Go Green with Document Management

Overview

Manufacturers like Toyota, Ford, Motorola and others have spent years perfecting lean processes. By removing all non-value add activities and focusing on customer value, they have been able to increase financial gains and minimize expense.  The concept is simple: by using the minimum amount of resources – people, materials, and capital – they produce solutions and deliver them on time to customers. This focus on outcome rather than process eliminates getting bogged down in paper-work, records management, and error correction.

Process Improvement and Paperless Technologies

“There’s gotta be a better way!”

Those were the words that the manager of one large organization uttered when he described the way his department handled the maintenance and updates of crucial insurance information for their clients. 

Here’s the way the system worked: 

• Every year, prior to the anniversary of the insurance, letters were created in a word processing system to remind the insured to renew their yearly policies.
• Two copies of the letter were printed out.
• One was mailed via US post office to the client.
• One was sent to a service that scanned the letter and saved the file electronically, as a permanent record.

Yes, you read that correctly…

The letters were generated electronically, printed onto paper, mailed and then scanned back into electronic form on another system.   

Overview

You might be thinking about the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday with an eye to avoiding excess weight gain.  But, did you know that If you’re a business owner, there’s another area where you need to pay attention to excess weight…and that’s in your business!  That’s right!  Keeping your business running lean and fit is every bit as important to your business as keeping your body lean and fit is to your health!

Let’s look at some of the things that add excess weight to your business, hindering your business’s health and even reducing profits.

How to Improve Business Processes

If you're a business owner who has decided that it's time for your business to "become more productive," then we have news for you.  It's going to take a lot more than wishful thinking to turn your business into a productivity machine.  

Let's look at what increase productivity really means.  Increased productivity is a broad term meaning that your employees and your departments are putting out more "products" more quickly (and hopefully at lower costs, so the bottom line improves). It doesn't matter whether the "products" are widgets produced on a manufacturing line or financial reports from your accounting department.  Every employee, every department has a mandate to produce.

A desire to increase productivity and reduce costs is a great place to start, but without an end goal and a concrete plan, that's all it is -- just a desire.  It's rather like saying "I'm going to lose weight -- or exercise more.  Without a specific goal and a workable plan to get there it's not going to happen. 

How CEOs  Improve Core Business through Technology and Innovation

Running a business is more complex today than it’s ever been.  Issues like regulation, the rapid development of technology, market disruptions, and finding the right talent at the right time have been concerns for some time. 

Add to that economic concerns, regional and national differences, and the changes that the Internet continues to bring to the way business is conducted, and CEOs have their hands full.  If businesses are to succeed, CEOs need to make use of the enormous amounts of data that are available, while at the same time securing their business data and other assets.   

Why Government Agencies Must Change 

How many pieces of paper are on your desk right now?  How many hours do you spend “pushing paper” daily?  For far too many public servants the answer is too many! 

While some state and local government agencies are moving toward a paperless environment, many others are still mired in the paper quagmire. 

See How You Can Go Paperless

Constituents want mobile and cloud services, self-service and greater transparency.  Politicians and government workers agree.  So, what’s the hold-up and just how does a typically slow-moving bureaucracy transform?

The Hidden Costs of Paying Your Invoices

Do you still process your invoices by hand?  If you do, you’re not alone, but all indications are that soon manual invoice processing will be a thing of the past.  So…if you’re not looking at alternatives, maybe it’s time to start.  Our white paper can help you.

Challenges and Benefits of the Paperless Cloud

Those of us who sell paperless cloud solutions and technology for a living sometimes forget how big of a step it can be for many small to medium businesses to move from paper-based systems to cloud-based paperless systems.  While big-business early-adaptors and the technologically savvy may have been “in the cloud” for ages, a lot of smaller organizations are focused simply on ensuring enough profit each year to keep the business going. 

While single-minded focus on core business does usually ensure that the business will thrive in the short term, that kind of hyper-focus may actually prevent a business from growing in the long term.  Companies that want to grow, that want to compete successfully with larger, more technologically advanced organizations in their industry often find that the only way to do so is by keeping up with the latest technology. 

5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Business Bottom Line

Would you like to impact your P&L statement with a 30% increase in sales?  Who wouldn’t!  But what would it take to increase your sales by 30%?  Would you need to hire an extra sales person – or two?  Pay for additional on-line or print advertising?  How many leads do you have to generate to increase your sales by 30%? 

Would it surprise you to learn that there’s an easier way to have that 30% positive impact on your bottom line?

"The Gartner Group estimates that a 5% reduction in operating expense has the same impact on the company's P&L statement as a 30% increase in sales." 

How to Implement Process Improvement in Your Company

Often firms are acutely aware of the need to reduce the cost of processing internal transactions, yet, they fail to take action.  Usually this is because they just don’t know what action to take. 

Even knowing which processes most need improvement, they feel ill-equipped to move forward.  This is not surprising, because for most firms, process improvement is not part of their core function.  Rather, they are focused on meeting clients’ needs, producing the latest widget, or promoting the latest product, as they should be.