Every time a MyDoom-type virus is unleashed on the world, business managers sprint to man their firewalls and for a time at least, security is a top priority.

When a warehouse supervisor reports an over-stock or an out-of-stock, the same business managers pay even closer attention to their procurement process to ensure revenue isn’t being wasted – or customers’ orders aren’t going unfulfilled. But when these managers waste 20 minutes searching their computer for an email a client sent them six months ago, or the minutes of a meeting, or next month’s budget, they don’t give it a second thought.

But they should. Because multiply that 20 minutes a day, by hundreds of employees, and it becomes clear very quickly that lost or misplaced documents are putting a major dent in businesses’ bottom lines – and they have been doing so for years.

The problem is multifaceted, says Microsoft consultant Neil Haddley: “The whole concept of records management and knowledge management involves technical and non-technical issues.” The technical issues can be dealt with easily enough, but interestingly it’s the non-technical ones that tend to throw a spanner in the works of any organisation trying to get a handle on its internal knowledge.

Consider the following: As recently as 10 years ago most businesses’ important documentation was printed out, photocopied and filed away. Letters to supply chain partners, quotations, latest price lists – everything was filed and could be found again easily enough should circumstances demand it.

Today however, around 60 percent of a businesses’ corporate knowledge is stored on the personal hard drives of its employees – and the bulk of that is actually in their emails – known only to them and purged every six months or so when the IT managers start running low on storage space.

This scenario, the ‘cultural’ aspect of staff storing information on personal hard drives and within emails, has crept up unnoticed on most businesses. The situation is serious, but the good news is it can be addressed.

So how do you get your organisation’s documents and document processes under control? Offering consultation and software such as Docu-Share, DataWorks and Viibe, Fuji Xerox’s Steve Lewthwaite says he takes the following steps when working towards a document solution.

Phase 1: Investigation and discovery
“We need to identify exactly how bad you are. So we look at a couple of areas we think are causing you pain. For example, it may be document distribution and email. How are you managing your created documents and your incoming documents? We analyse where the document is being processed and we look at the types of documents being processed. We look at how people are accessing those documents and how they work with documents within the organisation.

From this investigation we can categorise the types of documents you have and what the intrinsic value of them is to your organisation. From there we get an idea of where the bottlenecks are and where the factors that affect customer-service and profitability are. Things like where are there gaps in efficiency? Where is there a duplication of work? Where are there duplication of information and version control issues?”

Phase 2: Evaluate what it’s worth
“At this stage we work out what the cost and risks of all these things are to the business. For example, what are the implications if you can’t find a document in time to satisfy a customer request? Does it affect customer-service so that customer doesn’t come back? Does it mean you’ve broken the terms of your service level agreements? There’s a whole pile of factors that might affect the return on investment.

For example, we had a case recently where we identified document issues in a company’s accounts payable division. The solution would have cost $100,000 to implement and the company’s CFO said that it would pay for itself within six months. He also then factored in that if they took no action for a couple of years, that would equate to $400,000 off their bottom line. So it’s during this phase that we can clearly show people what their document problems are costing them.”

Phase 3: Scope out a solution
“This is when we get down to the nitty-gritty and say ‘you want this application and you want to set it up like this to replace these areas here. Do you want automatic dynamic email subscription from the document management system – updating project teams on what they’ve done?’ And so on. So we break it down and detail how the solution will work functionally against the actual business issues we have identified in the first phase.”

Phase 4: Implementation
“After we create a scope of what we’re going to do we get customer sign off and the next thing is rollout. For a simple solution like putting a document management solution into a 20-user environment where people are pretty smart up front and have been involved in the process the actual implementation of software and so on can be about a day – but the training of people and changing the company culture can take up to two weeks.”

Use a sharp knife
Although in some aspects of business (like implementing an ERP solution for example), a phased roll out to allow staff to get accustomed to a new process or technology gradually is often a wise strategy, for document management solutions Lewthwaite says in his experience the ‘big bang’ approach is usually more successful. “Basically it’s about saying ‘as of Monday we’re now doing things this way’,” he says. “There have been a lot of implementations that use that phased, department by department approach but they leave back doors open and people use them. If you allow people to continue to save things on their hard drives they will do it. If you want your document management solution to work I recommend the sharp knife approach.”

Changing document process
Oftentimes, says Microsoft’s Haddley, although an organisation may have made its decision to implement a document management solution based on the return on investment related to its existing business processes, when the solution is actually implemented it finds the benefits considerably more widespread. “The real impact can often be somewhere down the line,” he says. “The introduction of new technology changes the process and things start turning around more quickly. So the positive effects come, not just in terms of dollars, but in terms of the efficiency of the business process.”

One of the greatest return on investment opportunities can come from automating the way documents move through an organisation. Routing, managing and entering data from paper forms is slow, expensive and erodes productivity. Applications like the LiquidOffice eForm management system, for example, provide the infrastructure to put form and document processes online, connecting corporate forms with databases, ERP systems and back-office applications.

March 2004

Manual Document Process

Automated Document Process

Individual fills out a purchase order (PO) form. Currently the PO is filled out online, printed, and hand delivered to a supervisor.

Individual fills out PO form on the LiquidOffice Form Server. Form is automatically routed to individual's supervisor at submission.

Supervisor approves, rejects, or requires more information on the PO. They sign the form for approval and hand deliver it to the accounts department to record the PO in the accounting software. Or they do not sign it and hand deliver it back to the originator telling them it is rejected or it needs further edits before approval.

Supervisor approves, rejects, or requires more information concerning the request. These actions can be based on the submit action field available on the form.

When the accounts department receives a PO for $10,000 or more, someone in the department must take the form to the CFO for approval. If the CFO approves it, the accounts department can sign off and record the PO in the accounting software. If the CFO does not approve the PO, the accounts department must reject the form and send an email to the originator concerning the rejection, or the accounts department must walk the form around to the Supervisor and/or originator of the form to fix the problem.

If the supervisor approves the form, and the 'total' field on the form is for $10,000 or more, the form is automatically routed to the CFO for approval. If the CFO approves the form, it is automatically routed to the accounts department to record the PO in the accounting software. If the supervisor, CFO, and/or accounts department require more information or need the form to be edited prior to approval, the form is automatically routed back to the originator for edits along with an email telling the originator to edit the existing form and why.

Through the distribution and automation of organisational forms (such as expense reports, purchase orders, time-off requests or any kind of application forms), organisations can significantly increase worker productivity (see fig 2.0 below). Processes are also sped up when organisations put their forms online for public access.

Dare to share
Perhaps the most important aspect of document management solutions is empowering an organisation’s staff (and frequently external partners as well) to work collaboratively on projects. Many vendors provide solutions to facilitate this. Typically they involve team members logging on to an intranet or extranet portal where they can take part in discussion forums, and view or exchange documents and other project related collateral.

At their core, collaborative portal solutions streamline projects by reducing the amount of personal emails that may have been sent prior to a portal being established – and assist project participants to keep up with what the most up to date version of a document is. Version control protocols mean everybody knows who changed what and when, and older versions of documents can be accessed if they need to be referred to.

So how do portals reduce email? Instead of individuals interacting with each other one on one (via personal emails), with a collaborative portal solution, they take part in discussion threads – so that everyone can see what’s been discussed. The portal can also notify project members automatically (by email or text message, for example) when a particular document they’re interested in has been updated, or a discussion thread has been added to.

“For a project to be successful at all,” says Lewthwaite, “it’s all about communication and everybody knowing what’s going on. It’s when the communication is poor that the wheels normally fall off.” Microsoft’s Haddley says products like SharePoint have helped cut down on the amount of email he receives. “What tends to happen is that people subscribe to content generated by people whose work interests them or is relevant to them in some way.

So every time somebody like that posts a report, everyone who has subscribed is automatically advised. So if you’re subscribing to someone’s public information it means people don’t feel the need to broadcast company-wide emails anymore which results in less email overall.

Organisation

Business Issue

Solution Product

Business Benefits

Toyota Financial Services

Customer information was held in paper format and could not be easily shared with Toyota’s dealership network

The Lotus Domino Notes application suite (implemented by Convergence) delivers information to extranet work groups in a secure, organised way

The extranet offers security, a userfriendly home page presentation and the flexibility to add dynamic functions like group broadcasts and bulletins. Paper-based line flow reporting to dealerships has ceased

Queenstown Lakes District Council

The Council needed to share minutes, agendas and discuss documents with council members. They also needed a document audit trail to identify who had looked at and/or altered any documents

Harmony extranet from e-Media

Information provided in a timely and secure way to all interested parties – allowing the Council to make informed decisions faster and dispense with many face to face meetings

The NZ Foundation for Research, Science & Technology

Grant application assessment was a manual paper based process requiring the review of hard copies of applications & monthly meetings to debate findings

Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server

Group members can quickly assess documents, discuss issues, arrange meetings and score applications online – potentially reducing operating expenses by 50%

Wickliffe/Blueship

A division of print services suppliers Wickliffe, Blueship Solutions wanted utilise its business forms expertise in the creation of electronic forms -  thus increasing its clients efficiency by automating their document workflows and replacing their paper based forms with electronic ones.

Using Liquid Office, Blueship created 'Formation', an electronic forms portal - offered as a hosted solution in an ASP model.

americascup.com

NZ web developers Phosphor Essence needed password enabled contributors anywhere in the world, to be able to update information at americascup.com

FujiXerox DocuShare 2.2

America’s Cup website went live within a week of approval – and at a fraction of its anticipated cost. Information about America’s Cup activities was online minutes after taking place