Hyland Software's Document Management Blog

Mobile ECM: Well Within Your Grasp

// December 5th, 2011 // No Comments » // Back Office, Document Management, Enterprise content management, Healthcare, Higher Education, Insurance, IT, Mobile // Lindsay McCune

Put mobile ECM into your employees' pockets

The concerns people have about ‘The Future of Work,’ with regard to mobile technologies, was top of mind for Vice President and Principal Analyst Ted Schadler. Schadler was speaking to Fortune 2000 organizations at Forrester’s Content and Collaboration Forum. Questions came pouring in:

• How are professionals using mobile devices?
• What about bring your own (BYO) versus corporate provisioning?
• What kinds of applications are available? Are they task-specific? Role-specific?
• How do I know which vendors are spending time on security and efficiency around development?
• How do I manage licensing?
• What about security?

To my surprise, some organizations anticipate it will take five years to get comfortable with mobile devices and all that goes into managing them. And while mobile will mature over the next few years, you shouldn’t stand still and try to catch up later.

It’s time for organizations to take small steps, and move out from under the blanket of consumer mobile enablement. It’s time to empower the worker. They have valuable needs that can be addressed today.

Enable your workforce

It is all about enablement – not just about devices or applications, but rather overall empowerment. Sure there are lots to things to consider – security and licensing, for example – but you don’t have to eat the whole apple. Just bite off what you can chew.

Start with roles or departments, like human resources or managers, rather than the diverse enterprise. Baby steps! Consider your goals and which employees would benefit most.

Maybe you are thinking you have much bigger fish to fry and that mobile business solutions are low on your priority list. I would argue that bringing your mobile devices into play with even your most basic business processes will reap immediate rewards and have a dramatic impact on your business.

How about an example

So, let’s imagine you are a human resources manager hiring new employees. Let’s also imagine you are on vacation in Hawaii. Your company is competitive and needs to act quickly to get offer letters and other documentation to your soon-to-be colleagues. But you are hanging out by the ocean and won’t be back for a week. Those irreplaceable new hires now take the offer of your competitor. Think of the now wasted time spent interviewing, completing reference checks and all.

Now, imagine you are in Hawaii and getting ready for the day, checking the weather on your smartphone and you notice that you also have notifications from your mobile enterprise content management (ECM) application to approve. Through your mobile device, you can push these offer letters through workflow. With a few taps, you’re done.

It’s time to look beyond mobile’s soft consumer side and empower the devices to make your organization more efficient and more competitive. Are you ready?

The Evolution of ECM and the Gartner Magic Quadrant for ECM, 2011

// October 20th, 2011 // No Comments » // Back Office, Document Management, Enterprise content management, Financial Services, Food and Beverage, Government, Healthcare, Higher Education, Insurance, IT // AJ Hyland

While the stand-out fact in this year’s Gartner Magic Quadrant for ECM, 2011, was the 7.6 percent growth in the ECM industry, even in a down economy and as organizations tighten their tech investment belts, what’s more remarkable is the rapid evolution of enterprise content management as a strategic business solution. 

Gone are the days when ECM was little more than a means by which companies transformed paper documentation into electronic information and then organized and disseminated that information to employees and staff. That still occurs, but it is really now only a foundational piece to a much larger solution.

Or, truly, solutions, because every organization is as different as the business content and process challenges they face. You see, it’s about more than knowing where your information is and how to quickly access it. It’s about leveraging that information in a meaningful way so that you can achieve your specific organizational goals, all the while taking care to achieve just the right balance of focus and flexibility in that endeavor.

What do I mean by this?

I’m saying think of your ECM solution holistically – beyond what you want to capture and how you want to capture it. Consider who will access this information. When will they do it and why? Is your audience an admissions staff? Or a business decision maker whose office is in the air or on the road? Is that information critical to keeping your business moving forward, to beating the competition or better serve a constituent?

In other words, are you leveraging your information in a meaningful way? Do you have a protocol in place should your admissions staff get snowed in during the busiest time of year? Can your managers and executives make decisions via their mobile phones whether they’re in Boston or Bermuda?

A strategic ECM solution must have the flexibility to help answer those questions. It must work in concert with other software solutions, to accurately capture, process and quickly distribute information to staff when and where they need it, and connect the content dots that allow organizations to gain the competitive advantage, better serve their constituents – or both.

Strategic ECM vendors will help organizations elevate their game by focusing on speed of deployment, getting organizations up and running faster, putting them ahead of the competition sooner or offering improved services to constituents faster.

After all, the strategic use of ECM is a differentiator for today’s organizations. And there is ample opportunity to become even more competitive using ECM technology.

Mobile ECM: Your Content In Your Pocket

// October 5th, 2011 // No Comments » // Cloud Computing, Document Management, Enterprise content management, Financial Services, Food and Beverage, Government, Healthcare, Higher Education, Insurance, IT // Glenn Gibson

Put mobile ECM into the pocket of your employees

The world of computing has changed. Forever.

These days it seems archaic to have to wait until you get home or to the office just to check your email, because now your email is in your pocket. The idea of printing off maps before heading out on a journey seems crazy because GPS on our phone gives us turn-by-turn directions. Lively pop-culture debates over a pint are now a thing of the past, because we can look up the answers on the internet immediately.

Yes, mobile computing devices have changed the world and changed us.  We expect instant access to information from wherever we are. The iPhone and the iPad, Android, Windows Phone 7 and the Blackberry give us this access like never before.

So what does the explosion in mobile computing have to do with ECM?  Everything. 

Think about it. What is one of the primary driving factors behind an organization developing an ECM strategy? The need to get critical business information into the hands of the right people at the right time. That’s what ECM is all about. 

But what if the right people are in the wrong place at the wrong time? What I mean is, what if the people who are responsible for making important decisions, from approving a critical business expense to agreeing to hire the perfect candidate, can’t physically get access to the information and systems they need in order to execute business decisions, simply because they are travelling or not in the office?   

The reality is that these individuals spend a lot of time on the road and out of the office. This lack of real-time access causes bottlenecks in your processes as the decisions have to wait until they get back online. This causes on-the-fly workarounds with emails and phone calls to get someone, anyone, with authority to make the decision. And once that decision has finally been made, it is very difficult to track all the activity that supports it. 

Yup, bottlenecks and workarounds caused when people who play a critical role in business decisions are out of the office have come to be expected as a normal part of business because, until recently, that’s just how it was. There was no other choice.

But, the world of computing has changed. If the ability to access email from anywhere in the world is not only a reality, but expected in today’s world, why is it any different when thinking about your other important business content and processes?

It shouldn’t be. And when you partner with an ECM vendor who understands this, it is not.

Today you can put your ECM content in your pocket. With mobile ECM applications you are able to not only able access your important content, but also participate in business processes, reviewing, approving and denying requests from wherever you are, directly from your mobile device. 

Now it is likely, for many good reasons that you may not want to make ALL your business information available via mobile devices. If mobile access to your information is part of your requirements when you are choosing an ECM vendor, you should look for a vendor which allows you to control what type of content and processes to make available via these mobile devices. You should choose an ECM system that can truly deliver on the promise to get critical business information into the hands of the right people at the right time, wherever they happen to be.

For your business this is both simple and profound. No more waiting to get back to the office. No more driving to coffee shops just to get access to your system to approve a request. No more bottlenecks caused by business travel. No more un-documented workarounds.  

It is that simple. It is that revolutionary. Because now your content is right there in your pocket.

Putting the “Enterprise” in ECM for the Insurance Market

// June 3rd, 2011 // No Comments » // Insurance // Guest Blogger

This is the third of a three part series from Strategy Meets Action (SMA) partner – and now Hyland guest blogger – Mark Breading. His first and second posts were ”Content is King in the Insurance Enterprise” and “ECM for GWP: Enabling Growth in Insurance Through Content Management.”

Insurers are operating in saturated markets in North America, and the current slow but steady economic recovery is creating more pressure to run efficient and effective businesses. In today’s environment, insurers agree that the management of their documents and content is a critical issue – one that is a key contributor to their success. Insurance companies have been applying technology to this area for decades, and are now increasing the focus they are placing on enterprise content management (ECM) systems.

In the early years of automation, technologies were leveraged to improve the efficiency of handling paper documents – the printing, sorting, inserting, and mailing of letters and policies to customers and third parties. For the past two decades, insurers have applied IT solutions to the management of electronic documents and content.

Like many other areas of insurance IT, the application of technology around documents and content has often resulted in silos – separate islands of IT solutions that are either not connected or only loosely connected. While implementations at the department, line of business, or geography level have frequently produced good results, they have created problems when viewed in light of the realities of today’s marketplace and customer expectations.

Most insurers sell and service their products through multiple distribution channels today. Customers expect that they will be able to connect with their insurer via the phone, the web, through the mail, or other methods. They also expect that the documents and other communications they receive from insurers will be consistent, accurate, and timely. If a quote is presented through the website, the customer may want to place a call to the call center to check on the status. They expect that quote information to be immediately available to their call center representative.

When insurers have multiple systems managing content and documents, the potential for poor channel hand-offs and incorrect information increases. On the other hand, insurers with solutions spanning the enterprise find it easier to coordinate content across channels and service requests with holistic, complete, and up-to-date insight and information. 

Strategy Meets Action recently conducted a short survey of how insurers are using and managing their ECM solutions. The intent was to determine what progress the industry is making toward integrating content management across the enterprise. Nearly 200 respondents from insurance companies of all sizes in North America participated in this survey. Surprisingly, 32 percent of respondents state that they have achieved full integration across the enterprise – what SMA terms “true ECM.” Figure 1 illustrates the state of ECM integration for insurers.

While it is impressive that one-third have achieved true ECM, this means that two-thirds of insurers still have systems that have been implemented in silos, with some deploying separate systems by department or line of business (13 percent) and others combining some standalone systems with others that are shared across some parts of the enterprise (34 percent). Others have implemented shared solutions, but they do not yet span the entire enterprise (21 percent).

The fact that 35 percent of insurers in this survey have document and content management systems that truly span the enterprise is encouraging – but, as is often the case in the insurance industry, a deeper investigation tells more of the story. When evaluated by tier, it becomes apparent that the smaller organizations are more likely to have achieved true ECM, while the larger organizations have a greater challenge in integrating these systems across the enterprise. In fact, 45 percent of Tier 4 companies (less than $250M in premium), have true ECM systems, while only 30 percent of Tier 1 companies make the same claim.

A single ECM system is used by 38 percent of survey participants, consisting of 35 percent purchased software systems and 3 percent customer-written solutions. Multiple systems are used by 62 percent of insurers, with some using more than one software package (25 percent), others using multiple custom-developed systems (5 percent), and the remainder using a combination of acquired and home-grown ECM systems.

These results are generally in line with SMA observations in the market and align with insurer development philosophies for IT in general. The smaller companies have a greater tendency to buy software packages and implement them across the enterprise, while the larger companies still custom build portions, or all, of their solutions. The business need and the trend is unmistakable – more and more insurers plan to put the enterprise into enterprise content management systems by implementing a common solution to span their organization.

About the Author

Mark Breading, a Partner at SMA, is a recognized industry expert in the CCM space. With exceptional knowledge and experience in all aspects of customer centricity – CCM, CRM, customer insights, ECM, data and analytics, and more, Mark is the go-to person for all things customer related. Mark can be reached at mbreading@strategymeetsaction.com.

Managing New Content in New Ways: ACORD LOMA Goes Mobile

// May 24th, 2011 // No Comments » // Insurance // Kaitlin McCready

The people that come to ACORD LOMA already have one thing figured out: Enterprise IT is instrumental to managing the lifeblood of their insurance organizations – information. But, just when they thought they had these enterprise IT systems all figured out, guess what changed? Information.

I’m talking about the explosion of content as consumers can be their own publishers, from taking photos to posting reviews and comments on the businesses they interact with. Today’s keynote, Nick Bilton, put it best – “millions of people now have a mini printing press in their pockets.” And in this mix of people, insureds are no exception. And if these insureds want to be able to create their own content and manage it however they want to in their consumer lives, they’re going to expect the same from the insurance organizations.

Perfect example. Say I’m at a stoplight, and a truck comes up behind me and uses my Altima as a stopping block. The trucker shockingly claims it was my fault, so to make sure I can prove him wrong, I snap a few photos on my smart phone, right after I called my insurance company to come out to the scene.

As the insured, I expect my insurance company to be ready to manage that kind of content. Was it created in the four-walled agency office? Nope. But it’s content that’s a vital part to making sure that my claim is handled smoothly and accurately.

This is the point I was making at the end of my last post, “Where’s the relationship between customer service and enterprise IT at ACORD LOMA?” Insurance has always been an industry that thrives on operations that go beyond the brick and mortar buildings. But now, they’re not only able to mobile-enabled IT to streamline those non-traditional functions.

Clearly, the age of smart phones and mobile devices (yes, even laptops) has made this possible. But it’s only when enterprise IT is made ready for these devices that it becomes reality.

Let’s go back to my example. When the field adjuster gets to the scene, he can now have a tablet with all the necessary documents and forms to get the job done. Once the forms are filled out, and he syncs back up with the network, the process of the claim is automatically kicked off.

This isn’t the future – the technology is here and insurance organizations are at least interested in how they can use it. Listening to show-goers at ACORD LOMA, mobility has changed the questions from “What do you do?” to “Can I get this on my iPad?”

It’s clearly a game changer for how insurance organizations can extend their use of enterprise IT, even with more traditionally on-premises solutions like enterprise content management. We haven’t seen this kind of change for enterprise IT in many, many years.

With any big change comes big impact, positive and negative. What do you think the most important impact will be?

Where’s the relationship between customer service and enterprise IT at ACORD LOMA?

// May 24th, 2011 // No Comments » // Insurance // Kaitlin McCready

Nick Bilton, New York Times editor, presenting at ACORD LOMA 2011

As is the case with every technology tradeshow, there’s usually that overarching, bigger picture pointing to why technology is important. Healthcare – better patient safety and care. Government – better constituent service. Credit unions – better member service. You get the picture. It’s all about whomever the industry segment defines as its customer.

Maybe I’ve been too busy tweeting and blogging, but I’ve only heard the word “customer” a handful of times at ACORD LOMA this year. And while it was mentioned, it wasn’t in the context of having a better customer service model as being a differentiator for doing business. Instead, they seemed to be more focused on how to use enterprise IT to innovate within the business itself, as ACORD president Greg Maciag discussed in his introduction on Monday.

This was in sharp contrast between what the keynotes were saying, which were both technology focused, and the content in the sessions delivered by insurance IT leaders. Take what I mentioned in my last post (about the value of ACORD standards to drive innovation). Twitter co-founder Biz Stone’s comments about developing technology specifically with the user in mind really stuck out to me, as it’s something that we at Hyland believe in as we develop OnBase.

Nick Bilton, “New York Times” editor, also referenced the same idea, when he talked about customer experience in today’s keynote speech. The reality, as he described, is that products – from technology to insurance – are a commodity, in most cases. It’s how the customer experiences that product that makes it different. His example was while the content in the “New York Times” is suited for his needs, would he still subscribe if that content was delivered via a stack of Post-Its? Probably not.

Perhaps this lack of customer service chatter is simply because it isn’t a business driver for insurance organizations today. But I think what’s more likely is that insurance organizations are just forgetting how enterprise IT can be leveraged in so many ways to improve a customer experience, and therefore, they’re not talking about it in that context. Yes, social content is new and cool and has been the talk of the show. But with systems like enterprise content management managing the ever-growing amount of content that’s being created – both within the enterprise and around it – they cannot be overlooked or undervalued in how that content can be leveraged to better understand and work with customers.

As Nick Bilton pointed out in his talk, billions of people around the world – including insureds – have become their own publishers (think photos, blog posts, Facebook updates, etc.), and as a result, content of all formats is growing at an exponential rate. But if managing content that’s created in the brick and mortar insurance operations is already here, what’s next? Stay tuned for my next post for the answer.

ACORD Standards: Connecting the Dots Between Systems to Drive Innovation

// May 23rd, 2011 // No Comments » // Insurance // Kaitlin McCready

This is my third ACORD LOMA. As usual, Gregory Maciag kicked it off in the Monday keynote by talking about the value of ACORD standards. But this year, instead of focusing solely on the structure that standards can provide to insurance companies, Mr. Maciag took a different approach – innovation to drive improvement.

It was clear that the presentation wasn’t just about education – it was persuasion. From the video clips of insurance technology leaders that were shown, it seemed like ACORD was trying to combat the image that standards are restrictive. So instead, Mr. Maciag spoke to the message of “these aren’t standards for the sake of standards.” Rather, it’s the “fragmentation between systems that allows for innovation. ACORD standards connect those dots, magnifying the innovation.”

While it may seem unlikely, the main event for the keynote, Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, had a similar message. When asked about the 140 character limit, he responded in so many words:

The 140 character limit isn’t a limit at all – it actually fosters creativity. It puts forth an environment where, to be effective on Twitter, the user has to get across a message in a small amount of space. It makes people think differently about what they communicate.

Both of these examples – ACORD standards and Twitter – are very much aligned with how insurance technology is perceived: it is ingrained in insurance, but what exists is often looked at as being restrictive. One can easily point to persistant legacy systems as an indicator of this.

Luckily, as I mentioned in my last post about old and new insurance systems coming together, ACORD is trying to change this, as indicated by the Plug’N’Play interoperability demonstration on Sunday. It’s the principal that you bought these systems for a reason, so you need to figure out how to leverage the information among them all to the fullest capacity.

But, still, a bigger purpose or driver for success seems to be missing.

Biz Stone really got me thinking about that “something” when he said: “At Twitter, new developments are driven by watching patterns of what our users are trying to accomplish by using the technology.” Stay tuned for more on this in my next post.

ACORD LOMA 2011: The Collision of New and Old Technology

// May 23rd, 2011 // No Comments » // Insurance // Kaitlin McCready

“In insurance, we’re in the business of information. We can’t afford to have the wrong technology to manage it.”

On Sunday, I had the pleasure of hearing John McCormick, Group Editorial Director for “Insurance Networking News” share his experience interviewing an executive from the Hartford Group. It was the quote above that really opened Mr. McCormick’s eyes to how the insurance industry is so closely married to technology.

Fast forward to this year’s ACORD LOMA. That long-standing relationship between insurance and technology is experiencing a never-before-seen battle of push and pull – between new technology and old. I think PropertyCasualty360.com reporter Mark Ruquet described it best in Sunday’s show daily:

“If you are searching for a theme to this year’s ACORD LOMA Insurance Systems Forum, it might be: “Strategies for meeting the challenges posed by emerging technology – while dealing with the mundane task of making existing systems work better to benefit your organization’s current needs.”

It’s like Mark was channeling ACORD. If you were at the show on Sunday, you hopefully had a chance to stop by the very first Plug’N’Play Tooling Jamboree, hosted by ACORD. This event brought together vendors and their solutions, including Hyland Software’s OnBase, as well as insurance organizations to prove that insurance technologies – old and new – could be interoperable together.

What I found to be most interesting about this demonstration wasn’t the data-level integration or how ACORD messages could be leveraged. Rather, it was that it was the new technologies – like mobile-enabled enterprise content management – that made the old technologies more streamlined.

Mobility is just one of the “new technology” themes that I think will echo throughout this year’s show. I’ll be reporting – here and on twitter @HylandSoftware – on this and other themes. If you’re seeing a trend I’m not talking about, tweet or email at me (kaitlin.maurer@hyland.com).