Optimizing Document-Intensive

Business Processes:
Time for the Digital Mailroom?

Melissa Webster, Program Vice President

Content & Digital Media Technologies
IDC

June 19, 2009

Copyright 2009 IDC. Reproduction is forbidden unless authorized. All rights reserved.
Agenda

 Automating document-intensive business processes

– Use cases
– Capture & image management market growth
– Business drivers for capture, classification and
extraction

 Big gap in practice: what customers tell us

 Rethinking the broader workflow: digital mailroom

© 2009 IDC 2
Document-intensive business processes

Engineering New employee

onboarding Patent and
change order copyright
management management
Invoice processing

Plant
management
eGov case
management, Retirement
Claims plan
processing entitlements
processing

Contract
management
Warranty
Crime New drug
management
investigation application
New account
opening

Doctor Customer care,

Patient records
credentialing Grant call center support
management
management

© 2009 IDC 3
Plans to invest next 12 months
Q. How likely is your organization to invest in document/forms imaging/
capture solutions for the following business processes in the next 12 months?
% of respondents
0 20 40 60 80 100

Invoice processing

PO processing

Sales order processing

HR documents

Customer
correspondence

Contract management

Case management

Using Very Somewhat Not DK

n=97, organizations w/ 2,000+ employees (total sample n=308); multiple responses allowed.
Source: November QuickPoll Document Processes, IDC's Enterprise Panel, November 2008
© 2009 IDC 4
 Front-office capture enables dozens of
business processes…
Invoice processing New employee
Engineering onboarding
Recruitment
change order Project Patent and
Expedited managementmanagement Contractor copyright
orders Materials management management
safety
Quote to ship
Return Employee Plant
authorizations accidents management Money
MRO Transfer Loan
Payment eGov case investigations
origination
confirmations Claims management, Retirement
Policy processing entitlements plan
management Contract processing
Partner management Trade confirms
Crime transactions
New drug Reseller Warranty
investigation enrollment
application management
Court Agent
Evidence scheduling New account
Clinical trials accreditation opening
New account
production
notifications opening
Commercial Customer care,
Patient records Patient leasing call center support
management discharge Doctor RPI/RFP/RFQ
Compliance
training credentialing management Grant Cross/up-sell
management

© 2009 IDC 5
Evolution of capture in the enterprise…

Beyond…
 Back-office capture – scan to archive (compliance,
retention, optimizing on-premise storage, etc.) – capture marks
the end of the business process
to…
 Front-office capture – scan-enabled applications – capture
takes place at the beginning of a given workflow, so it can
drive the business process

© 2009 IDC 6
Evolution of capture in the enterprise…

And beyond…
 Simple capture and imaging
to…
 Sophisticated classification and extraction capabilities that
enable documents to be automatically identified, sorted, and
routed, and that enable information in the document to
automatically drive one or more business processes

© 2009 IDC 7
Capture/image management software
market revenue growth
$B %
2 12

10

C&IM Revenue
1 8
C&IM Growth

0 4
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Source: IDC, Worldwide Capture & Image Management 2008-2012 Forecast and Analysis, #215520, Dec. 2008

© 2009 IDC 8
 Information overload

Organizational Information “Unit” Growth WW

(Petabytes) # Files (T)
300,000 70000

Enterprise
60000
250,000 Information (PB)
No. of "Files" (T)
50000
200,000

40000
150,000
30000

100,000
Amount of information created 20000
/ replicated within enterprises
50,000 by bytes and number of files,
10000
e.g., images, voice packets,
RFID signals, computer files
0 0
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Source: Expanding Digital Universe, IDC, 2008
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What do information tasks cost the
enterprise?
Hours per Annual cost per
Task
week worker
Email: read and answer 13 $20,990
Search/gather information 8.8 $14,209
Analyze information 8.1 $13,078
Communicate/collaborate within organization 6.4 $10,333
Manage projects 6.2 $10,011
Create content 6 $9,688
Communicate/collaborate with customers,
5.2 $8,396
suppliers, etc.
Manage people 4.4 $7,104
Data entry and other structured tasks 4 $6,458
Publish information 3.7 $5,974

n=706; based on an annual salary of $75,000 with benefits

Source: IDC Information Worker Productivity Studies, 2008-2009.there's an additional fee for that, and
© 2009 IDC 10
Business Drivers for Investing in
Capture/Imaging
Q. Which of the following are important business drivers for your organization
in terms of investing in capture/imaging of business documents?
% of respondents
0 20 40 60 80 100

Reducing paper
filing/storage

Reducing costs

Reducing errors

Improving information
sharing

Reducing processing
cycle time

Ensuring
compliance/auditability

Improving visibility into

business process

Improving litigation
preparedness

n=97, organizations w/ 2,000+ employees (total sample n=308); multiple responses allowed.
Source: November QuickPoll Document Processes, IDC's Enterprise Panel, November 2008
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Still a big gap in practice today

 Even in large organizations, most paper-based processes

are still largely manual
 Scan-enabled business processes don’t always leverage
classification and extraction for full business efficiency
 And what about electronic information? We have similar
needs for classification and extraction
 This is especially true for the digital mailroom: our research
shows few organizations have taken advantage of capture,
classification, and extraction to automate the document flow
from the mailroom out

© 2009 IDC 12
How Paper-Based Documents/Forms Are
Captured/Processed
Q. Which of the following describe how paper-based documents/forms
are captured/processed at your organization?
% of respondents
0 20 40 60 80 100

Departments scan business-critical

documents into a CMS

Have one or more automated systems that

electronically extract information from
scanned documents

All paper-based document processing is

manual today; information is manually keyed

Use barcoded hard-copy forms to help

automate some of the data
capture/processing

Incoming mail is scanned (digitized) at the

mailroom, classified, and then distributed Only 13%…
electronically

n=97, organizations w/ 2,000+ employees (total sample n=308); multiple responses allowed.
Source: November QuickPoll Document Processes, IDC's Enterprise Panel, November 2008
© 2009 IDC 13
How Electronic Documents/Forms Are
Captured/Processed
Q. Which of the following describe how electronic documents/forms
are captured/processed at your organization?
% of respondents
0 20 40 60 80 100

We are using electronic forms to capture

information directly into our enterprise
applications and reducing/eliminating data
entry/keying

We have automated systems that extract

data from electronic documents of different
types, and help to automate data entry
tasks

We have automated systems that classify

incoming electronic documents and route Only 27%…
them to appropriate departments

We have automated systems that classify

emails and mark them as records, according
to rules

n=97, organizations w/ 2,000+ employees (total sample n=308); multiple responses allowed.
Source: November QuickPoll Document Processes, IDC's Enterprise Panel, November 2008
© 2009 IDC 14
Evolution of capture

From…
 Back-office capture – scan to archive (compliance, retention, optimizing
on-premise storage, etc.) – capture marks the end of the business process
and …
 Front-office capture – scan-enabled applications – capture takes place
at the beginning of a given workflow, so it can drive the business process

to…
 the mailroom – putting capture, classification, and
extraction to work to automate the processing
(classification, extraction, routing) of all of the
organization’s paper and electronic documents…
ultimately initiating the business process at the mailroom!
© 2009 IDC 15
Summary

 Huge opportunity to automate document-intensive business processes:

– Cost savings from more efficient, consistent, error-free processes
– Improved visibility into processes for continued process improvement
– Reduced risk, improved compliance controls
– More agile enterprise
– Improved information worker productivity
– Improved customer support

– THE ROI IS COMPELLING!

 Moving capture/imaging, classification, and extraction up earlier in the

process helps maximize ROI and assure these benefits

 The process needs to start at the mailroom

© 2009 IDC 16