The IT Nerd

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

By Mohan Mailvaganam, Director of Digital Process Automation at Xerox Canada

Every spring, thousands of students across Canada mull over acceptance letters and offers from colleges and universities, to decide where to go to school in the fall.

As tough as the choice may be for many students, the competition among the schools is even tougher. Academic reputations are at stake for the schools. They all want to attract the cream of the crop. And there are hundreds of millions of dollars in tuition fees on the line, which help institutions grow, enhance programs and innovate.

So how can an enterprising school stand out from the pack? Beyond the traditional recruiting tactics most schools use, Simon Fraser University (SFU) worked with Xerox Canada to find competitive advantage through the digital transformation of its admissions process.

The post-secondary application process in Canada is generally a very lengthy exercise. Students have to apply to the schools of their choice by the end of the calendar year and then typically don’t hear whether they’ve been accepted until spring — sometimes as late as the end of May. It takes weeks for admissions personnel to sort through the applications, extract the information they need and make offers.

Research shows that roughly 80 percent of students accept the first offer they receive from a school — so getting out of the gate quickly is crucial when vying to attract students in a highly competitive field.

By digitizing and automating the process, SFU aims to realize the benefits of faster decision making, reduction of operational costs, and improved student experiences resulting in greater acceptance rates on offers of admission. SFU is looking forward to assessing the impact of the investment once its first cycle of applications has been completed using the new process.

Organizations from all sectors and of all sizes – from small- and medium-sized businesses to large corporations – can realize similar benefits such as improving the client acquisition process and streamlining back-office operations by leveraging workflow automation and digitization capabilities.

So what’s holding companies back from overhauling their workflows?

By far, the greatest barrier to change we run into is institutional culture — how the organization thinks and acts from upper leadership to middle management and down to frontline staff. There has to be company-wide buy-in to effect real change.

Many organizations have a general idea of some of the advantages of trying to become more lean and agile for a digital future, but they don’t understand the specific benefits to their operations.

Until they have an accurate picture of how Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) like operating expenses and client satisfaction can be improved, it’s difficult for business leaders to see past the logistical challenges and effort required for digital transformation.

We saw this firsthand when we worked with Family Service Toronto (FST), a not-for-profit organization that provides counselling, community development, advocacy and public education programs.

The organization faced a daunting prospect of digitizing its heavily paper-based processes prior to a move into a new office location, including the digital conversion of decades of paper records stored in more than 500 bankers boxes.

But with a positive 10-year cost-benefit analysis in hand that showed the initial investment in a digital document management solution was worthwhile, FST leadership committed to a digital strategy.

As part of its transformation, FST automated paper processes in its Passport program, which helps adults with a developmental disability participate in their communities. By going digital, the organization was able to cut operating costs and improve internal business process, including reducing invoice processing time by 60%. More importantly, FST was able to redirect resources from back-office processing to direct client service, improving experiences for both staff and clients.

Like all major decisions organizations make, it’s important that they be made from an informed position. Before companies can figure out how to cut ties to paper and harness the power of digitization, they need a solid understanding of their paper use and document flows. It’s also important to keep in mind that today’s documents are more than paper and span the digital space from e-mails, to office documents, videos and images – all equally capable of causing friction in the process.

It’s crucial that companies embarking on the digital journey today know the fate of their documents — how they were generated, why they were printed and where they will eventually end up — through document analytics, in order to avoid them in the first place.

About the Author: Mohan Mailvaganam is Director of Digital Process Automation at Xerox Canada.

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 XeroxDocuShare 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).

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.

DocuShare Flex is designed for efficient selling and rapid deployment by Xerox and its channel partners. Distribution is available via a network of agents, dealers, concessionaires and resellers, as well as through the Xerox direct sales force.

Xerox today launching 29 ConnectKey enabled printers and multifunction devices with simple and secure on-the-go capabilities, cloud connectivity, and access to productivity boosting features and apps.

The new ConnectKey portfolio transforms traditional printing devices into smart, connected workplace assistants that reflect the evolving needs of today’s businesses. Personalized workflows, one-touch access to the cloud and multi-layered security features are the new print, copy and fax.

The family of products includes a variety of sizes, speeds and capabilities to match the needs of small- and medium-sized businesses as well as large enterprises, with a consistent user experience across the portfolio.

The new products will be identified as the Xerox VersaLink and Xerox AltaLink series. The VersaLink devices are designed for small workgroups and distributed teams, and include 19 printers and multifunction printers (MFPs). The AltaLink series includes 10 MFPs designed for larger workgroups or print volume needs. Key attributes include:

• Streamlined business processes – Off-the-shelf or created by channel partners, built-in apps from the Xerox App Gallery help organizations create workflows tailored to their specific operations. For example, patient records filing, real estate contract management and retail invoicing can be streamlined into fewer, faster steps using digital workflows enabled right from the device.

• Industry-leading intuitive user experience – Benefiting from years of Xerox research in this area, all 29 products share a similar, customizable user interface, which is unique to Xerox workplace solutions and allows the user experience to move with you. The tablet-like touch screen interface can be personalized for different work environments or individual users.

• Mobile and cloud ready – Information flows easily from the device to cloud repositories like Dropbox, Office 365 or Google Drive. Mobile workers can print wirelessly from any computing device.

• Total security for both the device and your information – ConnectKey technology ensures comprehensive safety for system components and points of vulnerability. It offers protection from unauthorized access to devices; keeps confidential communications and information safe with encryption and image overwrite; audits device access attempts and protects both data and device from malicious intent.

By working with industry leaders in network security, ConnectKey-enabled devices offer added security – ensuring they are monitored and trusted in even the most security-conscious environments. AltaLink MFPs feature an added layer of security through our partnership with McAfee.

User proof point: Xerox ConnectKey a win for global manufacturer

CLIMAX is a global portable manufacturing company that offers on-site machining, welding and valve testing to its customers in the oil and gas, mining, heavy construction, power generation, shipbuilding and transportation industries. The company turned to the new Xerox devices because its employees need simple, secure and often on-the-go access to digital files for printing, sharing and storing.

Availability

The 29 Xerox AltaLink and Xerox VersaLink devices are available worldwide in the second quarter.

By John Morrison – Vice President of Marketing for Xerox Canada.

The majority of small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) want to toss their reliance on paper into the shredder.

They see paper-intensive tasks — like invoicing, reporting financials and forms for legal services and human resources — as a waste of time and resources that could be better used elsewhere. 

That’s what the latest international research gathered by Xerox is telling us. A recent survey of more than 1,000 SMBs in the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany found that 80 percent companies plan to begin making the shift from paper to digital processes in 2017.

Six out of 10 respondents said their ties to paper have a significant drain on their bottom line. Their take on the situation matches up precisely with our math. Xerox has crunched the numbers and found that printing and document management typically makes up about 15% of an SMB’s IT budget and at least 12 percent of IT resources.

It’s encouraging to hear that so many SMBs have set their sights on making the digital transformation to realize savings and improve their workflow. 

But it’s also important to set realistic targets. Shooting for a 100 per cent digital workplace may seem like a fast track to efficiency and savings, but it’s not an achievable target for most companies.

The reality is that about 40 per cent of business processes are still largely document-driven and likely to remain that way.

That’s why, like all major decisions and changes that affect how a business runs, good planning will help SMBs create the best chance at success in their move to digitize paperwork wherever possible.

The first step is figuring out exactly how much paper your workplace actually uses.

To make sure you’re getting the most out of your print infrastructure, start by considering how information flows in your organization. Are there gaps that need to be filled? Or perhaps functional areas that could benefit from simple improvements? What are the returns that could make a difference? 

It may seem overwhelming, but the measure of your print environment can be broken down into three areas:

Return on Investment 

• Are you spending the right amount on print? If you’re not sure of the answer, then it’s probably no. The right Managed Print Services (MPS) program can save you up to 30% by assessing your devices—everything from volume and make to who is using them and how—and giving you a detailed report and recommendation that will fundamentally change the way your team prints.

Return on end user productivity.

• Everyone wants an easier way to do their job, but no one wants to learn a complicated new system or have work interrupted while it is integrated. An experienced MPS provider can connect your team to the right systems and processes in a friction-free way, saving time, energy and stress. They’ll also help you with challenges like integrating mobile and cloud.

Return on IT effort. 

• Did you know that 40 to 60 percent of helpdesk calls are print related? That means that your IT department is spending half their time troubleshooting and dealing with unhappy people. An effective MPS program can ensure that you have the right tools to minimize the time they’re spending on print issues, freeing them up for more important things.

Document management is about more than just reduced cost printing. It’s about ensuring that information flows throughout your organization in a smooth, predictable, efficient way. It’s about making sure your team has what they need, when they need it, enabling a productive work environment, greater cost efficiency, and best of all, happy customers and employees.

Source: Xerox

Data is the lifeblood of business today, and it’s not easy digging through it to uncover insightful, actionable intelligence. That’s one takeaway from a survey of 600 IT decision-makers in large US, Canadian and Western European organizations. The “Digitization at Work” report from Xerox shows the move from paper to digital processes is nearly upon us, however, many survey respondents admit they may not be ready for it.

The report found broad concern over paper-based processes, with cost (42 percent) and security (42 percent) cited as primary issues. 40 percent of Canadian respondents said cost reduction was the prime reason for digitization followed by improved data collection at 33 percent. Survey respondents predicted an average of only nine percent of key business operation processes will run on paper in the next two years.

But more than half (55 percent) of the respondents admit their organizations’ processes are still largely or entirely paper-based, and about one third (29 percent) are still communicating with end customers via paper, rather than email or social channels.

This is despite the fact that 41 percent agree moving to digital workflows will cut organizational costs, and 87 percent appear to have the skill sets available to make this happen.

The survey showed that Canadian companies are generally ahead of their global counterparts in digitizing processes in the areas of invoicing, contracts, customer engagement, HR on-boarding, new product development, and vertical and operational processes. 44 percent of Canadian respondents said they will have all seven digitized in two years – the highest across all countries surveyed.

When it comes to automating processes, almost three quarters of respondents said they already have identified areas for automation. More specifically, they cite accounting (38 percent), expense reporting (37 percent), accounts payable (36 percent) and customer care (35 percent) as the most likely functions to become fully automated within the enterprise.

Yet the report identified a number of basics that many enterprises have yet to address to make automation and digital workflows a reality in key business functions. According to the organizations surveyed:

• 40 percent have not yet implemented solutions for the mobile workforce
• 47 percent have not yet added or improved cloud services
• 45 percent have not yet incorporated or improved predictive analysis through big data

In many cases, digitizing or re-engineering paper-based processes before they are automated will lead to better results. Analyzing employee print habits, for example, provides an insight into hidden opportunities for digitization where paper use is high. The report also found that 90 percent of respondents said they have good tools to analyze employee print habits, but only half of them (45 percent) are using those tools to their full extent. Comparatively, 86 percent of the Canadian executives surveyed said they have these analysis tools but a third do not use them fully.

The key reasons Canadian executives said they are still printing documents was for hard copy reference (69 percent), signatures (65 percent) and sharing (48 percent).

About the Study

In the second half of 2015, Coleman Parkes Research surveyed 600 IT decision-makers and influencers from organizations in the United States and Canada, as well as Western Europe (Benelux, France, Germany, UK). This research activity was designed to understand their attitudes, challenges and initiatives in relations to digital transformation and paper-intensive processes.

All respondents had responsibilities that included digital technology strategy, solutions and infrastructure. Industries covered were public sector, financial services and corporate enterprise. The full Xerox report on the study can be downloaded from here: https://www.xerox.com/en-us/services/managed-print-services/insights/digital-transformation-strategy

Source: Xerox

Xerox has announced new services and tools that improve the way retailers, financial institutions, healthcare systems and other large enterprises deal with documents. The offerings are the latest example of Xerox building greater automation and intelligence into its solutions and products, with the goal of helping clients better manage their critical business processes.

Smarter supply chain: Xerox’s Workflow Automation Solution for Supply Chain Optimization, a service-based retail offering, uses the DatawatchManaged Analytics Platform to digitize, centralize, automate and govern error-prone and costly manual steps of a product lifecycle. The solution reduces labor and print costs, simplifies inventory and invoice reconciliation and improves fill rates by syncing data and applying automated analytics at the store level.

Automation across industries: To further strengthen its vertical industry offerings, Xerox introduces several workflow automation solutions built on its partnership with Hyland, creator of OnBase, to automate processes critical to business functions, such as:

• Loan Application Processing– captures loan application inputs from sources such as multifunction printers, mobile devices and web applications, and automatically routes them to loan officers through a tailored workflow. External data sources – such as credit reporting services and vehicle registration databases – are seamlessly integrated into the process and stored in a secure content management system.
• Health Records Information Management– helps hospitals improve productivity and enable better visibility into patient care by providing a single, comprehensive view of all clinical documents and data stored in an Electronic Health Record, Picture Archiving and Communication System and clinical content repository.
• Human Resources Onboarding– increases the speed and efficiency of the onboarding process by removing paper, automating steps and providing management oversight. New hires are granted access to an employee portal to complete e-form “paperwork” and other required documentation online. Supporting organizations, such as facilities, IT and payroll, are engaged to ensure timely provisioning. Data is placed under records management control for future reference, retrieval or destruction.

Expansion to the cloud: Xerox Digital Alternatives, which lets users sign, annotate, share, save and read documents from one interface, is now available in a Xerox private cloud. New powerful analytics also accelerate an organization’s paper to digital migration. In addition, Xerox’s DocuShare^® Private Cloud Service allows for easy deployment of an enterprise content management and collaboration platform to capture, manage and share content securely in the cloud from a mobile device or PC.

Analytics drive smarter print decisions: The Xerox Secure Print Manager Suite with User Analytics powered by CompleteView^® from NewField IT provides an analysis of who is printing what, when, how much and where. With this insight, Xerox counsels businesses on how to optimize their print environments.

Business apps simplify mobile printing: New apps designed for the mobile workforce make secure, no-hassle printing easier for large enterprises with the Xerox Print Service Plug-in for Android users, the Mobile Access App and Mobile Link App.

All of the new services and tools will be available in the U.S., Canada and Europe in Q2 2015.

Xerox has new ways for enterprises to assess, protect and leverage their information when and wherever needed. Not only to save money, but to ultimately improve client relationships and develop innovative and stronger offerings.

The enhanced services include:

• Xerox Secure Print Manager Suite, powered by Nuance Equitrac, cost-effectively integrates print security, control and reporting capabilities – such as user authentication, secure document release, job tracking, chargeback and accounting, and print rules and routing – without disrupting existing IT infrastructure. Capabilities can be licensed individually or across any number of Xerox or non-Xerox devices, depending on the organization’s needs.
• Xerox Document Analytics Services explain how, where and why documents are used. Insights are culled from multiple sources – data from devices and print jobs, audits of filed and unfiled paper and client interviews that uncover printing “behaviors.” Based on the findings, Xerox partners with its clients to digitize content and capture information so organizations don’t replace a paper landfill with a digital landfill.
• Xerox Workflow Assessment Services demonstrate how documents move within an organization and provide insights to create more efficient processes. For example, an assessment may uncover that student loan processing could take 50 percent less time if information is easier to locate and is scanned rather than printed. Leveraging client input and metrics from document and device usage, the service helps organizations turn process into productivity, to save money and improve customer relationships.

In addition, a free software upgrade on the Xerox WorkCentre 3325 multifunction printer (MFP) offers a common set of access, productivity, management and security features to further protect and optimize print environments. Also Xerox ConnectKey 1.5 technology enabled printers and MFPs will soon be certified by the Mopria Alliance, an organization that promotes, simplifies and increases accessibility of wireless printing from smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. Printing on-the-go is made easier without having to manually connect to a device or install software.

Xerox Document Analytics Services and Xerox Workflow Assessment Services are available to customers of Xerox’s Enterprise Print Services in the U.S., Canada and Europe. Xerox Secure Print Manager Suite is available for customers of Xerox’s Enterprise Print Services in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Developing Markets Operations. Xerox ConnectKey 1.5 technology will be offered worldwide as a software upgrade for all existing ConnectKey enabled printers and MFPs by early June 2014.