The Next Big Trend? Electronic Forms Processing
What is the next big trend for operational efficiency? How will automation of business forms contribute to this trend? Which vendors now drive this trend, and the automation of business forms?
Research of large organizations and integrated solutions provided by Adobe and Documentum reveals that automating forms-based information workflows and, in particular, the lifecycle of business forms represents billions of dollars of potential efficiency gains and hard-dollar cost savings.
- The typical global enterprise uses an average of 400 complex business forms amenable to automation;
- The forms lifecycle consists of eight major phases, starting with create and ending with archive;
- Each lifecycle phase consists of 3 to 11 activities that one or more knowledge workers must complete;
- The typical business form costs $75,000 to manage through its lifecycle;
- Each form contains about 170 days of labor throughout its lifecycle
- The forms-completion phase (in which the user fills in and submits a completed form) constitutes the most expensive set of activities; this includes time and effort expended by the forms end-user to complete the form and any form-support assistance required by support staff or call center;
- When averaged over 400 forms, labor content or the cumulative amount of time expended over the lifecycle of these forms totals 187 years—a $30 million expense;
- Automation of just 40 forms can produce $3 million annual savings or 18.7 years in labor content; and
- A $1 million investment in an electronic forms-processing system will return its investment within four or so months and yield 900% ROI over 3 years.
These impressive gains may only represent the tip of the value iceberg.
Our research suggests several additional benefits, including higher satisfaction with the forms completion process, the opportunity to collect up to four times more data from a forms user and significant new capacity to change core business processes. Our research also suggests that the rigidity and logistics burden of paper-based forms constitute one of the principal barriers to operational change and improvement.
A digital workflow throughout the forms lifecycle facilitates change management and faster time-to-market with new information-gathering systems.
How Electronic Forms Processing Works
The figures (Page S3, Supplement to KMWorld, June 2004) depict how forms creators, forms users and customer service share a common, interactive view of any network-enabled business form.
The forms creator can inspect a comprehensive inventory of preexisting forms, many of them static scanned images and several new network-enabled business forms. Forms creators can also find and reuse media assets as well as already proven and in-place data collection standards.
The underlying enterprise content management platform enables automation of the forms-publishing process and enforces any rules imposed by regulations or corporate policies.
Form users can enjoy all the interactive capabilities of a Web page, plus new features that only an Adobe PDF-based form and a secure content services platform can provide. Notably, a single Adobe PDF may contain dozens of alternative forms, found by scanning thumbnails, hyperlinking, or using the embedded search engine. (This alone could reduce a forms inventory by 50% to 95%.) A multi-page Adobe PDF form may also contain user instructions, interactive watch-and-do help lessons and frequently asked questions. Auto-fill from a CRM or data warehouse not only speeds completion times and provides speedy updates, it reduces call center loads. Interactive pull-down menus and ballot boxes not only enable you to collect more data in a single session, they also ensures higher levels of data quality and lower rework or rejection rates. Live e-help through a browser can reduce cost and cycle times, using instant messaging, Internet telephony (VoIP) and e-mail.
A customer service representative (CSR) not only shares a common view of the form, but all online content related to the form-user. For instance, a customer-support ticket for a complex item could include all information related to the support call to assist in rapid issue resolution including order history, invoices, bills of material, material handling instructions, engineering drawings, training video clips and any other type of content.
The underlying ECM platform automates the processing of the form through all necessary contributors and approvers using a powerful workflow technology.
The automation of the business-forms lifecycle improves vital forms-based business information workflows. This type of automation all but eliminates the rigidity and logistics burden of paper-based and/or isolated Web-form systems.
An integrated electronic forms processing system enhances an organization’s capacity to optimize the data-entry tasks performed by its consumers, front-line service providers, and knowledge workers. This system unlocks the potential to improve heretofore change resistant workflows and business processes.
About Adobe
As a leader in document services for document generation, publication, collaboration and forms-driven process automation, Adobe has a 20-year history of document innovation. Adobe PDF represents the global de facto standard for document exchange and processing within enterprise organizations. With support for standard technologies such as eXtensible Markup Language (XML), Adobe Form Server empowers companies to integrate their forms-based processes with enterprise IT environments.
About 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 Documentumfor 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/Adobe.
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-a-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. Michael welcomes comments and conversation about this article. He can be reached at moon@gistics.com