The Value of Zero: Augment Your ECM with a Zero Footprint Viewer
From the dawn of history, the concept of zero has dramatically changed those cultures that have discovered how to enhance their social behavior. From simple counting to the ability to barter and exchange monetary representations to advanced mathematics, zero has played a pivotal role, enabling the world's civilizations to advance and grow. In today's business environment, zero is still a powerful concept. Companies are constantly striving to increase measures like revenue, profit and number of customers away from zero. On the other side of the continuum, zero is a target when looking for opportunities to reduce costs, inefficiency and competition.
Zero in Relation to Document Viewing
In the area of document workflow, especially viewing, zero has near tangible value. Large stacks of paper documents still seen routinely in all businesses today are a tactile reminder of the volume of document processing that goes into getting business done. Unfortunately, due to their sheer bulk and weight, they are often an impediment to working more efficiently as well. In order to ease this workflow burden, ECM and other business process applications will digitize documents providing obvious benefits of document transfer, storage and access. Taking it one step further, coupling these systems with a highly versatile document viewer can further leverage those benefits. The correct viewer can truly demonstrate the value of zero. For example, zero content stored on the client, zero installation and maintenance effort, and zero time waiting for documents. Harnessing the power of HTML, Javascript, CSS and AJAX technology to create a pure HTML viewer can revolutionize your document workflow and viewing processes.
Zero footprint
Installing an ECM system is a major project that often takes months of planning and a year of implementation. Systems like EMC Documentum or IBM FileNet can provide foundational infrastructure for the entire enterprise. Their primary benefit is centralizing all your document data and allowing client applications to pull from a single storage location. The typical centralized repository serves a document to the client workstation where it is opened in its native application. An example would be opening a Word document in MS Word. In that scenario, each client machine requires the individual application installed and running, whether it be MS Word, Excel, Adobe Acrobat or a TIFF viewer. When dealing with a variety of document types, a great potential for confusion and inefficiency is created when the user has to work with multiple applications.
A well-designed zero footprint viewer easily downloads directly into any Web browser and can deliver powerful processing capabilities and universal document viewing regardless of platform or location. Using a zero footprint viewer enables users to view and manipulate documents in real-time by utilizing AJAX technology to efficiently and speedily access the server repository. The Web browser serves as a single-point solution eliminating the need for additional applications or training. This increases overall productivity by simplifying the document viewing process, with zero concern needed for end-user environments, applications or document formats.
Zero maintenance
Client-based applications are difficult to scale as enterprises grow. Installing client software can require huge amounts of time and effort, and is quite a costly undertaking. When updates or upgrades are needed, they must be performed separately on each user machine. Concern over undertaking this cumbersome process often leads companies to continue using software well past its useful lifespan. Relying on old software eventually lowers productivity and can inhibit using best practices in business processes.
But a browser-based document viewer requires zero client-side maintenance and gives the IT department more control over user permissions. Updates can be made quickly via the centralized server repository without any disruption to the end-users. Additionally, user permissions can be more carefully controlled and set at group or individual levels to enable more efficient business processes for reviewing and approving documents. This liberates IT from time-consuming software maintenance to focus on more strategic endeavors.
Zero time
Time is a scarce commodity in most companies. Efficiency is the key to squeezing the most work and value out of the limited time available. The pursuit of efficiency in workflow revolves around the ability to remove unnecessary actions from the process. Even small improvements can have a large effect when magnified across the enterprise. However, one obstacle that always challenges workflow efficiency is document delivery. The electronic revolution that was supposed to simplify managing documents has produced improvements in areas like capture (high-speed scanning) and storage (centralized repositories). On the other hand, document delivery is a business problem that has only grown in magnitude as document file size has increased. The bigger the file, the longer it takes to deliver, open and/or print. Delivery lags behind other improvements creating inefficiencies in the business process.
Zero time adds value to the business by optimizing delivery of documents—an often overlooked but critical step in the overall workflow process. Advances in viewing technology eliminate the lag time that typically occurs in systems that download or stream the full document by using page on demand delivery. By taking advantage of server-side caching and processing, users can select specific pages for download and access, rather than downloading the entire document. This high-speed delivery of pages from documents of any size, from a single page to thousands of pages, minimizes interruptions and delays to keep workflows consistently moving. Zero delivery time results in measurably shorter document processing cycles and added efficiency that will increase ROI.
Zero client licensing
Distributing content throughout an organization is all about the numbers. You can count the end-users that will receive the files and count how many licenses you need to meet that demand. Without proper licensing, that model may disappear when you step outside the enterprise. If you need to make content available to affiliates, vendors, contractors or customers, you should choose a licensing plan that covers your external customers and stakeholders—using a secure, AJAX-based viewer may provide a simple answer to that problem.
Zero Reasons Not To
Companies that have given zero thought to document viewing are discovering an entirely new area to improve their business processes. The advantages of a zero footprint viewer for end-users, IT departments, business units and the bottom line make it an investment that benefits the entire organization; and just as important, provides a scalable approach for companies to reach outside their own walls and connect with external partners and customers.
With so much riding on zero, isn't it time you determined the value of zero for yourself?
Learn more about Snowbound Software at www.snowbound.com