Warning to Vendors: Your Customers are Getting Smarter

Of the many things that impressed me at the recent TAWPI Forums & Expo in Boston—and there were many: the quality of the speakers; the cohesive nature of the solutions; the networking opportunities; the performance of the Red Sox—what was perhaps most noticeable was the sophistication of the Forum attendees. Long-time TAWPI
members, and a marked increase in fresh faces demonstrated a keen awareness of the industry, the business problems they faced, and the historic shortcomings of some of the available solutions. By and large, our members are getting smarter. While this is a good sign for TAWPI, and is in some small measure a testimony to the value of the education the Association provides, it poses challenges to the vendor community. An educated constituency asks tough questions, demands more mature solutions, and expects more from its suppliers.

The knowledge our members have gained has not come cheaply. While the cost to attend TAWPI’s annual forum, the regional conferences or Web events is a relative bargain, it’s the price paid investing in solutions that weren't a good fit, weren't ready for prime time, or just didn’t work, that has cost the most. “Learning the hard way” may not be the best lesson, but these are the lessons not soon forgotten. These sadder-but-wiser constituents now demand tangible demonstrations of a solution’s effectiveness. Not only do data extraction tools need to work in the demo booth with perfectly prepared samples, they need to work in production using real world forms. The advantages of Remote Deposit Capture are many, but woe to the vendor that neglects to address such issues as training, maintenance and customer service. Today’s customers understand scalability, reliability and usability. They are asking about regulatory compliance, document retention, image quality and total cost of ownership. They expect their suppliers to not only understand the technology, but its appropriateness for the specific application or industry where it will be applied. In the industry roundtable discussions (a new, and highly successful feature at this year’s Forums) as well as in interactions on the Expo floor, the attendees were savvy about the technology, understood the terminology, and were more interested in how solutions would fit with their existing business process than they were with bells or whistles. And to our vendors’ credit, they seemed to welcome the challenge. Having successfully survived the mergers, acquisitions, and technology changes of the past several years,
the solution providers on display in Boston were likewise well-informed, candid and eager to show how far the industry has come. While there may always be a disconnect between the promise of technology and the
need it’s intended to fulfill, that gap is closing–in no small part thanks to the demands of an informed market.


Dan Bolita, ICP
TODAY Editor