Offloading Print Management Solutions

Xerox offers facilities around the world which will be conducted directly
at customer's location

Global companies are facing increasing pressure to integrate their paper and
electronic documents. In addition to ever expanding content volumes, external
forces such as government regulation, terrorism, cyber crime, and natural
disasters are creating new critical challenges.

For help, most companies are turning to trusted third-party purveyors of
print management. The typical first step by these professionals is to take a
macro view of the customer's organization and follow its records from creation
to final distribution, looking for better management opportunities that
otherwise would remain hidden.

Digital imaging and archive solutions, such as those offered by Xerox,
quickly integrate paper and electronic documents into digital workflows by
scanning, indexing and archiving vast amounts of a company's hard copy
documents. Once electronic files of the documents are made, they are available
to the customer in a variety of ways, such as through a secure website, compact
discs, or hard disk drives.

Once established and operating, an imaging solution can link employees,
dispersed offices and partners to records that in the past may have been
difficult to locate, or difficult to share, once located. Indeed, findings from
a study by analyst firm IDC and Xerox Corporation indicated that knowledge
workers spend 20 percent of their day looking for information in documents.
About half of that time, they can't find what they're looking for. This creates
a ripple effect that wastes time-as employees toil to recreate missing
information, which leads to more printing, copying, e-mailing and archiving.

In addition to the efficiency that an imaging solution can bring, companies
should consider the large amount of physical space that paper documents require,
as well as the difficulty of indexing and retrieving them. Converting physical
documents to digital significantly reduces both internal and external storage
costs.

Hosting the hassle

Imaging and archiving solutions can be conducted at a company's site,
remotely at a professional imaging center, or at a combination of both. But the
bottom line is, a company can gain much by offloading this otherwise Herculean
task to professionals.

In addition to being able to recognize operational and cost savings
opportunities and then strategize to achieve them, turning to a trusted partner
allows the customer to focus on its core competencies.

Technology providers, such as Xerox, offer imaging and archive services
through industry-accredited facilities around the world and some, will also
conduct such services directly at a customer's location.

Utilizing a third-party for document imaging and storage services also
require a great deal of trust amid heightened security concerns and increased
corporate governance through regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley and Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Responsible imaging partners must
not only guard against unauthorized access, they must be equipped with
sophisticated back-up systems.

Xerox Global Services, for example, takes an integrated four-step approach
that consists of: (1) Sourcing, customers' structured data such as invoices and
payments, and unstructured documents, such as e-mail, and memos; (2) Capturing,
where scans the documents centrally at a facility or directly at a customer's
location, and then integrates the documents with the customers' business
processes; (3) Managing, indexes and stores a customer's documents in an online
repository and provides the necessary content and document management services;
and (4) Offering a variety of ways for customers to access their documents.

Tearing down the document silos

The definition of the word 'document' continues to evolve, taking on a
variety of formats, including paper, electronic files and even e-mail records.
Compounding the challenge of managing various document permutations is the fact
that most companies printing documents at a multitude of geographic regions,
making any attempt to rein in costs difficult.

In fact, most large companies are not even aware of their total document
spend. The IDC/Xerox study found that document costs (from creation to
management) represent 10 percent of a company's expenses. Yet 65 percent of
respondents said that they do not measure their document management costs.

By imaging the variety of documents a customer produces and then creating a
centralized information repository that manages all records flowing in and out,
companies can eliminate the document silos that result from fragmented
ownership-allowing employees to work smarter.

Organizations from small to large are realizing that a sound document
management strategy that incorporates the full spectrum of information will lead
to improved communication between employees and customers, cost savings and
increased productivity and profitability.

Documents are one of the most critical elements of business life. The content
they carry serves as the backbone of all work processes. As such, it's important
to consider the information, and not the physical paper, as the critical
component in any document management strategy. Contrary to popular belief, the
answer is not to eliminate paper, rather to understand how to best use, manage
and store the information residing in those documents. New technologies that
promise advanced capabilities and secure real-time access are being developed
and perfected with each passing year-bridging the gap between the paper and
digital worlds and helping organizations achieve and even exceed their business
goals.