Require Vendors to Improve your Document Processing Operations

Would you invest in a technology if you knew it would, without risk, tangibly pay for itself in several months?

It is understandable that companies, especially those involved with document processing, would be hesitant to invest in another solution which claims to help their business.  Too many times, the document processing arm of insurance companies, financial institutions, healthcare companies and service bureaus have been burned by vendors promising performance improvement but instead, providing professional service laden and proprietary solutions.  You know, those software solutions that work great as long as they are attached to a specific brand of hardware/software or require additional investment if you want to actually get any data out of them.

There are business process optimization, integrity verification and piece/job tracking systems which truly do measurably improve business performance.  Those built on truly open platforms and current technology can break the culture of proprietary, expensive, closed, etc.  Solutions built upon reducing overhead, reducing risk of late deliveries, ensuring compliance, improving quoting/scheduling/invoicing accuracy do exist, without requiring extensive and expensive professional services.  After all, you shouldn’t require anyone’s brand of anything in order to run your business better. Changing customer requirements and applications demand that we be more flexible than that.

As you have probably guessed, this entry is quite self-serving.  However, it is written with the honest intention of helping clients understand that information management and process optimization are different today. We must expect our clients to know and understand all short and long term costs associated with a solution.  We must be held responsible for meeting the return on investment we commit to. We must be advocates for their long term business.

Whether we are supplying an ADF (Automated Document Factory). Business Process Optimization (BPO) or integrity verification (compliance), the days of “spend and hope” are long over for our clients.

By Pat Hoskins, PH 585.953.3013, pat.hoskins@ironsidestech.com