Easy Isn't Always Nirvana

I am going to go out on a limb and say that most companies, outside of highly regulated industries, use a combination of shared network folders and individual user folders on the network to store and manage files like spreadsheets, Word files, scanned documents, reports and presentations.  The companies that have moved away from that approach may have adopted SharePoint, Google Documents or Box.  The beauty of all of these approaches to file management is that it is easy to create a filing structure and it is easy to add new files.  Users can copy, paste, add and cut their way to nirvana.  For a while, it is nirvana.  But at some point, it turns into a confusing mess.

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If your company has a shared drive that is only sharing headaches, give us a call.  We have helped many companies get to a better place.

www.mgdocs.com, info@mgdocs.com, (630) 279-0577 x122

To Destroy or Not to Destroy, that is the Real Question.

The destruction that I am referring to is not sinister or borne out of a desire to blow things up.  I am simply referring to the difficult decision that many companies agonize over when considering destroying their documents after those documents have been scanned.  

Fear not, there are answers available to help make the best decision, one way or another.  Read More

www.mgdocs.com, info@mgdocs.com, (630) 279-0577

Training, Overlooked and Underappreciated

I am a firm believer in the benefits of training.  A few of my reasons are as follows:

- Training leads to more consistent results
- Training leads to a shorter learning curve
- Training reduces the incidence of bad hires

These are all positives for any company and for all employees.  So why is training neglected or avoided?  I can think of a few negatives to training also, such as:

- Training takes time and time is money
- Training is boring and nobody pays attention
- Training is difficult in a fast changing business world

These may have some merit but they do not outweigh the benefits noted above.  So what does this have to do with document workflow or imaging?

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www.mgdocs.com, info@mgdocs.com, 630-279-0577 x122

A little Out There

Here are a few thoughts that might be a little out there but they do have some merit.

A national digital document Recorders Office.

Many, many years ago a great idea came about to have local governments keep “recorded” copies of real estate documents.  The purpose was generally to ensure that ownership could be proven and the legal relationship was recorded and recognized.  Each local government runs its own recording office for properties in its jurisdiction, but there isn’t a statewide or national “Recorder”.  This is also primarily a paper based process with actual document stamps.

With digital signature technology, endless online storage and internet access, it is easy to see how one entity could be the "Recorder" of all real estate transaction documents.  That would save governments countless billions of dollars on labor, storage and systems maintenance as well as user’s time and money for submitting and finding documents.

Location Services to connect you with your files and data.

Read more - Millennia Blog

www.mgdocs.com, info@mgdocs.com, 630-279-0577 x122

Gym Shoes Required

Think about this statement pertaining to our hosted document management system FileStar - "Our heavy use customers have a cost per document viewed of less than $0.10 with many customers at $0.50 or less.  Think about that, less than $0.10 per view.  Compare that to the cost of simply going to a file cabinet to pull a document for viewing.  For an employee earning $40,000 per year, they would have ten seconds to get to the file cabinet and ten seconds to get back to their desk.  I hope your dress code allows gym shoes."

Read the full blog at Millennia Blog

For more information on Millennia Group and our document applications and services, please contact Michael Cipriano at mcipriano@mgdocs.com or 630-279-0577 x122.

Business Process Automation - How is your Company Doing?

According to Wikipedia, Business Process Automation (BPA) is “the strategy a business uses to automate processes in order to contain costs. It consists of integrating applications, restructuring labor resources and using software applications throughout the organization."

BPA, as you can see, is a broad definition and sounds like a massive undertaking. Yet companies successfully complete “BPA projects” - knowingly or unknowingly - all the time.

Examples of simple BPA projects include:

·         Accepting orders via online form (replacing the use of a fax machine or order clerk answering the phone).

·         Replacing monthly sales reports created manually in Excel with automated reports and dashboards created by CRM software like Salesforce.

·         Using Mail Merge to deliver customized marketing materials to customers and prospects.

We provide more examples here:

Millennia Blog

What Processes Can Be Outsourced?

Virtually any process at any company can be outsourced. There are certain functions that a company would probably never feel comfortable outsourcing, but this is a case by case decision.  Apple outsources manufacturing.  Caterpiller outsources most of its sales.  Many companies outsource accounting and legal.  Many companies also outsource document processing.

As we all have heard, these outsourced tasks are generally referred to as non-core functions.  With documents, the receipt and routing of the document is generally not a core function of any business.  Its what you do with the document or with the content of the document that is probably a core function of the business.  If you are in the business of processing medical claims, the core function is to understand the billing codes and content of the claim request to make a judgement on paying that claim. Opening the envelope and delivering the document to the claim manager is not core.

Here is a short list of document related processes that can be outsourced and how:

- Mail receipt and routing:  have mail directed to a PO Box that an imaging service sweeps each day, opens the mail and forwards to an electronic inbox.  Intelligent routing rules can be established based on the PO Box number or a code on the document.

- Fax receipt:  Faxes can actually be received electronically and routed electronically without every becoming paper.  The faxes can be routed based on the fax number that they are sent to.

- Email receipt:  Documents delivered to a specific email address can be routed to specific workflow queues

- Data Entry:  Accounts payable documents can be scanned and even the information from the payable can be captured and entered into a system that feeds the accounting system.  This takes all but the approval process and cost code assignment and outsources it.

 - Contract Data Extraction:  Documents can be scanned and routed electronically to a company that will extract the terms into a contract management system.

- Conversion to PDF and OCR:  Documents that are scanned locally can be routed to outsourced back end processes that just convert the files to PDF and OCR the documents.

- Document Translation:  Documents that need to be translated can be scanned and routed to an outsourced service for translation

- Mail merging and printing: Many companies will mail merge from a data list and print and send paper documents (yes, paper is still created and sent).  Of course, mail merging and send electronically is what iContact and other newsletter services do every day.  This process can be used for investor letters, client notices, vendor communication, reporting and many other uses.

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We Have Seen the Light - And We Want You to See it Too

Very sorry for the long absence from this blog.  We have been busy searching for the meaning of Scanning so to speak.  Millennia Group has been a scanning service bureau or scanning services company for 17 years now.  We have always put customer first and that has meant providing our valued customers with scanning services that they wanted and were willing to fund.  There is no question that when the economy was really good, the willingness to fund scanning projects was far greater than it is today.  The underlying reasons to scan have not changed, but the willingness to fund them has, shall we say, tightened up a bit.  And we understand that.  This has caused us and our clients to look deeply at the reasons for a scanning project.  The results of that look are really not surprising.

What we have come to fully embrace and advocate is that scanning needs to be looked at as part of business process improvement.  Scanning is not a means to empty a basement full of boxes or to Go Paperless.  Scanning is also not just a means to satisfy the disaster recovery team or to eliminate some file cabinets.  While it is true that those things can be the result of scanning, scanning must be tied to business process improvement to get past the justifiable financial scrutiny.

For this reason, over the past year, we have been starting the conversation with companies that call and want us to "scan all of their documents" with this simple question - Why?  What is this project going to do to improve your business?  Will it turn a paper based routing and approval process into a paperless process with tracking, notices and an audit trail?  Yes, we are on board and we can help you with that.  Will it give your dispersed and mobile workforce better access to customer and project documentation and let those remote users upload new documents?  Yes, we are on board with this too and we can definitely help.

Be willing to have a thick skin and maybe look hard at some internal processes that may not be optimal or in fact broken.  Embrace some well thought out change.  Now scanning is really going to improve your business.

visit us at www.mgdocs.com