Organize, Consolidate and Share

Every company has information stashed in silos all across the enterprise.  There is paper in file cabinets, there are files on shared drives on the network, there are files stored in the cloud and of course there are files on users computers.  This situation is costly, risky and just plain inefficient.

Is it possible to create one consolidated, organized and shared silo, like a magic closet that always has in it exactly what you are looking for?  Maybe not, but it is possible to have fewer silos and one silo that has your critical business documents in it.  Millennia Group can help you get there.

You can read the full blog post at: Millennia Blog

www.mgdocs.com - www.collectdocs.com - (630) 279-0577 x122

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.

Visit us at www.mgdocs.com

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

Follow the Leader - Please!

Recently I received a notice via email from the Government and I have to say it was very exiting.  It was a PDF file and when I opened the PDF, there was a very impressive first page with official Executive Office seals and insignia.  Here is what the opening said: 

"EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20503
NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20408
August 24, 2012

On November 28, 2011, President Obama signed the Presidential Memorandum -Managing Government Records. This memorandum marked the beginning of an Executive Branch-wide effort to reform records management policies and practices and to develop a 21st-century framework for the management of Government records. "

The memorandum goes on to talk about document imaging and this is what really got me excited - "This directive requires that to the fullest extent possible, agencies eliminate paper and use electronic recordkeeping. "

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/11/28/presidential-memorandum-managing-government-records

As you can appreciate, as a document imaging service bureau, the more momentum there is to convert paper to digital, the better.  The government taking a leadership role will certainly help bring along many more companies to the digital revolution.  But really, when I read between the lines and read more of the directive, the rationale for the directive is just good solid business sense.  Keep your information organized and accessible and you will be a more efficient organization. 

Follow the leader, it's good for your organization and it just so happens to be good for Millennia Group too.  Thank you Mr. President!

A Slippery Slope

Our blog title - "Tackling Mountains of Docs" is very top of mind lately. We have just launched a new service aimed squarely at Iron Mountain - controller of mountains of boxes of documents. Our service is a combination of technology, hard work and process but in the end, it is just common sense. We call our new service I:S Cubed as in Inventory: Scan, Shred or Store.

The point of the service is if you use some basic logic in making decisions, it is not all that painful to make that decision. Iron Mountain and other box storage firms have grown very large and accumulated a vast amount of boxes because its difficult to make decisions about the mysterious contents. Rather than sweep the boxes under the rug so to speak, take back control. As our service clearly states, start with taking an inventory. Find out what is in those boxes. Once you have the inventory you can make the decisions that need to be made - Scan, Shred or Store.

You should compare that inventory to your records retention schedule or at the very least talk to your accountant and attorney to find out best practices for retention of various document types. Armed with this information you will find it easy to make good, common sense decisions. You will not only save money in the long run, you will be surprised at the important corporate knowledge that you find and you will sleep better knowing you are effectively managing your litigation exposure.

If you are just starting to accumulate boxes in off-site storage, keep a very detailed inventory in a database or spreadsheet. Don't start sliding down that slippery slope.

visit us at www.mgdocs.com

Scanner + Intern Does Not Equal Green

The scanning service bureau world has heard these words a thousand times - "no thanks, we are going to hire some interns and scan all of the documents with our new scanner". I am sure all of our fellow service providers are nodding, yep they have heard those same words.

On the surface it seems like a good idea. Hire college kids for $10/hour, buy a $2,500 scanner that does 75 pages per minute, point them to the file room and get it done. Some math is done to estimate the total cost and to get an idea of when the project will be complete. Sounds good, doesn't it. Clear out that file room. Have documents available on the computer. Less paper in the office. What a great story - Green Green Green.

Here is the rest of the story. The CEO has lunch with a critical customer who wants to double his orders in a new area if the price is right. The problem is when the CEO asks for data to support the pricing, nobody can find the information. Everyone is sure the documents that contain the data were scanned. The documents were in the file cabinet and the interns scanned all the documents in that cabinet. The CFO, the COO, the Director of Sales, two associates and a forensic specialist are brought in to find these files. Two days later they were found on a local drive in the iTunes folder - oops.

I don't think I need to do the math on what it cost to try to find those documents. I also don't want anyone to get the idea that it was a bad idea to scan in the first place. Quite the contrary, it was a great idea to scan. But, like most things in life, it is not that it was a bad idea or bad timing or the wrong people, it can usually be summed up by saying it was poor execution.

Scanner + Intern + Planning can equal Green. Call a service bureau to help consult you on the planning part. Then you will see Green and not Red at an inopportune time.

visit us at www.mgdocs.com

It's not about Millennia Group

We are a very proud and dedicated group of people at Millennia. We take pride in the quality of the work we do and we have been happy to tell everyone along the way - 15 years worth today to be exact. We have been telling everyone about our fantastic internal process and procedures and the great Kodak equipment we use for scanning. Of course we have told everyone that we use Kofax, the industry leading document capture software to make sure our clients are getting the best images they can. Our client list is proudly displayed on our web site and we love to mention the great client names that we have serviced successfully over the years. But, you know what? it's not about Millennia Group.

I have recently been doing some deep dive sales and marketing analysis and discovered that our prospects and clients were only secondarily interested in the How We Do It. They basically heard blah, blah, blah. Until I mentioned that they could cut 75% of the cost out of creating and maintaining paper based customer files or how they would be able to find any executed legal contract in seconds and never leave their chair, did they start to listen. Only when I mentioned that they could sleep better at night knowing all the employee files were backed up since we scanned them did people stop hearing blah blah blah and started to get as excited as we were.

We have always been good listeners and we have always worked hard to help our clients solve problems and deliver cost saving results. We just never learned to describe What We Do as What The Benefit Is or What The Result Is. So you will likely see some changes at Millennia Group. We are still very proud of how we do what we do but we are going to scream Why We Do It from now on. That is much more exciting - for both of us.

Visit us at www.mgdocs.com and watch for changes. Thank you.