Posted by Mark Brousseau
It’s not often that an organization can reduce its workforce while significantly growing its volume, but that’s exactly what University Hospitals, one of the nation’s leading healthcare systems, did by rethinking and automating processes in its accounts payable (AP) shared services department.
The healthcare system’s shared services center has supported a 63 percent increase in invoice volume with a 17 percent reduction in full-time equivalents (FTEs), Jeff Lubbe, corporate finance director, University Hospitals, told attendees at Kofax Transform 2011 Americas this week in San Diego.
When University Hospitals set out to revamp its AP operations a few years back, several factors were driving its thinking: external pressure to improve profitability, its desire to reduce back-office costs and reinvest the savings in patient care, and its desire to improve satisfaction with AP processing. What’s more, the AP department’s old technology infrastructure presented several challenges:
• Lost and misplaced invoices
• High costs for non-value added tasks
• Lots of time focused on keying instead of analytics
• Lack of information for workload monitoring
• Lack of accountability to resolve problem invoices
• Difficult verifying non-PO invoice approvals
• Lag time to receive approval on non-PO invoices
• Issues around coding of invoices to invalid accounts
Against this backdrop, it’s not surprising that AP was blamed anytime an invoice was paid late.
With the implementation of an Oracle enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, University Hospitals felt it finally had a strong base that it could build on for its automation strategy.
The first phase of University Hospitals’ automation strategy was to consolidate its AP operations, consolidate invoices and suppliers, identify technology-ready suppliers with high invoice counts (“We wanted to see where we could use EDI [electronic data interchange] or spreadsheet uploads,” Lubbe said), and takea hard look at internally generated transactions for process improvements.
In the second phase of its AP automation strategy, Lubbe said University Hospitals implemented a document imaging and automated workflow solution, and began utilizing a self-service solution for expenses and non-PO invoicing. University Hospitals selected MarkView software from 170 Systems (now part of Kofax) for its document imaging and automated workflow solution.
“Our strategy was to select an Oracle application – since we are an Oracle shop – and if one didn’t exist, to select an Oracle partner that had a solution that was intuitive, cost effective and scalable,” Lubbe told attendees. “We chose 170 Systems because of MarkView’s integration with Oracle, the company’s proven track record of best-practices implementations, its extensive financial automation experience, and MarkView’s breadth of out-of-the-box functionality. It was a really great fit for us.”
Today, University Hospitals has automated about 75 percent of the invoices that come into its enterprise, Lubbe said. The final phase of the medical system’s original AP automation plan will include deploying an optical character recognition (OCR) solution, and refocusing AP staff on analytical tasks, such as problem and hold resolution, statement reconciliation, and discount capture.
To automate its data capture, University Hospitals began deploying Kofax Capture and Kofax Transformation Management in December, and expects to complete the implementation in March. Lubbe said the medical system selected the Kofax products because of their integration with MarkView and Kofax’s leadership position in the intelligent data capture market.
While data capture is sure to provide additional benefits, Lubbe said he’s already pleased with the progress the medical system has made in automating its AP processes. “We have improved internal control, improved productivity of the AP department and its manager, increased visibility, avoided AP headcount increases, and improved the perception of AP and finance,” Lubbe concluded.
Showing posts with label Kofax. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kofax. Show all posts
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
Leveraging MFPs to drive process improvements
Posted by Mark Brousseau
Multi-function printers (MFPs) – devices that can print, fax, copy and scan documents – continue to experience tremendous growth, Daniel Schmidt, product marketing manager, Kofax, told attendees at Kofax Transform 2011 Americas this morning in San Diego.
Schmidt cited statistics from IDC that the MFP market grew by 18 and 22 percent last year, representing a total market of 13 million MFP devices, compared to just 800,000 document scanners.
Despite this tremendous growth, most organizations have an opportunity to further reduce their operations costs by leveraging and extending MFPs as part of their business processes, Schmidt said.
Realizing these costs savings, Schmidt said, are as easy as 1-2-3:
1. Consolidate control of MFPs.
2. Leverage MFPs for distributed scanning.
3. Integrate MFPs into a scan-to-process initiative.
Consolidate
At most organizations, MFPs are fax-enabled via individual telephone lines, Roman Swoboda, vice president, business communications, Kofax told attendees. In cases where a company has thousands of deployed MFPs – possibly across the globe – this means thousands of individual telephone lines.
Swoboda said this type of MFP deployment creates a number of issues, including the tremendous costs associated with the individual phone lines (a single line costs up to $500, Swoboda noted), the lack of document tracking and archival, and the limited security over who can send faxes and where.
“A better approach is to connect the MFPs to a centralized infrastructure where faxes are sent in a consolidated and very structured way,” Swoboda said. This offers a number of advantages, including improved tracking and compliance, lower costs (fewer “trunk lines”), and the ability to leverage a consolidated platform. One company that consolidated its MFP infrastructure was able to eliminate up to two-thirds of its analog lines, delivering payback in six to eight months, Swoboda said.
Optimize
Another opportunity for improving MFP deployments is to extend the process to create searchable PDFs, as well as documents that can be archived. Schmidt suggested companies scan documents in remote offices and send them to a central archive. This reduces the costs of transporting documents between locations, eliminates the opportunity for lost document, improves information security, and enables the end-user to leverage all of the benefits of data capture, including bar code recognition.
Integrate
To maximize their MFP deployments, organizations should integrate the devices with their business processes. Schmidt said this approach can reduce processing time from days to minutes, in turn, providing more timely information that can enhance customer service. It also lowers processing costs, including labor and shipping costs; creates an audit trail for tracking documents end-to-end and improving compliance efforts; and improves security, providing complete document control.
What do you think?
Multi-function printers (MFPs) – devices that can print, fax, copy and scan documents – continue to experience tremendous growth, Daniel Schmidt, product marketing manager, Kofax, told attendees at Kofax Transform 2011 Americas this morning in San Diego.
Schmidt cited statistics from IDC that the MFP market grew by 18 and 22 percent last year, representing a total market of 13 million MFP devices, compared to just 800,000 document scanners.
Despite this tremendous growth, most organizations have an opportunity to further reduce their operations costs by leveraging and extending MFPs as part of their business processes, Schmidt said.
Realizing these costs savings, Schmidt said, are as easy as 1-2-3:
1. Consolidate control of MFPs.
2. Leverage MFPs for distributed scanning.
3. Integrate MFPs into a scan-to-process initiative.
Consolidate
At most organizations, MFPs are fax-enabled via individual telephone lines, Roman Swoboda, vice president, business communications, Kofax told attendees. In cases where a company has thousands of deployed MFPs – possibly across the globe – this means thousands of individual telephone lines.
Swoboda said this type of MFP deployment creates a number of issues, including the tremendous costs associated with the individual phone lines (a single line costs up to $500, Swoboda noted), the lack of document tracking and archival, and the limited security over who can send faxes and where.
“A better approach is to connect the MFPs to a centralized infrastructure where faxes are sent in a consolidated and very structured way,” Swoboda said. This offers a number of advantages, including improved tracking and compliance, lower costs (fewer “trunk lines”), and the ability to leverage a consolidated platform. One company that consolidated its MFP infrastructure was able to eliminate up to two-thirds of its analog lines, delivering payback in six to eight months, Swoboda said.
Optimize
Another opportunity for improving MFP deployments is to extend the process to create searchable PDFs, as well as documents that can be archived. Schmidt suggested companies scan documents in remote offices and send them to a central archive. This reduces the costs of transporting documents between locations, eliminates the opportunity for lost document, improves information security, and enables the end-user to leverage all of the benefits of data capture, including bar code recognition.
Integrate
To maximize their MFP deployments, organizations should integrate the devices with their business processes. Schmidt said this approach can reduce processing time from days to minutes, in turn, providing more timely information that can enhance customer service. It also lowers processing costs, including labor and shipping costs; creates an audit trail for tracking documents end-to-end and improving compliance efforts; and improves security, providing complete document control.
What do you think?
Information explosion driving capture growth
Posted by Mark Brousseau
There continues to be an enormous explosion of information, Alan Kerr, executive vice president of field operations, Kofax, said this morning during Kofax Transform 2011 Americas in San Diego. There also are “more and more ways” that information is coming into an organization, Kerr added.
It’s for these reasons that capture solutions are becoming more strategic, Kerr said. “People have to be able to increase service, meet compliance demands, and take costs out of the business,” Kerr said.
Not surprisingly, Kofax thinks the future is bright for capture solutions. “The capture market is about $2 billion a year and is expected to grow at an 11 percent compound annual growth rate through 2013,” Kofax CEO Reynolds Bish told attendees during his opening address.
Why the growth in capture solutions? Bish identified several driving factors:
… “As we improve our products, we continue to growth the market,” he said.
… “There is an increasing realization on the part of our customers that the paper will not go away,” Bish said. “Users have concluded that the only way to make it go away is to scan it.”
… “Paper is a compliance risk,” he noted.
… “There is a desire to convert all of that unstructured content into accessible information,” Bish said.
… “We have seeded the market for enterprise solutions with our tactical installations,” he said.
… “We can deliver proven short-term return on investments, often through the elimination of manual processes,” Bish said.
The growth of capture solutions represents “a lot of potential, as well as some challenges,” for Kofax Transform 2011 Americas attendees, Bish said.
For end-users, the challenge is to unlock the data stuck in their paper-driven business processes. “Improving business processes starts with information,” Kerr noted. “How do you capture this information? How do you transform it to make it useful? And how do you exchange it across the enterprise?”
For their part, capture vendors have to be able to provide departmental solutions, enterprise solutions, big batch back-office solutions, and knowledge solutions, Kerr said. “You have to be able to scale up and across. You must also be able to support global capabilities,” Kerr added.
So what else are end-users looking for from a capture solutions provider? Kerr said there are several key criteria:
… Partners that understand the end-user’s business problems and enterprise
… A financially stable company that is investing in the marketplace
… A strategic business relationship
… Return on investment
Against this backdrop, Bish concluded: “I really believe that the future is really bright here at Kofax and there is a tremendous opportunity for us to engage with end-users and our channel partners.”
What do you think?
There continues to be an enormous explosion of information, Alan Kerr, executive vice president of field operations, Kofax, said this morning during Kofax Transform 2011 Americas in San Diego. There also are “more and more ways” that information is coming into an organization, Kerr added.
It’s for these reasons that capture solutions are becoming more strategic, Kerr said. “People have to be able to increase service, meet compliance demands, and take costs out of the business,” Kerr said.
Not surprisingly, Kofax thinks the future is bright for capture solutions. “The capture market is about $2 billion a year and is expected to grow at an 11 percent compound annual growth rate through 2013,” Kofax CEO Reynolds Bish told attendees during his opening address.
Why the growth in capture solutions? Bish identified several driving factors:
… “As we improve our products, we continue to growth the market,” he said.
… “There is an increasing realization on the part of our customers that the paper will not go away,” Bish said. “Users have concluded that the only way to make it go away is to scan it.”
… “Paper is a compliance risk,” he noted.
… “There is a desire to convert all of that unstructured content into accessible information,” Bish said.
… “We have seeded the market for enterprise solutions with our tactical installations,” he said.
… “We can deliver proven short-term return on investments, often through the elimination of manual processes,” Bish said.
The growth of capture solutions represents “a lot of potential, as well as some challenges,” for Kofax Transform 2011 Americas attendees, Bish said.
For end-users, the challenge is to unlock the data stuck in their paper-driven business processes. “Improving business processes starts with information,” Kerr noted. “How do you capture this information? How do you transform it to make it useful? And how do you exchange it across the enterprise?”
For their part, capture vendors have to be able to provide departmental solutions, enterprise solutions, big batch back-office solutions, and knowledge solutions, Kerr said. “You have to be able to scale up and across. You must also be able to support global capabilities,” Kerr added.
So what else are end-users looking for from a capture solutions provider? Kerr said there are several key criteria:
… Partners that understand the end-user’s business problems and enterprise
… A financially stable company that is investing in the marketplace
… A strategic business relationship
… Return on investment
Against this backdrop, Bish concluded: “I really believe that the future is really bright here at Kofax and there is a tremendous opportunity for us to engage with end-users and our channel partners.”
What do you think?
Kofax kicks off its Transform event with some news
Posted by Mark Brousseau
Kofax Transform 2011 Americas opened with breaking news this morning as Kofax CEO Reynolds Bish announced the sale of the company’s European hardware business to Hannover Finanze, a private equity firm in Germany. The hardware business represented about one-third of Kofax’s total revenues. Bish told attendees that he signed the paperwork for the transaction over the weekend.
“Since all of that hardware business is conducted in EMEA, it won’t affect anything in the Americas,” Bish told the announced crowd of 650 here in San Diego. About a year ago Kofax announced that it was exploring whether to sell its hardware business. The increasingly competitive market for hardware in EMEA, and the company’s desire to focus more closely on its fast-growing software business were key factors in that decision. The transaction is expected to close in March.
Kofax also announced plans today to restructure its EMEA software business. “This will not affect how we engage with channel partners or end-users,” Bish explained. “It will be business as usual.”
Bish summed up the announcements by stating: “As a result of these moves, there’s a whole lot to be excited about at Kofax in addition to everything else that we’ve accomplished in the past year.”
Among the company’s achievements in the past year cited by Bish:
… Kofax added more than 1,900 new customers
… The company closed many more enterprise sales, including 17 deals worth more than $500,000 -- up from 10 the prior year – and nine deals worth more than $1 million – up from five in the prior year
… Kofax closed the two largest sales in the company’s history, including one worth $5.9 million to a leading global freight company and another worth $4.4 million to a major financial services firm
… The company launched eight new software products
… Kofax finished upgrading its executive management team
… The company’s overall market share increased from 10 percent in 2008 to 11 percent in 2009, according to data from Harvey Spencer Associates
… Kofax maintained its leadership position in image capture with a 25 percent share, according to data from Harvey Spencer Associates
What do you think?
Kofax Transform 2011 Americas opened with breaking news this morning as Kofax CEO Reynolds Bish announced the sale of the company’s European hardware business to Hannover Finanze, a private equity firm in Germany. The hardware business represented about one-third of Kofax’s total revenues. Bish told attendees that he signed the paperwork for the transaction over the weekend.
“Since all of that hardware business is conducted in EMEA, it won’t affect anything in the Americas,” Bish told the announced crowd of 650 here in San Diego. About a year ago Kofax announced that it was exploring whether to sell its hardware business. The increasingly competitive market for hardware in EMEA, and the company’s desire to focus more closely on its fast-growing software business were key factors in that decision. The transaction is expected to close in March.
Kofax also announced plans today to restructure its EMEA software business. “This will not affect how we engage with channel partners or end-users,” Bish explained. “It will be business as usual.”
Bish summed up the announcements by stating: “As a result of these moves, there’s a whole lot to be excited about at Kofax in addition to everything else that we’ve accomplished in the past year.”
Among the company’s achievements in the past year cited by Bish:
… Kofax added more than 1,900 new customers
… The company closed many more enterprise sales, including 17 deals worth more than $500,000 -- up from 10 the prior year – and nine deals worth more than $1 million – up from five in the prior year
… Kofax closed the two largest sales in the company’s history, including one worth $5.9 million to a leading global freight company and another worth $4.4 million to a major financial services firm
… The company launched eight new software products
… Kofax finished upgrading its executive management team
… The company’s overall market share increased from 10 percent in 2008 to 11 percent in 2009, according to data from Harvey Spencer Associates
… Kofax maintained its leadership position in image capture with a 25 percent share, according to data from Harvey Spencer Associates
What do you think?
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Kofax Enhances Capture Products
By Mark Brousseau
Kofax is seeing traction among small and medium-sized businesses for its Kofax Express solution. Now, the vendor hopes to continue this momentum with the release of Version 2.0 of the product.
Kofax Express is an all-in-one scan-to-archive software package for image capture applications.
Kofax Express 2.0 offers incremental enhancements, including an improved user experience and ease of use, extended support for PDF and PDFa, and upgrades in the way users input documents, Andrew Pery, chief marketing officer at Kofax, told me during a product briefing yesterday afternoon.
"The traction for Kofax Express is coming through our channel," Pery said. "They are focusing on the small to medium-sized segment of the capture market." Kofax resellers are seeing interest across vertical markets, Pery explained, including healthcare, manufacturing, and local governments.
"Even though data capture technology has been around for a long time, there is still a lot of paper in smaller enterprises. Companies recognize the value of utilizing data capture to take costs out of the business," Pery said, predicting single-digital growth for Kofax Express. "Kofax Express is moving capture into the mainstream. This allows us to move down market and defend our market position."
In the higher volume market, Kofax has made significant improvements to the ease of administration and deployment to its Kofax Capture 9 solution. Kofax is positioning the product as the enterprise standard to support multiple instances. "Over the last eight months, we have seen increased adoption of Kofax Capture 9 an enterprise standard," Pery said. "For instance, we're seeing a renaissance in mail room automation. Companies are trying to take significant costs out of the business."
Companies also are looking to streamline downstream business processes. The goal is to address the intricacies of capture enterprises to improve customer service and strengthen customer relationships. "If you take a look at invoice processing, the only thing that matters is exceptions processing," Pery explained. "That's where the cost is. That's where the service issues are. Once companies have addressed downstream business processes, there are significant strategic advantages," he added.
Kofax is seeing traction among small and medium-sized businesses for its Kofax Express solution. Now, the vendor hopes to continue this momentum with the release of Version 2.0 of the product.
Kofax Express is an all-in-one scan-to-archive software package for image capture applications.
Kofax Express 2.0 offers incremental enhancements, including an improved user experience and ease of use, extended support for PDF and PDFa, and upgrades in the way users input documents, Andrew Pery, chief marketing officer at Kofax, told me during a product briefing yesterday afternoon.
"The traction for Kofax Express is coming through our channel," Pery said. "They are focusing on the small to medium-sized segment of the capture market." Kofax resellers are seeing interest across vertical markets, Pery explained, including healthcare, manufacturing, and local governments.
"Even though data capture technology has been around for a long time, there is still a lot of paper in smaller enterprises. Companies recognize the value of utilizing data capture to take costs out of the business," Pery said, predicting single-digital growth for Kofax Express. "Kofax Express is moving capture into the mainstream. This allows us to move down market and defend our market position."
In the higher volume market, Kofax has made significant improvements to the ease of administration and deployment to its Kofax Capture 9 solution. Kofax is positioning the product as the enterprise standard to support multiple instances. "Over the last eight months, we have seen increased adoption of Kofax Capture 9 an enterprise standard," Pery said. "For instance, we're seeing a renaissance in mail room automation. Companies are trying to take significant costs out of the business."
Companies also are looking to streamline downstream business processes. The goal is to address the intricacies of capture enterprises to improve customer service and strengthen customer relationships. "If you take a look at invoice processing, the only thing that matters is exceptions processing," Pery explained. "That's where the cost is. That's where the service issues are. Once companies have addressed downstream business processes, there are significant strategic advantages," he added.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
A Compelling ROI for Document Management
By Mark Brousseau
Organizations hungry for productivity gains in light of the economic downturn will likely find a compelling return on investment from document capture solutions, Andrew Pery, chief marketing officer at Kofax said this morning during a keynote presentation at TAWPI’s Capture Conference.
“If document capture is looked at as part of your mission-critical business process, and you integrate that into your business applications, then the savings are quite significant and compelling,” Pery said.
One common measure of a return on investment calculation is the average total savings over three years, divided by the cost, Pery told attendees. What factors drive this return on investment?
… Breadth – “How many people will the application affect?”
… Repeatability – “How many times a day will people use it?”
… Cost – “Is this a costly task?”
… Collaboration – “Will employees need to collaborate?”
… Knowledge – “Can I reuse the information I create?”
“One of the most important metrics is the payback -- the time period needed before net savings equal initial cost,” Pery said. “Organizations tend to pay a lot of attention to this because the shorter the payback the higher the probability the project will be adopted,” Pery explained to attendees.
Key to this payback is productivity gains from reductions in cost (direct savings), expected reductions in cost, increases in worker productivity, and increases in manager productivity.
“When someone creates an ROI analysis, particularly in these tough economic times, the focus primarily is on direct savings,” Pery said. And this is a reason for the growth of document capture. “Document capture, in terms of annual growth potential, is expected to outperform virtually every other segment of the software market because users recognize the potential direct cost savings.”
For instance, the economic value of automating invoice processing is increased processing efficiencies, improved ability to audit, improved visibility across AP, and streamlined research.
The bottom line, Pery said is to choose products and services that consider document-driven process automation as a strategic investment.
What do you think? Post your comments below.
Organizations hungry for productivity gains in light of the economic downturn will likely find a compelling return on investment from document capture solutions, Andrew Pery, chief marketing officer at Kofax said this morning during a keynote presentation at TAWPI’s Capture Conference.
“If document capture is looked at as part of your mission-critical business process, and you integrate that into your business applications, then the savings are quite significant and compelling,” Pery said.
One common measure of a return on investment calculation is the average total savings over three years, divided by the cost, Pery told attendees. What factors drive this return on investment?
… Breadth – “How many people will the application affect?”
… Repeatability – “How many times a day will people use it?”
… Cost – “Is this a costly task?”
… Collaboration – “Will employees need to collaborate?”
… Knowledge – “Can I reuse the information I create?”
“One of the most important metrics is the payback -- the time period needed before net savings equal initial cost,” Pery said. “Organizations tend to pay a lot of attention to this because the shorter the payback the higher the probability the project will be adopted,” Pery explained to attendees.
Key to this payback is productivity gains from reductions in cost (direct savings), expected reductions in cost, increases in worker productivity, and increases in manager productivity.
“When someone creates an ROI analysis, particularly in these tough economic times, the focus primarily is on direct savings,” Pery said. And this is a reason for the growth of document capture. “Document capture, in terms of annual growth potential, is expected to outperform virtually every other segment of the software market because users recognize the potential direct cost savings.”
For instance, the economic value of automating invoice processing is increased processing efficiencies, improved ability to audit, improved visibility across AP, and streamlined research.
The bottom line, Pery said is to choose products and services that consider document-driven process automation as a strategic investment.
What do you think? Post your comments below.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Slower Distributed Capture Growth?
By Mark Brousseau
Panelists at TAWPI’s Capture Conference admitted that they were surprised by the slowdown in growth of distributed capture solutions reported by TAWPI’s 2009 Document Management Study.
“When we looked at the report, we thought it was a very interesting statistic,” said Andrew Pery, chief marketing officer at Kofax, said during the panel discussion this morning in Ft. Lauderdale. “Based on our own experiences in the market, both distributed capture and remote capture are proliferating and there is increased adoption for both because of the benefits they provide.”
“The study shows that global and Fortune 500 companies are the primary users of distributed capture solutions with smaller firms using it in a more limited basis,” said Dana Showers of Capture Sage.
KeyMark CEO Jim Wanner told attendees that the recession has undoubtedly played a role in distributed capture “not taking off.” But Wanner said there is another issue within organizations that may be inhibiting growth: “There is a huge disconnect between the individuals responsible for scanning and the individuals making decisions on MFP devices. These individuals frequently don’t communicate effectively on how to solve the challenge of capture within the organization.’
The results of the TAWPI aside, the panelists saw growth ahead for distributed and remote capture.
“Distributed capture will continue to grow,” predicted Ken Kriz, manager of strategic alliances for AnyDoc Software. “But it can’t grow at its previous pace because it cannot overtake centralized scanning. Some organizations will utilize distributed capture, and some of them will not.”
“The use of Citrix has really taken off, which will help distributed processing,” Showers added.
Pery noted that despite the popularity of ATM banking, 63 percent of respondents to a recent study said they prefer to interact with a bank branch employee – illustrating that the ability to deploy remote capture solutions and multi-function devices are becoming more strategic. “We’re also seeing expanded use of capture at the fringes of the enterprise, such as with field agents,” he said.
Going forward, the panelists saw mobile phones as another remote input stream for images.
“High-production users won’t use cell phones to scan documents in the back office, but they might be one of the inputs into a high-production system,” Kriz told conference attendees.
What do you think? Post your comments below.
Panelists at TAWPI’s Capture Conference admitted that they were surprised by the slowdown in growth of distributed capture solutions reported by TAWPI’s 2009 Document Management Study.
“When we looked at the report, we thought it was a very interesting statistic,” said Andrew Pery, chief marketing officer at Kofax, said during the panel discussion this morning in Ft. Lauderdale. “Based on our own experiences in the market, both distributed capture and remote capture are proliferating and there is increased adoption for both because of the benefits they provide.”
“The study shows that global and Fortune 500 companies are the primary users of distributed capture solutions with smaller firms using it in a more limited basis,” said Dana Showers of Capture Sage.
KeyMark CEO Jim Wanner told attendees that the recession has undoubtedly played a role in distributed capture “not taking off.” But Wanner said there is another issue within organizations that may be inhibiting growth: “There is a huge disconnect between the individuals responsible for scanning and the individuals making decisions on MFP devices. These individuals frequently don’t communicate effectively on how to solve the challenge of capture within the organization.’
The results of the TAWPI aside, the panelists saw growth ahead for distributed and remote capture.
“Distributed capture will continue to grow,” predicted Ken Kriz, manager of strategic alliances for AnyDoc Software. “But it can’t grow at its previous pace because it cannot overtake centralized scanning. Some organizations will utilize distributed capture, and some of them will not.”
“The use of Citrix has really taken off, which will help distributed processing,” Showers added.
Pery noted that despite the popularity of ATM banking, 63 percent of respondents to a recent study said they prefer to interact with a bank branch employee – illustrating that the ability to deploy remote capture solutions and multi-function devices are becoming more strategic. “We’re also seeing expanded use of capture at the fringes of the enterprise, such as with field agents,” he said.
Going forward, the panelists saw mobile phones as another remote input stream for images.
“High-production users won’t use cell phones to scan documents in the back office, but they might be one of the inputs into a high-production system,” Kriz told conference attendees.
What do you think? Post your comments below.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Healthcare System Automates AP
By Mark Brousseau
Catholic Healthcare West (CHW) has improved the productivity of its invoice processing by 12 percent by implementing a data capture solution from Kofax, Beverly A. Carling, manager, accounts payable at CHW, said yesterday at Transform 2009, the Kofax Annual Conference, held October 21-22 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt, in San Diego. What’s more, Carling expects productivity to climb further as the organization becomes more experienced with the automated invoice technology. “We are projecting a productivity gain of 25 percent in 2010 compared to 2008,” Carling told attendees.
With the Kofax solution, CHW’s validators can now process 2,100 invoices per day, Carling said. “That’s a lot of transactions,” she said, adding that the organization now has an average of 1-2 days of unprocessed invoices in the queue – far below industry average for AP departments.
CHW is a healthcare system comprised of 41 acute care hospitals and approximately 20 health-related affiliated corporations located in California, Arizona and Nevada.
CHW implemented Kofax Advanced Data Capture earlier this year. It also uses ProcessFlow to manage AP work queues. The implementation of the Kofax technology came as CHW was consolidating its 30 invoice processing facilities, which processed about 1.6 million invoices a year (about a third of which are handled electronically), into two centers located in Sacramento and Phoenix. At the end of the transition, CHW’s invoice volume rose to 1.7 million invoices annually.
“Our goal was to build an AP center of excellence,” Carling said.
The Kofax solution is delivering data capture read accuracy of 80 to 85 percent, Carling explained. “We’re still experiencing some false positives, but we have an action plan in place to address that,” Carling said. “I’m expecting that we’re going to see results of 95 percent.” To eliminate some manual processes, CHW has 75 different AP companies set up in its system – providing the ability to read the name on an invoice and convert it into an AP number. About 65 percent of CHW’s total invoice volume is processed through data capture. “Data capture has helped us standardize what we are putting into the system and reduce the number of manual errors that we may have.” Carling said.
CHW’s results are even more impressive when you consider the complexity of invoice processing. The organization has tens of thousands of vendors, Carling said, and there is no standard of how vendors present the data. “And we don’t really have any leverage to dictate how data is presented.”
But the results are impressive. And additional savings may lie ahead.
“We haven’t been on data capture very long,” Carling said. “We continue to do issues tracking, mostly on the false positive side, and look for ways to improve the quality of the data capture.”
Catholic Healthcare West (CHW) has improved the productivity of its invoice processing by 12 percent by implementing a data capture solution from Kofax, Beverly A. Carling, manager, accounts payable at CHW, said yesterday at Transform 2009, the Kofax Annual Conference, held October 21-22 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt, in San Diego. What’s more, Carling expects productivity to climb further as the organization becomes more experienced with the automated invoice technology. “We are projecting a productivity gain of 25 percent in 2010 compared to 2008,” Carling told attendees.
With the Kofax solution, CHW’s validators can now process 2,100 invoices per day, Carling said. “That’s a lot of transactions,” she said, adding that the organization now has an average of 1-2 days of unprocessed invoices in the queue – far below industry average for AP departments.
CHW is a healthcare system comprised of 41 acute care hospitals and approximately 20 health-related affiliated corporations located in California, Arizona and Nevada.
CHW implemented Kofax Advanced Data Capture earlier this year. It also uses ProcessFlow to manage AP work queues. The implementation of the Kofax technology came as CHW was consolidating its 30 invoice processing facilities, which processed about 1.6 million invoices a year (about a third of which are handled electronically), into two centers located in Sacramento and Phoenix. At the end of the transition, CHW’s invoice volume rose to 1.7 million invoices annually.
“Our goal was to build an AP center of excellence,” Carling said.
The Kofax solution is delivering data capture read accuracy of 80 to 85 percent, Carling explained. “We’re still experiencing some false positives, but we have an action plan in place to address that,” Carling said. “I’m expecting that we’re going to see results of 95 percent.” To eliminate some manual processes, CHW has 75 different AP companies set up in its system – providing the ability to read the name on an invoice and convert it into an AP number. About 65 percent of CHW’s total invoice volume is processed through data capture. “Data capture has helped us standardize what we are putting into the system and reduce the number of manual errors that we may have.” Carling said.
CHW’s results are even more impressive when you consider the complexity of invoice processing. The organization has tens of thousands of vendors, Carling said, and there is no standard of how vendors present the data. “And we don’t really have any leverage to dictate how data is presented.”
But the results are impressive. And additional savings may lie ahead.
“We haven’t been on data capture very long,” Carling said. “We continue to do issues tracking, mostly on the false positive side, and look for ways to improve the quality of the data capture.”
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Kofax Targets Transactional Capture Market
By Mark Brousseau
Watch out ReadSoft – Kofax is coming for you.
“We are second in the transactional capture market, and we intend to be No. 1,” Alan Kerr, the company’s executive vice president of field operations, said during a presentation this morning at Transform 2009, the Kofax Annual Conference, scheduled for October 21-22 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego. “This is where we are going. Everything we do is focused on that.”
Currently, Kofax enjoys a 9 percent market share in the transactional capture market, Kerr said – trailing only ReadSoft. Kofax leads the “All Capture” and “Image Capture” market segments.
Kerr said Kofax continues to spend “a lot of money” on research on development around document-driven business process automation. “We are enterprise ready. This is a consistent, well thought out, deliverable strategy. It’s not a vendor trying to cobble something together,” Kerr told attendees.
It’s little wonder that Kofax would set its sights on the transactional capture market. Kerr noted an IDC study predicting that the document capture market will continue to be one of the stronger growth areas of the content management market over the next five years. He added that despite talk about the “paperless office,” 75 percent of companies use mostly paper-based accounts payable processing. “These solutions are becoming increasingly mission-critical to the enterprises that use them,” he said.
“We’re looking at 9.6 percent growth for the market in which we operate,” Kerr explained. “This is a $2 billion market, driven by the real desire and thirst by end users to automate these processes.”
But even bigger opportunities may lie ahead.
“Just as forms processing and document capture came together to form a more robust market, we think capture will merge with business process automation to form a more robust market,” Kofax CEO Reynolds C. Bish said today. Anticipating this trend, Kofax has changed is corporate mission statement to: “Be the leading provider of document-driven business process automation solutions.”
“This is recognition of the dynamics of the market,” Bish said. “The more we thought about what we did, the more we realized that is was business process automation in a document driven application.”
Kerr describes Kofax as, “the on-ramp to automating business processes.”
Kofax’s biggest -- and most strategic -- move into the transactional capture market was its acquisition this year of 170 Systems, Inc., which expanded Kofax’s vision to include process automation, Bish told attendees this morning. “It was a very important transaction for us in a number of ways.”
“In the invoice processing market, we were at a competitive disadvantage because ReadSoft had the ability provide the complete solution that users were looking for,” Bish said. “We were unable to do that. We had to partner with several vendors.” By acquiring 170 Systems, Kofax can “deliver the complete solution end users expect and desire from a single point of procurement. It addresses a competitive weakness. And it positions us for leadership in the growing invoice processing market.”
Bish noted that most Kofax customers don’t have an invoice processing workflow solution, so Kofax has the opportunity to “take the 170 product and sell it to those customers.” Kerr added that invoice processing represents a “big opportunity” as a large and growing segment of the capture market.
Kofax acquired 170 Systems, Bish said, because it was an acknowledged leader of a manageable size and it supported both SAP and Oracle PeopleSoft. “It also had a flexible platform for automating other financial processes,” he said. “Our plan is to use their platform for other vertical markets.”
In the next nine to 12 months, Kofax will use the 170 Systems platform as a foundation to build a document-driven business process automation solution that breaks down the traditional boundaries between Kofax products – offering a turnkey transactional capture framework for any vertical. For instance, the solution will offer integrated administration and a new pricing model. “The devil is in the details, but this will be a more thoughtful integration,” said Kofax CTO Anthony Macciola.
Macciola said he’s not aware of any other solution on the market that is as packaged or as scalable as the platform that Kofax is building. “The 170 Systems infrastructure is very enterprise-oriented.”
“This is a very natural evolution for us,” Bish said. “If we’re capturing the document, why shouldn’t we look at, see what data we can glean from it, and then put it in front of a C-level executive?”
Watch out ReadSoft – Kofax is coming for you.
“We are second in the transactional capture market, and we intend to be No. 1,” Alan Kerr, the company’s executive vice president of field operations, said during a presentation this morning at Transform 2009, the Kofax Annual Conference, scheduled for October 21-22 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego. “This is where we are going. Everything we do is focused on that.”
Currently, Kofax enjoys a 9 percent market share in the transactional capture market, Kerr said – trailing only ReadSoft. Kofax leads the “All Capture” and “Image Capture” market segments.
Kerr said Kofax continues to spend “a lot of money” on research on development around document-driven business process automation. “We are enterprise ready. This is a consistent, well thought out, deliverable strategy. It’s not a vendor trying to cobble something together,” Kerr told attendees.
It’s little wonder that Kofax would set its sights on the transactional capture market. Kerr noted an IDC study predicting that the document capture market will continue to be one of the stronger growth areas of the content management market over the next five years. He added that despite talk about the “paperless office,” 75 percent of companies use mostly paper-based accounts payable processing. “These solutions are becoming increasingly mission-critical to the enterprises that use them,” he said.
“We’re looking at 9.6 percent growth for the market in which we operate,” Kerr explained. “This is a $2 billion market, driven by the real desire and thirst by end users to automate these processes.”
But even bigger opportunities may lie ahead.
“Just as forms processing and document capture came together to form a more robust market, we think capture will merge with business process automation to form a more robust market,” Kofax CEO Reynolds C. Bish said today. Anticipating this trend, Kofax has changed is corporate mission statement to: “Be the leading provider of document-driven business process automation solutions.”
“This is recognition of the dynamics of the market,” Bish said. “The more we thought about what we did, the more we realized that is was business process automation in a document driven application.”
Kerr describes Kofax as, “the on-ramp to automating business processes.”
Kofax’s biggest -- and most strategic -- move into the transactional capture market was its acquisition this year of 170 Systems, Inc., which expanded Kofax’s vision to include process automation, Bish told attendees this morning. “It was a very important transaction for us in a number of ways.”
“In the invoice processing market, we were at a competitive disadvantage because ReadSoft had the ability provide the complete solution that users were looking for,” Bish said. “We were unable to do that. We had to partner with several vendors.” By acquiring 170 Systems, Kofax can “deliver the complete solution end users expect and desire from a single point of procurement. It addresses a competitive weakness. And it positions us for leadership in the growing invoice processing market.”
Bish noted that most Kofax customers don’t have an invoice processing workflow solution, so Kofax has the opportunity to “take the 170 product and sell it to those customers.” Kerr added that invoice processing represents a “big opportunity” as a large and growing segment of the capture market.
Kofax acquired 170 Systems, Bish said, because it was an acknowledged leader of a manageable size and it supported both SAP and Oracle PeopleSoft. “It also had a flexible platform for automating other financial processes,” he said. “Our plan is to use their platform for other vertical markets.”
In the next nine to 12 months, Kofax will use the 170 Systems platform as a foundation to build a document-driven business process automation solution that breaks down the traditional boundaries between Kofax products – offering a turnkey transactional capture framework for any vertical. For instance, the solution will offer integrated administration and a new pricing model. “The devil is in the details, but this will be a more thoughtful integration,” said Kofax CTO Anthony Macciola.
Macciola said he’s not aware of any other solution on the market that is as packaged or as scalable as the platform that Kofax is building. “The 170 Systems infrastructure is very enterprise-oriented.”
“This is a very natural evolution for us,” Bish said. “If we’re capturing the document, why shouldn’t we look at, see what data we can glean from it, and then put it in front of a C-level executive?”
Kofax Direct Sales Take Off
By Mark Brousseau
Kofax is achieving significant “accelerating” growth with its two year-old direct sales initiative, Alan Kerr, the company’s executive vice president of field operations said during a general session this morning at Transform 2009, the Kofax Annual Conference, scheduled for October 21-22 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego.
Shortly after Reynolds C. Bish joined Kofax at CEO nearly two years ago, the company began to move away from a purely channel-centric sales model, where it avoided direct engagement of customers. While the channel-centric sales model served Kofax well for many years, some large organizations around the world said they would rather have a direct relationship with Kofax, Bish said. So the company adopted a hybrid go-to-market model that uses both direct and indirect channels.
Now, “the business is exploding,” Kerr told the mix of Kofax business partners and end-users.
In the first half of Kofax’s fiscal year 2009, direct sales represented 14 percent of its software license revenues, Kerr said. In the second half of the company’s fiscal year 2009, direct sales doubled to 28 percent of its software license revenues. Looking ahead, Kerr said direct sales should represent 48 percent of the company’s software license revenues in the first quarter of its 2010 fiscal year.
“Do not misinterpret this,” Kerr said. “There is growth with our partner channel. We are selling to end-users who weren’t part of it.” Some end-users refused to buy through partners, Kerr said.
Bish told attendees that the company is executing on its hybrid go-to-market strategy "without encountering any major channel conflict. I think I can count on one hand the number of times we've had a conflict, and to the best of my knowledge, they have all been resolved amicably."
Kerr emphasized that Kofax continues to invest in its strategic relationships. “We continue to invest in technology vendors,” he said. “We have a comprehensive, global, world-class set of partner programs.”
Kofax is achieving significant “accelerating” growth with its two year-old direct sales initiative, Alan Kerr, the company’s executive vice president of field operations said during a general session this morning at Transform 2009, the Kofax Annual Conference, scheduled for October 21-22 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego.
Shortly after Reynolds C. Bish joined Kofax at CEO nearly two years ago, the company began to move away from a purely channel-centric sales model, where it avoided direct engagement of customers. While the channel-centric sales model served Kofax well for many years, some large organizations around the world said they would rather have a direct relationship with Kofax, Bish said. So the company adopted a hybrid go-to-market model that uses both direct and indirect channels.
Now, “the business is exploding,” Kerr told the mix of Kofax business partners and end-users.
In the first half of Kofax’s fiscal year 2009, direct sales represented 14 percent of its software license revenues, Kerr said. In the second half of the company’s fiscal year 2009, direct sales doubled to 28 percent of its software license revenues. Looking ahead, Kerr said direct sales should represent 48 percent of the company’s software license revenues in the first quarter of its 2010 fiscal year.
“Do not misinterpret this,” Kerr said. “There is growth with our partner channel. We are selling to end-users who weren’t part of it.” Some end-users refused to buy through partners, Kerr said.
Bish told attendees that the company is executing on its hybrid go-to-market strategy "without encountering any major channel conflict. I think I can count on one hand the number of times we've had a conflict, and to the best of my knowledge, they have all been resolved amicably."
Kerr emphasized that Kofax continues to invest in its strategic relationships. “We continue to invest in technology vendors,” he said. “We have a comprehensive, global, world-class set of partner programs.”
Attendance Up At Kofax Transform
By Mark Brousseau
At a time when reduced travel budgets are negatively impacting many conferences and other industry events, attendance at Transform 2009, the Kofax Annual Conference, scheduled for October 21-22 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt, in San Diego, is up about 30 percent compared to 2008, Alan Kerr the company’s executive vice president of field operations said during a session to kick-off the event.
With a theme of “The Need for Speed,” this year’s Transform event opened with a video montage blending the Kofax value proposition, heart-thumping music, and images of race cars, military jet planes and race horses.
Kerr told attendees that this year’s Transform event for the Americas attracted 425 attendees; 278 of the delegates represent Kofax business partners and 147 are from end-user organizations. “Unlike previous Transform events, this year’s conference is both an end user and partner event. In previous years, we were focused primarily on partners,” Andrew Pery, chief marketing officer at Kofax said during a press briefing last night. “We now have a good balance between partners and users.”
To ensure the event appealed to both partners and users, Pery said Kofax worked hard to develop an agenda that includes a broad range of product and industry sessions, as well as certification classes by AIIM and IOMA. “We’re trying to deliver value beyond product information,” Pery explained.
Some 392 attendees at this year’s Transform event are from the United States, 12 are from Canada, two are from Mexico and two are from South America, Kerr said. Approximately 20 of the users come from the user base of 170 Systems, which Kofax recently acquired. The event also has guests from Indonesia, India, New Zealand, Singapore and South Africa. Kofax will host a Transform event in Berlin, Germany, October 26-27 for partners and users from Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Attendance at that event also is expected to be up, Pery said.
Transform sponsors include Fujitsu (the Platinum sponsor for the event), Canon, Bowe Bell+Howell, HP, Epson America, OPEX Corporation, A2iA, Computing System Innovations (CSI), FileBound, Ricoh, ibml, Therefore, AdvancedCaptureTeam, and Panasonic.
At a time when reduced travel budgets are negatively impacting many conferences and other industry events, attendance at Transform 2009, the Kofax Annual Conference, scheduled for October 21-22 at the Manchester Grand Hyatt, in San Diego, is up about 30 percent compared to 2008, Alan Kerr the company’s executive vice president of field operations said during a session to kick-off the event.
With a theme of “The Need for Speed,” this year’s Transform event opened with a video montage blending the Kofax value proposition, heart-thumping music, and images of race cars, military jet planes and race horses.
Kerr told attendees that this year’s Transform event for the Americas attracted 425 attendees; 278 of the delegates represent Kofax business partners and 147 are from end-user organizations. “Unlike previous Transform events, this year’s conference is both an end user and partner event. In previous years, we were focused primarily on partners,” Andrew Pery, chief marketing officer at Kofax said during a press briefing last night. “We now have a good balance between partners and users.”
To ensure the event appealed to both partners and users, Pery said Kofax worked hard to develop an agenda that includes a broad range of product and industry sessions, as well as certification classes by AIIM and IOMA. “We’re trying to deliver value beyond product information,” Pery explained.
Some 392 attendees at this year’s Transform event are from the United States, 12 are from Canada, two are from Mexico and two are from South America, Kerr said. Approximately 20 of the users come from the user base of 170 Systems, which Kofax recently acquired. The event also has guests from Indonesia, India, New Zealand, Singapore and South Africa. Kofax will host a Transform event in Berlin, Germany, October 26-27 for partners and users from Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Attendance at that event also is expected to be up, Pery said.
Transform sponsors include Fujitsu (the Platinum sponsor for the event), Canon, Bowe Bell+Howell, HP, Epson America, OPEX Corporation, A2iA, Computing System Innovations (CSI), FileBound, Ricoh, ibml, Therefore, AdvancedCaptureTeam, and Panasonic.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Webb Edwards to Deliver Keynote Address at Kofax's Transform Event
Posted by Mark Brousseau
Webb Edwards, one of the nation’s preeminent banking technology leaders and experts, will provide a keynote presentation at Kofax’s Transform 2009 Americas event on October 22 in San Diego, CA. I will be blogging throughout the Kofax event.
Formerly Executive Vice President of Wells Fargo Services, the technology and operations subsidiary of Wells Fargo, Webb is recognized nationally as a leading authority on technology strategies in both back and front office enterprise environments that span infrastructure, mainstream business applications development, payment systems, ATM services, risk management and data architecture. He currently advises and consults with organizations concerning their strategies in these and other areas.
“Webb brings a practical perspective on how organizations can realize increased operational efficiency, improved competitive agility and foster better customer satisfaction by automating labor intensive and error prone document driven business processes. As such, he’ll provide invaluable insights to Transform attendees,” said Reynolds C. Bish, Chief Executive Officer at Kofax.
Bish and Alan Kerr, Executive Vice President of Field Operations, will also provide keynote presentations that highlight and explain Kofax’s strategic initiatives designed to help customers and partners realize more value from the company’s product portfolio, including those arising from the recent acquisition of 170 Systems. Transform 2009 will also showcase industry specific case studies and presentations from over 20 major customers that span financial services, insurance, healthcare, government, manufacturing and high technology.
Transform 2009 Americas will be held October 21-22 in San Diego at the Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel. Major sponsors include Fujitsu, Ricoh, HP, Canon, Computing System Innovations (CSI), Panasonic, Bowe Bell Howell, Opex, FileBound, ibml, Advanced Capture Team, Therefore and A2iA.
Webb Edwards, one of the nation’s preeminent banking technology leaders and experts, will provide a keynote presentation at Kofax’s Transform 2009 Americas event on October 22 in San Diego, CA. I will be blogging throughout the Kofax event.
Formerly Executive Vice President of Wells Fargo Services, the technology and operations subsidiary of Wells Fargo, Webb is recognized nationally as a leading authority on technology strategies in both back and front office enterprise environments that span infrastructure, mainstream business applications development, payment systems, ATM services, risk management and data architecture. He currently advises and consults with organizations concerning their strategies in these and other areas.
“Webb brings a practical perspective on how organizations can realize increased operational efficiency, improved competitive agility and foster better customer satisfaction by automating labor intensive and error prone document driven business processes. As such, he’ll provide invaluable insights to Transform attendees,” said Reynolds C. Bish, Chief Executive Officer at Kofax.
Bish and Alan Kerr, Executive Vice President of Field Operations, will also provide keynote presentations that highlight and explain Kofax’s strategic initiatives designed to help customers and partners realize more value from the company’s product portfolio, including those arising from the recent acquisition of 170 Systems. Transform 2009 will also showcase industry specific case studies and presentations from over 20 major customers that span financial services, insurance, healthcare, government, manufacturing and high technology.
Transform 2009 Americas will be held October 21-22 in San Diego at the Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel. Major sponsors include Fujitsu, Ricoh, HP, Canon, Computing System Innovations (CSI), Panasonic, Bowe Bell Howell, Opex, FileBound, ibml, Advanced Capture Team, Therefore and A2iA.
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