easy to Use, Agile, Low Cost

DocuShare Flex can store and manage a wide range of document types and content. It has a scalable storage capacity of hundreds of millions of documents. Managing documents from creation through archiving and eventual disposal is provided out of the box.

DocuShare Flex customers can add capacity and users incrementally to further control costs. The number of users can range from a minimum of five people up to thousands. It has advanced review-process controls that enable annotation, redaction and simultaneous viewing while controlling versions to keep documents current.

Automating Workflows

DocuShare Flex can automate a range of business processes including storing all project documents in one place, managing review cycles, and meeting potential audit requirements. It can also enforce compliance with best practices since management can observe work status.

DocuShare Flex is designed for non-technical staff with an intuitive search engine and a user interface (UI) that requires little training. The UI is Web-based and will run on a wide range of browsers and mobile devices.

The platform can work with back-end company systems to pull data and link to documents. It’s compatible with Xerox ConnectKey multifunction devices and associated apps for developing specific time-saving workflows, and includes a ConnectKey-based scanning service for scanning directly to DocuShare Flex.

The new DocuShare Flex platform augments the Xerox DocuShare portfolio, including Xerox DocuShare 7, which was recently named as a “Leader” in ECM software by G2 Crowd, and as the 2017 Pick award as Outstanding Document Management Solution by Buyers Laboratory LLC (BLI).

Availability

DocuShare Flex is now available in North America. It will be available in Europe and other select regions by May 31, in Canada in June, and in Asia Pacific by the end of August.

Has your organization started its paper-to-digital transformation yet? If you haven’t, you’re not alone. Many organizations have put this off because they just don’t know where to start. The whole idea of digital business is overwhelming – but urgent.

When processes are paper-based, employees can’t easily access information or share it across groups, especially when teams are distributed or mobile. Paper puts barriers between people and their work processes, and between different functions within the organization, resulting in dreaded “silos.”

More than 80 percent of small/mid-size businesses (SMBs) want to cut paper out of the way they invoice, report financials, manage legal and human resource forms, and handle other time consuming processes, according to a recent Xerox survey.

The survey of more than 1,000 international SMB companies shows respondents expect to make the change during the next 12 months. Nearly half (46 percent) of respondents confirmed that a significant amount of time is wasted on paper-intensive processes and 6 out of 10 view this as having a major impact on their bottom line.

So what’s the problem? Research continually confirms that one of the main roadblocks to digital transformation (DT) is deciding which processes to transform. The vast number of processes in a typical business makes the whole notion of becoming a digitally enabled organization unnerving.

That’s why Xerox Canada has created a new paper-to-digital workbook detailing a four-step approach to help organizations reduce paper in their processes.

Step 1 — Understand

Establish how and where you use paper today, and identify what you could change.

The distinction between “good” and “bad” paper helps identify where you really need to use paper, and where you could get rid of it.

“Good” paper refers to documents that have a valid reason to be in hard-copy form, such as documents that originate on paper, like customers’ handwritten letters or documents that require a “wet ink” signature.

“Bad” paper refers to documents that are in paper format, but without any compelling reason to be so. These could include documents that were printed from digital originals or documents that get shared, stored or transported using physical systems.

Step 2 — Educate

Set targets, make your case and change user behaviors.

Before you can make improvements, you need to decide what “good” looks like. That means determining policies, setting targets and defining metrics – at the organizational and team levels and for individuals, too.

Targets at the individual level can help people understand what they have to do to make change happen. However, it’s vital to respect the role of printing in people’s daily activities – balance is key in achieving your overall objectives. The last thing you want is to drive users to costly workarounds, such as printing at home or using offsite service providers.

The best way to encourage behavior change is to give people ownership and control. If they know the targets they’re working toward, and how to achieve them, you’re already halfway to success.

Step 3 — Execute

Replace key functions and processes with digital equivalents.

Execution will only succeed if everyone within the affected group is on board. Unless your change is very minor or localized in scope, this will be a big job – it’s important to take it seriously. As a first step, list the teams, managers and individuals who will be affected by the planned change, and determine how each one will be affected. How will their work change? What will they need to do differently from day to day?

Now, for each team or person, consider which benefits of change are most significant, or most directly relevant to their work. How can you express each benefit so they can easily understand and relate to it?

Some processes are simply too large or complicated to be changed quickly. If changing everything in one go would be risky, consider targeting just one stage of a process first. Then, once that stage has been transformed, move on to the others. It may be slower, but if it avoids the risk of business disruption or data loss, that’s probably a wait worth having.

Step 4 — Improve

Use data and information to take your transformation to the next level.

Once you’ve successfully switched some of your tasks and processes from paper to digital, you can explore the potential for more wide-ranging change projects to automate and simplify key business workflows.

Many ideas for further improvement can come from data on how paper and printing are being used within your organization. Managed Print Services (MPS) generate data that can show you how much you’re printing and the cost. User analytics go a level deeper, showing you who is printing what and when. That can open up opportunities to tighten up security, increase automation and spread printing best practices, or simply monitor print usage to make sure your previous changes are taking root.

Of the SMBs surveyed in Xerox’s recent study, 42 percent have an MPS contract, while 40 percent said they plan to put an MPS contract in place within the next year. Sixty-six percent spend more than $1,000 each month for printing activities, a significant cost of doing business. Companies with MPS contracts cited reduced costs, decreased paper consumption and improved tracking of print costs as top benefits.

MPS can act as a springboard to help your organization shed its reliance on paper. The chances of digital transformation success are greater when you engage MPS, because you can start with the day-to-day document processes that touch your device endpoints. This approach makes it easier to break digitization into bite-sized chunks and implement solutions based on data. A measured pace of change lets you transform at a manageable rate. And once you start, you’ll never go back.

You can download a copy of Xerox’s print-to-digital workbook at https://www.xerox.com/en-us/managed-print-services/insights/advantages