The idea of the paperless office has been around for years. What was once a futuristic dream has taken on new urgency with increasing awareness of carbon footprints and corporate social responsibility.
Even though the reality of a truly paperless office still lies somewhere in the future as workers find it difficult to let that hardcopy go, many transaction-based businesses, like those found in the insurance industry, realize they can use technology to cut down on paper use.
In fact, many organizations find that going paperless is not about removing all paper from their offices. Instead, they recognize that offices are no longer primarily paper-based, but rather digitally focused. They recognize the advantages of using content technologies as a key step in this process, and they have started exploiting the many benefits of document automation and electronic workflows to create competitive advantages in the areas of information access, content security, quality assurance, and regulatory compliance. The goal is to increase the effectiveness of employees at a lower cost than error-prone manual processes.
However, many companies are still under the impression that workflow implementations are costly, take too long, redirect precious IT resources, or simply don't work. That does not have to be the case. There are many options, so it's important to choose one that best fits you. If your company is planning to implement an automated workflow, here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Before selecting a solution, agents need to design and prioritize an overall content strategy with concrete, realistic objectives that will, in turn, support core business processes. Depending on your goals, there are many solutions and categories, including enterprise content management, customer relationship management, and enterprise resource planning systems.
- If you want your staff to adopt the technology, it needs to fit as seamlessly as possible into the overall document workflow of your practice. By eliminating steep learning curves, the rate of adoption will soar.
- Too often, insurance practices become fixated on adding interesting bits and pieces of automation technology that they then try to fit into internal processes. Applying technology to various processes leads to an unwieldy patchwork of technologies that simply don't work together. Any advantages these individual technologies provide are then lost through the lack of integration and the increased maintenance burden. The key is to find the solution that best fits your processes -- not the other way around.
- Make sure to look for a document conversion application that supports your regulatory compliance strategy, and ensure that the application you choose has a successful history in the insurance sector.
Paperless workflows are here to stay -- and by choosing the right solution, your insurance practice can increase efficiency and customer service, clearly define your brands, and differentiate yourselves.
Scott Mackey is director of product management for Adlib Software. He can be reached at 905-631-2875 ext. 231 or smackey@adlibsoftware.com.
