Automating the Business-Forms Lifecycle
Making the Business Case
By Michael Moon, President, GISTICS Incorporated
How can integrated electronic forms processing cut costs and improve key business processes for a typical global enterprise? Everyday business forms define, structure and regulate the data-entry tasks performed by millions of consumers, frontline service providers and knowledge workers.
Large and small organizations in the private and public sector use paper-based, manually completed forms and online Web forms to feed vital, complex and often expensive business information workflows.
The typical global enterprise uses approximately 400 unique business forms, averaging $75,000 per form and totaling $30,000,000 in labor and materials across the lifecycle of all 400 forms.*
However, most enterprises pay a far steeper cost: paper-based and isolated Web-forms reinforce rigid, inefficient, error-prone business information workflows that, despite extraordinary investments in process reengineering, resist or sabotage process and quality improvements.
By automating forms-driven business processes, organizations can recoup their investment in efficiency savings and improved business process cycle time within three months. Just automating five activities of a single form-based process can return the initial cost of an integrated automated forms processing system within 12 months.*
Defining the Solution
An integrated electronic form processing solution consists of an enterprise content management platform integrated with a Portable Document Format (PDF) forms solution. The Adobe Form Server integration with the Documentum ECM platform enables organizations to completely automate their entire business processes by combining forms with other content types such as documents, images and scanned files, into a single integrated enterprise-wide infrastructure.
System users of an integrated solution include business analysts, forms designers, database administrators, business service managers, frontline service providers, help desks, data processing managers/data entry clerks and business records archivists.The figure at the left depicts what types of forms most firms should consider automating first.
Customer-facing paper-forms that entail a higher than normal number of mistakes or resubmissions make an ideal place to start when it comes to identifying the forms-based processes for automation.
Transaction-processing forms often require users to add sums and multiply tax rates—ideal activities to automate, thereby enhancing the user’s experience, speeding processing cycle times and reducing error rates.
Fiduciary-sensitive forms require strict adherence to confidentiality, access to current data and higher-than-normal levels of security and user authentication—all functions supported by integrated electronic forms-processing systems.Regulatory compliance forms often entail strong demands on security, authentication and auditing of forms, immediate access to the correct forms, and the capability to file forms and form data as records as part of an enterprise records management policy—all additional content services of an electronic forms processing system integrated with an enterprise content management platform.
Tens of thousands of business executives and professionals worldwide recognize Michael Moon, CEO and president of GISTICS, as a dynamic lecturer and leading authority on a digital asset management (DAM), automation of marketing services and multi-channel brands. Chief Executive Magazine featured him in the magazine’s “Technology Gurus” article in January 1999. Highly rated by Amazon reviewers (four-and-one-half stars), McGraw-Hill and its international affiliates now offers Mr. Moon’s book, “Firebrands: Building Brand Loyalty in the Internet Age” in 13 languages, including Chinese (simplified and complex), Korean and all major European languages.
About AdobeAbout Documentum
Documentum, a division of EMC Corporation, provides enterprise content management solutions that enable organizations to unite teams, content and associated business processes. With a single platform, Documentum enables people to collaboratively create, manage, deliver and archive the content that drives business operations, from documents and discussions to e-mail, Web pages, records and rich media. Visit www.documentum.com for more information.
*Free White Paper
The authors invite you to download a complimentary copy of the white paper, Business Case for Automating the Business-Forms Lifecycle—How the Rigidity and Logistics Burdens of Manual, Paper-Based Forms Add Hidden Costs and Time Delays to Critical Business Information Flow.
This paper includes strategies, business metrics, and activity-based payback models that justify an integrated electronic forms-processing system for global brands, financial services, government and manufacturing.
To download your copy today, visit Documentum