In ancient times the 1980s or so producing a printed document from raw data was a relatively crude mechanical process that involved hard coding printer commands. The limitations of the technology and the effort involved inspired many to predict the demise of the printed document altogether and the advent of the "paperless office." As we see now, of course, those predictions were premature. Printing hardware and software continues to evolve, and as long as businesses have customers, we will continue to need paper documents. The biggest misconception was that the paperless office would lead to a "document-less" office.
Strangely, the dramatic advances in high-volume electronic printing, which are typically referred to as document automation, have gone largely unnoticed by the mainstream business media and many business people. Yet virtually everyone is affected by it. Most importantly, document automation has gone beyond high-volume printing; it has become, through what we call "document integration" a powerful technology for marketing, customer care and customer relationship management (CRM).
The Missing Link
While CRM vendors struggle to legitimize their space in the industry, document automation companies are quietly filling the void and making the missing link of CRM a reality for many large corporations around the world.
Beginning in 1986, various printer vendors introduced all-points-addressable printers (APA) that allowed high-quality printouts at high speed. While this was an important advance, it also meant that the process to create the document from the data became that much more complex. In 1990, we saw the first attempts to take raw data and create reports, but the forms were still pretty basic. These documents were printed in line mode, in black and white, with no graphic appeal. These one-size-fits-all documents did little to help customers better understand the information they contained.
As a result, marketing managers became frustrated. There was little alternative but to use static forms for large-scale, direct-mail marketing campaigns, and marketers wanted something more dynamic. The missing link became personalized and individualized documents. Eventually, prayers were partially answered when document automation moved away from line printing and into APA technology. That ·
paved the way for new graphical design tools that could be easily used by non-technical workers.
In spite of these advances, financial services companies in particular still faced the challenge of getting customer account data from mainframe printing to LAN printers while still maintaining control and consistency. Even if they develop with a system to control the consistency of the message and design, they still had the problem of working with multiple printer vendors in a LAN environment. Conse-quently, these companies had to re-code documents for printing on each different operating system and target printers. As the platforms and output channels multiplied to include fax, email and the Web, as well as regular mail, it became critically important to come up with software that was flexible and scalable yet powerful enough to accommodate high volumes.
Giving Marketers What They Want
The kind of document automation that marketers demanded required a user-friendly suite of specific applications that had to fit together seamlessly and be printer independent. In order to accomplish this, developers needed a new underlying document-management architecture. The key is the ability to link individual software applications and integrate them with other enterprise applications and document archives. ISIS Papyrus has approached this challenge with a new document-management architecture that's called Papyrus Objects. This architecture provides a common user interface for all document applications using browser-based display technology. Key to the system is a central document repository with version control that accommodates legacy data mapping (CICS, IMS, SQL, MQ). For flexibility, Objects works with 11 different operating systems.
This new document-management architecture dramatically reduces the time, cost and effort associated with defining and maintaining document applications. The components and application programs provide a homogeneous application environment for developers, administrators and users. This integration opens up new opportunities in which document automation becomes integrated with process management, CRM and customer care. Now, a monthly banking or mutual fund statement is no longer a simple numerical report; it is a powerful tool to enhance communication with customers.
Exploiting the Technology
Like many large companies that sell through a large number of independent agents, Clarica Sun Life faced the challenge of projecting a consistent message while being responsive to the varying needs of its sales force. Clarica and its agents also faced the challenge of marketing to an increasingly diverse population. Enter the new era of document integration. By moving to a fully integrated document-management and automation system, Clarica is now able to produce a broad range of full-color brochures in five different languages. Agents order personalized marketing material over the Internet and receive them the next day with the agent's photo and contact information.
The new system was an immediate success. The percentage of sales agents using the marketing brochures jumped from four percent to 16%, a four-fold increase in the first year. The agents were eager to have them because the documents are personalized and target specific markets. Clients are more receptive since the documents speak to a specific need.
Marketing to Diverse Populations
Document integration is opening up a new world of CRM for banks as well. Major institutions including Citibank, Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS), Bank of Scotland, Commerzbank in
This flexibility has been hugely important to the credit card issuers by giving marketers the ability to adjust to changing market conditions. One of the leaders has been First Data Resources (FDR), a service bureau for many of the largest card issuers. Much of the credit card marketing business involves the embossing of cards and the printing of associated letters as well as statements and collateral materials. In "the old days," this was done through the infamous "D-holes" punched paper carriers in which the card was anchored. While all the printing was done on a mainframe, the emphasis was on pre-press, with variable data added in the print process. This process was essentially static and did not enable a dynamic marketing approach.
Card issuers needed more system flexibility and personalization so they could make use of the vast amount of marketing data at their disposal. Time to market is also key. As the amount of preprinted paper for these applications rose, reduced inventory costs for the number, types and volumes of preprinted stock became an essential issue. The ability to make quick document and strategy changes without inventory hassles enables the document to deliver a convergence of marketing strategies toward the customer. For FDR, the result was the Plasticard Enterprise Presentation system, which accesses more than 300 variable-data elements from account information to produce a card mailer that is targeted to an individual rather than a population. Convenience and balance transfer checks, coupons and selective messages can also be printed on the mailers dynamically to help issuers increase card usage and boost revenue. According to FDR, the new system brought significant cost savings by using a variety of forms with variable template applications and two-sided printing. Operational efficiencies are found by electronically composing each document without the cost and time needed to replenish large quantities of paper stock.
Avoid the Pitfalls
Software products like Papyrus perform a conversion "at time of print or archive" into the required format (e.g., PDF, PS, IPDS, PCL, etc.). The electronic document format is both the original and the final format. To borrow a phrase from the real estate folks, the three most important elements in document automation are integration, integration and integration. Without seamless integration of the document automation middleware components and integration with the other enterprise applications, you are likely going to have endless headaches.
Automating Inbound Documents
Until now, most of the advances in the industry have involved outbound communications, but that is about to change. This trend is most prominently seen in
For example, Wincare receives up to 10,000 invoices from physicians and laboratories each day. The company desperately needed an automated system to help extract relevant information from the invoices to facilitate the customer's claim for reimbursement. Each supplier, however, tends to have a unique invoice format, which often makes searching its contents for the information a significant challenge. Conventional bottom-up, template-driven approaches are not sufficient. To solve the problem, Wincare deployed Papyrus technology, which automatically extracts the key data of each invoice. Due to adaptive document understanding functions and precise recognition, Wincare automatically captures service-related information.
Using this new system, incoming invoices are scanned in both sorted and unsorted batches. Images of the documents are transferred automatically for classification into document type and the extraction of their contents of interest. Staff within the verification group deal only with the exception documents. And the processed document batches are then exported automatically to the host system. During this stage, the needed data is transferred into a database, and from there into the
The savings from the automated system were realized immediately, and the initial cost was recovered within only a few months. The application at Wincare is just one example of how technology is automating the intelligent handling of inbound documents.
A New Era
If a large company today wanted to take advantage of document integration technology to the fullest, it could deploy an automated system to create, produce and distribute documents via regular mail, email, fax or the Web. Each outbound document can be individualized, and the system can even handle the responses. Companies now can launch a marketing campaign that segments the target market according to scores of variables, reach hundreds of thousands or even millions of prospects and efficiently and intelligently process the responses. And all this can be done with a fraction of the cost, effort and time that such a campaign would have required using traditional methods.
Max J. Pucher is the founder and president of the ISIS Papyrus Group. For more information, visit www.isis-papyrus.com.
