When it comes to outsourcing, common thoughts such as – Can I trust my partner? Will they deliver? Am I picking the right vendor? – come to mind. However, there is really so much more to consider.
Outsourcing can have profound effects on a company and can truly transform the way we work. But with this transformation comes the responsibility of how to address this change on all levels – financial, technological and with the actual workforce. Change management is all about how these changes are handled, with special attention required for the human element because it is so often underappreciated. It remains absolutely critical to the ultimate success of any outsourcing scenario.
How early do these changes need to be addressed? Don’t waste any time – change management processes should be developed right along with the outsourcing solution. This allows for a thorough understanding of the technical and service solutions of a project, as well as the people aspect, including a company’s leadership style, management process, the way they communicate, and the culture’s overall willingness to invite change.
It is vital that a vision for the new outsourcing arrangement be communicated to all stakeholders, so that it is clear that things will not just be different, but better. Couple this articulation of change with transparency of the objectives and companies will be able to build a level of confidence and trust among their organizations. As I like to say, you’ve got to get everyone on board before the ship sails.
To hear more about my perspectives on change management, please visit my new Thought Leadership website by clicking here.
Louise Fisher, director, European HR, Xerox Global Services
As I look around it becomes very clear to me that gone are the days when large companies could manage all of their operations internally. Most businesses by now have determined that to effectively compete in a global marketplace you must have solid outsourcing relationships.
One key component of the outsourcing puzzle goes beyond just the management of information technology systems to address the actual end-to-end business process itself. A key component of the business process requires communication and interaction with customers, business partners and other areas of the business. When only looking at IT systems, organizations often miss opportunities to optimize these communication touch points and the overall business process. Why is this the case? The irony is that so many business processes are supported by documents, yet many don’t even release how document-driven these processes really are.
Today I am launching my new perspective in this space. Please visit my site, I’d welcome any feedback or thoughts on business process outsourcing.
-- Rich Baily, vice president, Business Process Service, Xerox Global Services
Going green is no longer just a trend – sustainability goals are becoming a significant focus, particularly in the public sector. In fact, organizations of all types are finding that reducing their carbon footprint makes good business sense. An easy to use electronic content management system can support corporate-wide environmental initiatives, while providing true business benefits, efficiencies, and savings. Here are some of the ways an electronic content management can help you make a positive impact on the environment – while reducing expenses and enhancing how work gets done:
• Through a Web-based interface, colleagues across the hallway or across the globe can share business critical information inside the company as well as with partners, vendors and clients. The need for hardcopy documents is eliminated, so paper use is dramatically decreased. This also reduces the energy, chemicals and costs associated with manufacturing, shipping and delivering paper-based documentation. Users can work faster and smarter by automating business processes, reducing the time it takes from weeks to minutes.
• Electronic content management systems support telecommuting and reduce travel for employees located around the world, creating a virtual office that allows workers to connect with each other and minimize waste.
• The costs involved with paper-based file cabinet storage such as the space itself, the energy to heat or cool it and the building’s upkeep can be significantly reduced through the use of an electronic content management system for archiving needs.
With an easy, flexible content management system in place, putting an end to the paper trail isn’t as daunting as it may seem. To learn more, check out a recent Webcast featuring Gartner’s Vice President and Research Director, Mark Gilbert and Patty Calkins, VP of Environment, Health and Safety at Xerox, by clicking here.
Melinda Stoker
Director, Marketing Communications
Xerox DocuShare Business Unit
Recently, I participated in the Office 2.0 conference and really had a blast. Besides the sheer “collaborative” experiment, what I saw here is the next wave of Documents – available online or offline, social and collaboratively edited, evergreen “mash-ups” of content coming from various documents… Could that be “Document as a Service?” Beyond Google, watch out for technologies like SlideRocket, Zoho Docs, myBooo or others, to be disruptive in the next few years! I’ll be monitoring those.
I also moderated a great panel discussion on Document 2.0, or the role of Documents in an Office / Entreprise 2.0. Although standards and openness will play a big role, the panel agreed that even more important are on-ramps and off-ramps to and from traditional, legacy formats. Where it got even more interesting was the discussion on long-term preservation and records management, and how to make sure your document will still be available and readable decades from now. It became clear that quite a few members of the audience wanted to see cloud computing mature before they could trust their company’s lifeblood such as contract to the cloud – not to mention potential privacy and security issues. The video of the panel will be available shortly on the Future of Documents blog, along with more on a few of these Document 2.0 technologies.
Ironically, the discussion came back multiple times to paper as being a universal medium, yet to be replaced - interesting twist- in a paperless conference!
Francois Ragnet
Manager, Smarter Document Platforms and Components
XGS / GTOD / SDI / BPS
http://www.xerox.com/thoughtleadership/
http://futureofdocuments.blogs.xerox.com/
The race to success in today’s business world starts and ends on a budget. For companies of all sizes, the goal is to remain competitive while spending less. This challenge is especially great for small and mid-sized businesses that need to invest in order to grow.
It can be a struggle for SMBs to find the technology they need to succeed, without breaking the bank. However, companies such as Xerox recognize the unique business requirements of SMBs and have developed an extensive portfolio of technology that gives these businesses an array of options to enhance the ways they work.
For example, Xerox’s latest version of DocuShare, it's enterprise content management platform, is specifically tailored to the SMB crowd. DocuShare Express is affordably priced for smaller businesses and comes equipped with an easy, quick install process suited to business users – dispelling any notion that extensive IT knowledge is needed to get a content management solution up and running. To allow more direct integration with the multifunction display panel than ever before, Xerox has also made a DocuShare EIP Connector available at no cost.
It is important to realize that content management is no longer a necessity for only the largest of companies. It needs to be top of mind for smaller companies too. A key reason many SMBs fail within their first few years is that they’re unable to manage company information and processes, especially when the company begins to grow. Many smaller business owners are just focused on trying to get their businesses off the ground - instead of thinking about how vital keeping, storing and maintaining information, records and documents will be to the success of their business.
In an age of information overload, being able to obtain useful information and collaborate effectively is critical for organizations of any size, so it is important that smaller businesses have access to advanced, affordable content management solutions.
Jay Ganesh
Director, Channel Marketing and Launch
Xerox DocuShare Business Unit
I had a chance last week to moderate a lively and informative panel on enterprise content management at the CIO Forum and Executive IT Summit in Cleveland. The one key message that panelists drove home was that effective enterprise content management has to be about more than just installing software on a server and putting together a technology workflow.
There has to be organizational change and a commitment to optimizing the productivity of the assets of the enterprise in order to accomplish key objectives such as speeding time to revenue and rapidly managing costly corporate issues such as litigation risk. Effective ECM solutions start with understanding the needs of the business and how ECM technologies can enable or improve critical business processes. EMC solutions can help health insurance providers improve membership enrollment, can help financial institutions process and fund mortgages more quickly, can help companies manage and adhere to employment laws, or can help global manufacturing companies bring products to market more quickly. Today’s collaborative business environments are also requiring ECM solutions to extend out beyond our own firewalls to include our customers, suppliers and business or trading partners.
For example, one Xerox customer was able to change its culture from relying on snail mail to using Xerox Distributed Capture Service to submit account-related documents. Now more than 90 percent of its volume it submitted through devices with XDCS, improving time to revenue by taking a 3-5 day process down to just a couple of hours. The solution also significantly reduced expenses related to overnight shipping and long-term archival storage costs.
A second discussed example was how a large, global manufacturing company leverages document and content management technologies to better enable and support their legal discovery and litigation management requirements. This solution has created a more efficient process for their legal staff and outside counsel and has significantly reduced their costs.
So when your organization starts to think about ECM, think beyond a single hardware and software decision, and think about starting the journey with a single business application that has high-payback rather than trying to change the entire infrastructure, which for most companies is very difficult to do. Today’s solutions often include multiple technologies and integrate with the line-of-business applications. The key messages from the session were that successful solutions involve joint ownership and leadership from a business and I/T perspectives and that engaging outside partners can bring some of the best practices from the industry.
For open commentary and industry perspectives, visit http://www.xerox.com/blogs, http://www.xerox.com/podcasts or http://www.consulting.xerox.com/flash/thoughtleaders/index.html.
Rich Baily
Vice President, Business Process Services, Xerox Global Services
In the last few months, mortgage lenders’ interest in electronic mortgages (“e-mortgage”), especially the ability to electronically sign via an e-signature process, has been rising significantly. Mortgage lenders are keenly aware that they must become leaner and more efficient in their processes. In fact, a recent blog by Mortgage Technology Magazine describes this rapid rise.
The current state of the mortgage industry has contributed to the uptick in interest. Paper has always been considered a limiting factor. Over time, the industry has moved towards paperless with imaged-based documents. The issue with paper to imaged documents is that the data was separate from the document. Validation required a person to “stare and compare” the image with the data in a data system, like a loan origination system. The promise of e-mortgage documents is to bring data and documents together making documents machine readable and enabling “lights out” processing.
Now, as has been promised for many years, the industry is beginning to implement e-mortgage initiatives. An e-mortgage is where loan documentation is created electronically, executed electronically, transferred electronically and stored electronically. At a minimum, an e-mortgage is an e-note that is created, signed and delivered to the secondary market electronically. However, an e-mortgage can also span into origination with e-signed disclosure documents
With today’s announcement of e-signature capabilities, Xerox Mortgage Services has entered the e-mortgage arena. This solution builds upon the award-winning BlitzDocs® solution for mortgage document collaboration and extends the BlitzDocs network of lending institutions and service providers. Even though we are rapidly moving to an “e” world, lenders are still dealing with paper, paper to images and existing electronic documents. Using our document expertise, Xerox is uniquely positioned to help support mortgage lenders with the dual processes they must support.
Interested in further commentary on industry trends and technology? Click here to listen to a podcast featuring my colleague Greg Smith, vice president, Xerox Mortgage Services.
Judson Phillips
Vice President, Marketing
Xerox Mortgage Services
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