April 2020 - IntelliChief

How Content Intelligence Supports Your Company’s Digital Transformation

April 29, 2020

Digital transformation. It’s a phrase that seems to be tossed around more and more these days; however, despite its burgeoning popularity, it’s somewhat of a misnomer when examined through a critical lens. In today’s unpredictable business climate, companies don’t just need to transform, they need to evolve in order to adapt and thrive. The digital transformation sweeping the globe isn’t a passing trend, it’s the next major challenge in the survival of the fittest — and, as it turns out, the key to staying viable may be content intelligence.

What Is Digital Transformation?

Business leaders that are determined to keep up have a lot to consider as they seek solutions to assist them with their digital transformation. According to Salesforce, these technologies can be utilized to modify or replace existing “business processes, culture, and customer experiences to meet changing business and market requirements.”

In other words, every company’s digital transformation is unique to its own existing processes and structure. Business leaders can spend a lot of time digging through niche technologies designed for their vertical, but this isn’t always the best method. Niche solutions typically require multiple vendors and haphazard integrations. Starting with a robust, formalized solution can help streamline integration and minimize the learning curve of adapting to digital processes. So, where do you start? First, you’ll have to answer this question:

What is the one thing every business has in common?

Content. Documents. Information. It’s the fuel that keeps a business operational, which is why business leaders exploring options for their own digital transformation should seek a flexible solution that allows them to handle their content more intelligently. With content intelligence, businesses can adopt a solution that can be fitted to every department across their organization, making it the perfect technology to kick off your digital transformation.

Content Intelligence Tools Simplify Unstructured Data Management

Content intelligence encompasses a range of technologies designed to digitize business-critical information so it can be routed throughout an organization as efficiently as possible. Content intelligence allows a business to reduce processing times, increase fulfillment speed, and mitigate human error. Businesses benefit because their employees have far fewer manual tasks, significantly reducing the chance of missing or erroneous content.

Leading content intelligence platforms utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning to read documents, capture and index information, rout it approved users, validate data across multiple related documents, and a number of other functions that help your organization manage unstructured data. The technologies that make up content intelligence tools include:

Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
Machine Learning
Content Analytics
Unit of Measure Normalization
Universal Cross-Reference Tables
Mobile Capture
And More

Leveraging Content Intelligence for Your ERP System

Major Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) providers, such as Oracle, SAP, and Infor, have grown rapidly over the last decade, culminating in Koch’s $13 billion acquisition of Infor in April 2020. A company’s ERP system plays an integral role in its day-to-day operations. Unfortunately, widespread adoption and a race to acquire third-party solutions that bridge the gap in these ERP systems’ shortcomings have made it integral for companies to seek partnerships that help them get the most out of their ERP system, such as business process automation for Accounts Payable or remote GL coding for invoices.

Regardless of which ERP system or line of business application a company relies on, a leading content intelligence solution will capture the important information from any incoming document and rout it a relevant user or into an automated workflow, depending on the software stack being utilized by the business. Any employee within the organization who has the proper permissions can then view, edit, and manage the document without leaving their desk. Companies that embrace business process automation can even eliminate approvals altogether if the matching process passes a certain confidence threshold — typically around 90 percent.

Content intelligence tools make quick work of duplicate invoices, mismatches, and other exceptions that fail to pass through your ERP system. Machine learning capabilities mean visually unique invoices, such as those sent from new customers, are quickly read, interpreted, and applied to any future invoices from the same source. In a perfect system, document routing can be automated for as many as 70 to 90 percent of documents, allowing companies to cut costs, consolidate resources, and eliminate “busy work.”

Make Informed Decisions and Gain Superior Visibility With Content Intelligence

Another benefit of content intelligence is the ability for business leaders to clearly visualize the inner workings of their business with analytics. How many invoices does your company process a month? Which employees are processing the most documents? How many documents are being held up for exception handling? How long does your process take from start to finish on average?

Businesses that can answer these questions have all the information they need to make informed decisions that protect themselves from the unexpected. Some content intelligence tools, such as IntelliChief, even provide ROI analytics to prove that they are making businesses less resource hungry and more efficient. Businesses can literally monitor ROI in real-time — a testament to the efficacy of content intelligence.

Managing Risk During Digital Transformation

Companies undergoing digital transformation are oftentimes riddled with anxiety as they modify business processes to fit the “future mold.” They conjure images of lost documents, organizational freezes, and unforeseen legal issues. Rest assured, these fears will soon be put to rest once their digital transformation is complete.

Content intelligence can bolster an existing risk management strategy by eliminating lost documents and generating a digital paper trail of all enterprise content. Plus, the superior visibility mentioned earlier means every aspect of your process is accounted for. Additionally, when the time comes to audit, having all of your documents and content available in a digital repository means your information is ready for review at all times.

The Content Intelligence Checklist

Are you ready to explore your options? There are several content intelligence platforms available on the market, but not every solution will be right for your business. Some providers are only interested in solving a single problem for an organization. Others, generally Enterprise Content Management (ECM) providers, are geared towards larger businesses that want a scalable solution for maximum ROI. Business leaders should keep this checklist on hand when researching solutions to ensure that they end up with the right content intelligence tools for their needs:

Does my business process a large volume of paper, documents, or content?
Are misfiled, missing, or lost documents hindering my processing speed?
Does the solution I am researching integrate with my existing ERP system(s) or line of business application(s)?
Does the solution support an array of different use cases?
Does the solution support interdepartmental connectivity?
Is the solution scalable?
Does the solution offer named licenses or concurrent licenses?
Does my current ERP provider recognize this solution (i.e., Oracle Gold Partner, Infor Solutions Partner, etc.)

Naturally, business leaders will be confronted with their own questions while perusing all the options available on the market — and rightfully so. Thoroughness is essential when selecting a content intelligence solution as it will serve a business for years to come, so we encourage you to take your time when performing your due diligence. If you find yourself at a crossroads, or simply want to talk to an expert about whether content intelligence is right for your business, we encourage you to contact us today.

Ready to learn more about how content intelligence can help your business thrive during digital transformation? Contact IntelliChief today to learn more about our industry-leading content intelligence tools and ECM platform.

Maintaining Business Continuity With ECM During the 2020 Hurricane Season

April 28, 2020

IntelliChief, the leader in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions, urges businesses to prepare for the upcoming 2020 hurricane season in order to maintain business continuity and ensure the protection of all business-critical data.

According to The Weather Company, an IBM business, “The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is predicted to be more active than usual.”

Dr. Todd Crawford, the chief meteorologist at The Weather Company, estimates that there will be a total of 18 named storms in 2020, including nine hurricanes and four major hurricanes. If this forecast is accurate, the 2020 hurricane season will trump the 30-year average, which class for 13 named storms per year.

For any business, maintaining operational data protection is a crucial aspect of business continuity. Without access to information, a business cannot flourish. When information is destroyed without a digital copy to fill in the gaps, it can lead to significant challenges for an enterprise-class business. Needless to say, with the 2020 hurricane season looming on the horizon, disaster recovery and business continuity have come clearly into focus, leading to questions like:

Can you afford downtime?
How long can you survive when revenue skids to a halt?
If your business can’t serve its customers, will they immediately jump ship for a competitor, or are you secure in your niche?
What is the cost to restore operations versus the cost to safeguard against future disasters and disruptions?

Although COVID-19 has pushed organizations to address business continuity weaknesses, Mercer reports that only 24 percent of companies are currently drafting a plan and 51 percent have no plan at all. These companies have been rendered vulnerable to force majeure events that nobody can control, and this vulnerability will only continue to be exposed as the first wave of tropical storms and hurricanes sweep the Atlantic.

Another issue is the scope of a disaster recovery or mitigation plan. Commonly, companies have a disaster recovery plan that doesn’t include the preservation of information outside of their on-location and colocation servers. In other words, data stored on your employees’ personal devices, disparate systems, and even information on paper is a high risk for permanent information elimination.

An ECM solution can help mitigate risk by elevating a company’s ability to maintain business continuity. ECM integrates with ERPs and line of business systems, closing the loop on data indexing, real-time verification, and validation of information across all applications and databases. During disaster recovery, it provides a centralized hub that your staff can access from any location, allowing them to continue working with systems they are familiar with outside of the office.

ECM also provides a daily operational benefit in the form of real-time captures and data validation. It even provides interdepartmental process workflow automation and analytics. As an enterprise-class solution, it can be utilized across your organization in Accounts Payable, Order Processing, Finance, Purchasing, Sales Management, Customer Service, Human Resources, IT, Legal, Logistics/Distribution, and more.

For additional information on ECM for business continuity, as well as daily automated capture and workflow usage, contact IntelliChief.

Ready to Automate Your Company? Follow These 5 Steps to Get Started

April 20, 2020

If you didn’t start planning your automation strategy before the end of 2019, you’re already lagging behind your competitors. In many industries, business automation is inevitable. Outdated processes inundated by years of stopgap solutions leave companies vulnerable when key employees depart the company. Specialized knowledge doesn’t always make a smooth transfer from one generation to the next, and that can leave you at a distinct disadvantage, especially during a crisis.

When you automate your company, you optimize your business processes and fuse them to the DNA of your business. You become faster, more accurate, less error-prone, and less vulnerable to business interruptions. You fortify business continuity and give yourself the ability to expand how, where, and when you do business. Best of all, your system continues to work when the office is closed, allowing you to achieve peak efficiency around the clock.

That said, one does not simply snap their fingers to automate a company. Automating processes with business automation requires preparation and planning. Follow these five steps to get started as you make the transition to the best version of your business.

Step #1: Make a Commitment to Long-Term Success

Most business leaders are understandably focused on the here and now. It’s easy to fixate on short-term success, but the long-term outlook for your business is the ultimate judge of whether you are truly achieving your objectives. A commitment to business automation is a commitment to long-term success, which means shifting your strategy and possibly KPIs to account for the adjustment. It can be a tough pill to swallow, but there’s no time better than the present to take the leap. Not convinced? Here are several reasons why you should affirm your commitment to automation today:

Reduce the cost of labor
Mitigate human error
Unlock remote workforce
Adapt to changing markets
Optimize workforce distribution
Eliminate workflow bottlenecks
Enhance collaboration in and across departments
Ensure compliance at all times

Step #2: Select Your Most Paper-Burdened Department

At this point, nobody needs to make the case for the benefits of automation – it’s a well-known fact. However, to get the most out of business automation, you need to take what you’ve learned and apply it to one of the most paper-burdened departments in your business.

More paper means more problems, which tends to result in an inefficient or resource-hungry office. These are the departments that cost businesses the most money; not because employees aren’t working hard, but because the outdated processes they are utilizing are simply no match for today’s more advanced paperless solutions. Commonly, Accounts Payable, Order Entry, Human Resources, and Accounts Receivable are the departments that can benefit most, both in terms of boosting efficiency, productivity, and ROI.

Step #3: Understand the Justification for Going Paperless

Before you can automate at scale, you need to go paperless. In many ways, eliminating paper is the precursor to automation. When you go paperless, you maintain digital copies of all documents in a secure, centralized repository that can be accessed by approved users based on permission level. This gives you the ability to access, review, edit, and rout all documents instantaneously, eliminating time spent shuffling through file cabinets or manually delivering documents. Unlike information on paper, information that is transferred into a digital format can be used in virtually endless ways, which means you can finally consider automating the processes that are holding your business back.

Step #4: Blueprint Your Business Processes

Now, it’s time to identify business processes in need of improvement. You need a deep understanding of your workflows if you want to automate it correctly. Try to avoid systems that try to force you to make sweeping changes to your existing processes. Improvements are welcome, but if a system can’t adapt to your tried-and-true processes, it might not be the right match. On the other hand, avoid duplicating a manual process using technology only because “that’s the way we have always done it.” Change is also an opportunity to improve by challenging why things are being done a certain way.

Engaging a partner with knowledge of best ERP- or industry-specific practices can also help to re-engineer a process and make it better than before. You want a robust product that can be “configured” to the particular needs of your business. Only then will you be able to fully realize the advantages of business automation.

Step #5: Automate Your Company With Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Software

The moment you’ve been waiting for has finally arrived. You’ve made a steadfast commitment to automating your company, identified your most overburdened departments, reduced your reliance on paper, and documented the nuances of your business processes – it’s finally time to implement your automation solution! We recommend avoiding point solutions that only allow you to automate certain departments or processes. A configurable Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solution that can be applied to multiple departments gives you the benefit of dealing with a single vendor who truly understands the entirety of your ERP system and it’s connected applications. It also allows you to scale your solution on your own terms and timeline.

Are you interested in learning more about how business automation can help you work smarter, not harder? IntelliChief can help you automate your company to accelerate processing times and eliminate errors, giving you a distinct competitive advantage. To learn more about how we can help you plot your automation timeline to ensure that your business is protected against future interruptions, contact us today.

Covid-19 Raises New Health Concerns About the Use of Paper in the Office

April 20, 2020

Whether as an individual, a business, or an enterprise, there are already innumerable reasons to reduce or eliminate your reliance on paper. Paper can be harmful to the environment, inefficient in the office, and incompatible with the global shift towards digital business. However, despite virtually every sign indicating that the time to go paperless has arrived, another argument against the use of paper for business has materialized seemingly out of nowhere: Covid-19.

A Paperless Office Can Help Prevent Transmission

In a world where readily available cleaning supplies kill 99.99% of viruses and bacteria, it’s easy to grow complacent when it comes to actively managing and improving your office sanitation plan. With the threat of the coronavirus looming overhead, now is a great time to re-evaluate your strategy so you can limit transmission once the economy has reopened.

That means more than restocking your cleaning supply closet and doubling down on hand sanitizer, it means taking the necessary steps to facilitate a paperless office that all but eliminates unsanitary filing and other processes that require the direct handling of paper. By researching paperless solutions today, you can begin to deploy a manageable, cost-efficient plan when Americans return to work.

Journal of Hospital Infection: Viruses Can Survive on Paper for Up to Five Days

An office is one of the most susceptible environments to contagious viruses. Individuals work closely together, sharing office supplies and engaging candidly as they solve problems. Taking a direct, hands-on approach to tackling business challenges is always an effective strategy; however, it also weakens your defenses against transmission.

The Journal of Hospital Infection studied several strains of coronaviruses and tested their longevity on inanimate surfaces. On paper, viruses were found to survive for as long as five days or as little as five minutes. In other words, paper poses a potential risk for transmission. If a sick worker prints a document and passes it to other employees, the virus could spread. If the virus is able to survive for five days and the document requires several reviews or approvals, the effect on an office could be devastating for employee health and business continuity.

There are other office supplies that support paper use and pose a threat, too. Cardboard filing or shipping boxes (24 hours), hard plastic copiers and other office supplies (2-3 days), and metal cabinets or file storage (5 days) also pose a threat for transmission. There’s no need for these items in a paperless environment, which means fewer surfaces are touched by employees.

Paperless Solutions for a Smooth Return to Work

Americans across the country are eager to get back to work. It’s up to businesses to ensure that, when they do, they have everything they need to work safely and efficiently. In a paperless office, they can do both. A paperless office is faster, more efficient, and less error-prone. It ensures that business-critical documents are always accessible and within reach at the touch of a key while eliminating human error and redundancies that reduce your bottom line.

If you want your business to continue to grow once the Covid-19 crisis has subsided, supporting a paperless environment is the first step. Once all your documents are stored in a secure digital repository (think of it as a centralized HUB for your enterprise information) you can take advantage of several other benefits including business process automation, remote content management, and no code workflow management (on no-code platforms). Considering the bevy of reasonable arguments against the use of paper, it really comes down to two questions: Why do you still rely on paper? How can we help?

IntelliChief stands by businesses affected by the coronavirus, which is why we are actively supporting those that recognize the value of a paperless office as one aspect of their plan to beat the virus and come out stronger than ever before. Please contact us today with any questions or to learn more about how we have been helping businesses maintain continuity during the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.

In the Midst of the Covid-19 Crisis, Companies Are Accelerating Efforts to Go Paperless

April 7, 2020

Why You Should Go Paperless During a Business Crisis

April 3, 2020

There’s nothing easy about the times we are living in. The economy is locked in a downward spiral that threatens our very way of life, and the stock market continues to spike erratically from all-time highs to all-time lows leaving even the most acclaimed marketing gurus with little idea as to how long (or how serious) this burgeoning recession will be. As a result, every decision faced is magnified by the potential impact it could have on your business, employees, and customers. As a leader, you must be acutely aware of how perilous this journey forward is, not just in terms of how you manage business assets and human capital today but also in the uncertain future.

If your company has been affected by severe business interruptions, it’s time to cut your costly reliance on paper! When you go paperless and embrace business process automation, you can lessen the impact of business interruptions and continue to thrive during times of uncertainty.

Save Assets, Eliminate Liabilities

How do you define an “asset?” For many, an asset is any resource that helps improve their business, such as hard-working employees, intelligent software, industry partnerships, and virtually anything else that positively influences the success of their business. Assets should be protected at all costs because they typically yield a positive ROI for your business; otherwise, they wouldn’t be assets!

On the other side of the spectrum, there are liabilities that you should eliminate to benefit your business. This can be tricky as some liabilities disguise themselves as assets. In fact, one such liability is paper, which has been masquerading as an asset for far too long. What’s wrong with using paper to do business? For starters:

Expensive
Inconvenient to store and retrieve
Easily lost, misplaced, or destroyed
Long processing times
Heavily reliant on repetitive manual work
Not scalable
Incompatible with key components of digital transformation
Slows business growth

When you go paperless, you can cut costs without cutting employees. Let’s face it, paper only serves one function: storing information. On the other hand, your employees have unlimited potential to assist your business in any number of ways. And with business process automation, they can work faster and more accurately without having to rely on old, inundated processes that prevent your business from reaching peak operational efficiency. When you make the commitment to support a paperless office today, you are fortifying your business infrastructure for whatever lies ahead in the future.

Layoffs Come With Hidden Costs

Unfortunately, when the economy is in the gutter and morale is low, many businesses are forced to rely on layoffs as a short-term solution to cut costs and keep a business viable while the markets work themselves out. No employer wants to find themselves in a position where this strategy has to be used; after all, employees are a company’s most valuable asset. Plus, layoffs can do more harm than good if you don’t consider the hidden financial and cultural costs:

Financial Costs: accrued paid time off, severance pay, continuation coverage, vacancy, replacement, and other miscellaneous expenses that could cost you up to tens of thousands of dollars or more. Keep in mind that the average cost to hire an employee is $4,129.
Cultural Costs: low morale, lost productivity, negative employee perceptions, missing tribal knowledge, and other people-based issues that are difficult to account for and even harder to assign a hard dollar value. Remember, if morale gets too low it can be difficult to retain new workers once economic conditions have recovered.

Support Business Continuity

When a company relies on paper-based processes or is undergoing a period of restructuring, it’s going to have a negative impact on business continuity. With a full team, everyone understands and acknowledges their role. They perform the same (or similar) tasks each day until they have been mastered. Many of these processes, such as Accounts Payable, rely on other employees to perform their own specialized tasks, too. Needless to say, when a portion of these employees is suddenly missing, it becomes nearly impossible to keep the entire operation running at 100 percent efficiency. This is another problem that can be easily solved when you go paperless.

A paperless office isn’t constrained to the same limitations as a physical office, and with business process automation, continuity is never an issue. Your processes become hardwired into the very framework of your business, which means employees don’t have to memorize complex filing rules or possess tribal knowledge to perform their jobs at a high level. If you need to cut costs but can’t afford to miss a step, you should consider how you can automate your company to ensure that business continuity is never interrupted again.

Embrace Long-Term Business Solutions

Speaking of business continuity, when you focus on eliminating paper, you are essentially reaffirming your commitment to a long-term business strategy. A paperless future is on the horizon, why not be one of the early adopters of this game-changing shift? If you go paperless today and automate your company, you’re equipping your business with the tools to work faster and more accurately than your competitors. Best of all, with all your documents stored digitally in an enterprise content management (ECM) system, your employees can keep working whether they’re in the office or working from home. When supported by business process automation, you can even process up to 90% or more of your documents without any human intervention at all. Companies that have already taken the leap are posting 40 – 75 percent cost savings as a result. Now that you’ve readjusted your projections for 2020 to align with the ongoing crisis, factor in 40 – 75 percent cost savings and see where your business stands.

Automate Your Company

When a company invests in a paperless office, all documents are filed and stored in a secure digital repository where they can be accessed at will. An ECM system expands on this functionality by allowing these documents to be processed via workflows that connect users with varying levels of authority within the company. Eliminating paper yields several basic yet potentially significant cost savings, including:

Reduced paper use
Eliminate filing cabinets and on-site storage
Fewer office supplies
Eliminate off-site storage
Faster processing times
Fewer errors

Consider this: it costs approximately $20 in labor to file a document, $120 to find misfiled documents, and $240 to reproduce a lost document. Just think, a document costs $20 to file, but if it’s misfiled the cost goes up to $140. If it gets lost altogether, that price goes up to $240. $240 is a high price to pay for one single document. At that price, an Accounts Payable professional earning a salary of $50,000 would only be expected to process around 200 documents per year to break even for the employer. That’s not very efficient or cost-effective, especially considering the average employee processes 700 invoices per month. This further goes to show that employees are assets with a high potential for positive ROI. As for paper…get rid of it!

Go Paperless Today to Avoid Future Business Interruptions

Help has already arrived in the form of a $2 trillion stimulus package, but this a one-time deal and shouldn’t be viewed as a long-term solution. As an employer, it’s important to understand that the true costs of laying off people rather than paper are vastly different. If you want to avoid future business interruptions and keep your business running when America goes remote, the first step is to go paperless. Then, once you have eliminated your reliance on paper, you can automate your company to realize massive cost savings that allow you to keep your valued employees and liberate them from repetitive, manual tasks. In the end, you will have retained a large portion of your assets and future-proofed your business for the next crisis, allowing you to focus on growing your business alongside the employees who helped pave the way.

To learn more about how IntelliChief can help your company go paperless with business process automation, contact us today.