Thriving in a recession
When the economy hits a downturn and particularly when recession looms, companies have a tendency to retreat back into their shell and try to weather it out. However, according to many experts, this is exactly the time when companies should be taking steps to look at systems and processes which will enable them not only survive the difficult times but to emerge stronger at the end of them.
This type of approach can be beneficial in many different areas. However, one of the fundamental ones relates to the management and effective use of the information that flows in and out of the company. Here, there is an enormous amount of benefit to be had by scanning and storing digitally the key information which normally flows in paper form, thereby allowing it, and its benefits, to be shared throughout the organisation.
Here, we look at some of the benefits that this can bring to organisations of all sizes.
- Secure your current customer base: retaining your customer base is a priority for all organisations and offering excellent customer service goes a long way to achieving this goal. In turn, a key element of good customer service is ensuring that your staff have the necessary information at their fingertips - so providing access to this and other relevant documentation in electronic format is a fundamental requirement which will help ensure that you gain the edge over your competitors as well as retaining your customer base.
- Be flexible: you need to be able to adapt to changes in business levels, whether they are increases or downturns. Unfortunately a large fixed cost base makes this difficult if not impossible. However, by using a managed services partner, significant cost savings on many ‘back office’ processes can be made particularly when linked to a document management system where instant online access is available. In addition, you will be able to react to these changes much more quickly and smoothly because the solutions are totally scalable at short notice.
- Help your staff help your business: holding your key information and documents electronically, you ensure that all of the information your staff require is readily available to them, allowing them to carry out their jobs more effectively. Equally, in the unfortunate situation where there is a need to reduce personnel, you also ensure that the customer service levels you provide can still be maintained through these more effective systems.
- Streamline your internal systems: this is a key action that companies have on their corporate “to do list” at the best of times. So, with revenues coming under pressure, the more streamlined your processes, the lower your costs are likely to be and therefore the better your cash flow position. With document management in place, the access to documentation, information and records in general will be quicker and easier allowing you to clear any blocks in your information channels.
- Use what you have as widely as possible: making sure that documents are scanned and entered into your systems, means that the information will never be difficult to find or held by one or two individuals. Instead, there is visibility and access for those who require it making sure that there are no information blocks to cause delays or increase costs.
- Reduce your incremental costs of growth: by using the electronic options available to you by digitising your documents, you can give yourself the best opportunities to grow without incurring higher costs. Avoiding the often forgotten frictional costs associated with growth is equally important.
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Data Security is key at Preview
It seems that hardly a month goes by without yet another security breach coming to light where confidential information has gone missing from a large contractor or government agency. This time the personal details of thousands of prison staff have been misplaced, and once again the spotlight is very much on all companies that have to deal with confidential information and how they do that safely.
And that includes Preview.
Our work involves confidential information on a daily basis. While it might not be the personal information of our prison staff or members of the Armed Forces, it does include information which is often business critical and can contain both sensitive as well as personal elements.
As such, a key part of the document scanning service we provide involves the security of the documents and the information they contain at all stages of the process. This doesn’t just cover the scanning process itself … far from it. It starts when we receive the documents (including transportation where appropriate) and their storage, both electronically and physically, afterwards.
So what are the areas that we look at and what measures are in place:
i) Security vetted staff – to comply with regulations from certain clients, we have security vetted staff who can be used where required or appropriate;
ii) Transportation – when transporting documents to and from our scanning facility, the vans are fitted with GPS tracking helping security to be as tight as possible;
iii) Premises – security at our facilities is clearly a key element in making sure the scanning is carried out in the correct environment. Our Records Management Centre also provides a safe storage facility for those customers looking for secure offsite storage after the digitisation is complete.
iv) Tested online system – a key element of our system is the online storage and viewing facility which gives our customers instant yet secure access to their digitised documents through our eview+ software.
By focusing on all of these different elements, we ensure that every precaution is taken to maintain the security of the data and information we handle at every step of the process. With the volume of information we handle increasing, they are also solutions which are scalable to ensure that the levels are maintained and developed as the requirements grow.
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Document Management in the NHS
With the large volumes of documentation that the NHS handles on a daily basis, a document management system which offers the ability to organise this is going to be of great importance. As part of this process, the benefits that individual NHS Trusts can accrue from a programme of document scanning and indexing can also be immense, both in terms of time saving and efficiency.
These benefits were some of the points that Preview looked to highlight in their “Document Management Healthcheck” presentation at the ASSIST event (Association of Informatics Professionals in Health and Social Care) this month. It also gave the opportunity to highlight some of the work that Preview has been carrying out at a number of NHS Trusts such as Leeds Mental Health.
The issues that many of the Trusts are experiencing tend to fall into 3 main categories which primarily revolve around the issue of accessibility of the records they require on a day to day basis. These issues are often compounded by the fact that the Trusts run several different sites across their region with documents produced and stored locally but needed to be accessed by all of them.
The issues most commonly highlighted are:
i) The ability to both locate the information quickly coupled and access it as easily as possible. Due to multiple sites involved, this could often result in a time consuming search for specific documents.
ii) With document being in constant demand, real ease of access also required that more than one person should be able to work with the documents at a time, something that was certainly problematic with paper documents.
iii) The need to store a constantly increasing mountain of files and documents was putting more and more pressure on space which was already at a premium. More filing cabinets and archive boxes would only compound this further.
In each of these cases, the digitisation of the documents by scanning and indexing them, would effectively deal with these issues at one fell swoop giving instant access to the information to all authorised personnel across the region, not to mention freeing up some badly needed space.
But what happens if you need a document while they are all being scanned and indexed? No longer are they sitting in one of the filing cabinets waiting to be found, they’re in Preview’s facilities in London! No problem – with Preview’s Scan on Demand service coming to the rescue, any document required can be processed and put online to be viewed easily and quickly.
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Benefits of Outsourced Managed Services
Your experience of Preview will probably be based on our document scanning and data capture capabilities. In fact, we have now created the largest document scanning operation in the UK and use this capacity across a huge range of industries.
However, in addition to this, we have also developed a key partnership with an offshore managed services company which means that we can extend the cost savings on many ‘back office’ processes. When combined with Preview’s ability to digitise paper, this provides what is probably the most powerful range of managed services available in the UK market.
In extending the range of services available, Preview has partnered with ADEC Solutions, which is one of the leading BPOs in the Far East with some 5000 staff operating out of a several locations. Preview and ADEC are already working with dozens of UK companies that are already seeing substantial benefits as they streamline many of their core activities.
So of the areas which are seeing particular success in are:
- Accounts Payable & Accounts Receivable Processing
- Claims verification and processing
- Database management
- Forms Processing
- Financial Reconciliation
- Sales & PO Order Entry
- Employee Expense Management
The initial benefits of this type of arrangement often tend to focus on costs, with typical savings of around 30%-40% over existing arrangements being achieved. However, the benefits don’t stop there. The facilities are also totally scalable at short notice – so any peak or downturn in volumes can be managed quickly. In addition, outsourcing can provide consistent, excellent service levels to customers, while improving service quality – a combination which is key at any time and particularly in today’s economic climate.
Perhaps most importantly the World class quality and security that clients have come to expect from Preview is taken to a new level with ADEC’s Certifications which:
• ISO 9001:2000;
• ISO 27001:2005 / ISO 17799:2005
• Certified Perimeter Certification from CyberTrust for Data Security.
Together these offer a solution which is both flexible and secure, and comes with the levels of quality that both you and your customers would expect.
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Document Scanning Triggers: Customer Service
In the eyes of most customers - and let’s face it we are all customers either as individuals or as businesses - the key requirements of good customer service means getting our questions answered and our problems solved quickly and efficiently. Most of the time, this happens over the phone and could involve us trying to solve an invoicing issue, following up on a general enquiry or simply requesting extra information on a product.
Somehow, no matter how entertaining the “holding music” is, being put on hold for minutes at a time while someone finds the information they need to give us our answers does not deliver the customer service level we expect in today’s electronic world. Yet we are faced with this situation time and time again. Often, this is a result of an organisation keeping their records in paper format – even a small organisation cannot hope to have all their paper files immediately to hand, particularly when even the best paper indexing system will still leave gaps.
So what’s the alternative? Well, with all of your company’s paper documentation stored electronically, you change the playing field entirely. There is no longer any time delay in finding the information that you need to respond to your customers’ queries - instead, by accessing their files or documents with the information they are looking for, you’ll be able to respond immediately. And with paper documents available online, alongside email correspondence, you have all the relevant information at your fingertips.
In fact, having this information available allows you to take it one step further, giving you the opportunity to focus much more clearly on the real reason for their question and take a more proactive approach. While at the same time, by being able to answer your customers’ service enquiries more quickly, you can also reduce the costs associated with, saving you money at the same time. A real WIN - WIN situation
So next time you are listening to “Green Sleaves” wondering when the person on the other end of the phone will return with the documents they need, make a mental note to get those key customer documents scanned and indexed and watch your customer service ratings soar.
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Loyalty brings success at Waterstone’s
Loyalty cards have become part and parcel of everyday life and are an increasingly important tool for businesses looking to reward customers who remain loyal to their brand. However, for the system to run smoothly, there is a great deal of work going on behind the scenes from the moment the customer completes the application form to when they use their reward points and the savings they bring.
After careful planning, Waterstone’s launched their own loyalty card, The Waterstone’s Card, in September 2007 giving their customers the chance to earn points every time they purchased books in their stores or online. The scheme also gave the cardholders the opportunity to take advantage of unique special offers, receive email newsletters and enter exclusive competitions.
To process all of the application forms being returned from their stores, Waterstone’s needed a partner able to manage this key part of the operation. The company would need the resources in place to receive and scan the incoming loyalty card forms before securely sending on the details. They consulted Careline Services, one of their trusted suppliers, who in turn was able to recommended Preview as the ideal partner to fulfil this role and a company they already enjoyed a successful working relationship with. Having some of the most comprehensive systems in the UK, Preview was well able to handle the requirements.
The national loyalty scheme is across 330 Waterstone’s stores in the UK and Europe, and on Waterstones.com. Customers were asked to fill out an application form, and these forms were then batched up at the end of each day and sent via Royal Mail directly to Preview from each individual store. Sending the forms straight to Preview meant that the process was significantly speeded up and allowed the customers’ details to be registered on the database as quickly as possible.
Upon arrival, the forms were verified and prepared for scanning. Once scanned, these images were forwarded to the CRM database where key information from the forms including name and address and email address were recorded. This all ensured that when their card was used in store, the points were added correctly, Waterstone’s knew which customer was shopping and could therefore track their behaviour, segmenting them into specific customer groups ensuring any communication to them is relevant.
The Waterstone’s Card has proven to be an overwhelming success and, as of the middle of August 2008 1,701,446 card forms have been scanned and the pace shows no sign of slowing which is good news for Waterstone’s and great news for the thousands of new cardholders joining the programme every week.
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