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Organizations Focusing on the Strategic Benefits of Outsourced Document Scanning and Data Capture

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Organizations Focusing on the Strategic Benefits of Outsourced Document Scanning and Data Capture

Demand for outsourced document scanning and data capture services is reaching an all-time high. But the demand has a lot less to do with cost-cutting than you may think. Companies of all sizes are placing outsourcing at the center of their business strategy to focus more of their resources on their core competencies to better compete in the global market.

Regardless of the industry, outsourcing document scanning and data capture is
gaining widespread acceptance as an important management tool for improving
profitability, boosting quality, enhancing customer service, and achieving greater
efficiency without having to invest in people and technology.
 
Outsourcing also enables companies to strengthen the resources that underpin their
business strategy, facilitate major organizational change, and drive innovation of their
technology and processes. And, it helps them speed time-to-market and respond
more quickly to changing business conditions.
 
Not only are these benefits strategic, they ultimately build shareholder value.
 
It’s for these reasons that outsourcing has the attention of top corporate executives.
 
Uncovering Opportunities
Companies of all sizes are taking a hard look at their document-driven business
processes.
 
They are on the hunt for processes that aren’t key to their company’s core competency
and aren’t a revenue-generator. For processes that don’t meet either of these criteria,
the next step is to determine the best way to serve the company’s internal and
external clients, while maintaining service levels.
 
Not surprisingly, many of these processes are being brought to outsourced services
providers with the challenge of creating a business case that meets the company’s
tactical and strategic objectives and guarantees comparable – and, in some cases,
better – service levels than the company was achieving.
 
Below are three examples of how outsourcing is helping companies meet strategic
initiatives.
 
A Major Health Insurer
After determining that mail processing was not among its core competencies, a major
U.S. health insurer is evaluating the possibility of outsourcing its mailroom function to
a lockbox provider.
 
The health insurer currently receives between 2 and 3 million documents per month
in its mailroom, including explanation of benefits documents, health claims, and
invoices. An outsourced service provider will receive mail for the insurer’s different business units via individual post office boxes, open and scan the mail on the insurer’s
behalf, use advanced technology to automatically identify different document types,
apply processing rules to each document type, route the documents electronically to
the appropriate queue for processing, and index and archive images and data.
 
By outsourcing its mailroom function, the health insurer expects to accelerate
document capture and routing, enabling it to respond to customer correspondence
more quickly. Outsourcing will also improve the insurer’s service by reducing the
number of documents that go missing as a result of “piggybacks” – or dual-fed
documents – on its desktop scanners.
 
A Large Airlines Company
After deciding that it wasn’t proficient in invoice scanning, a large airlines company
is planning to outsource the processing of its non-airplane-related invoices, such as
those for utilities.
 
Today, the airlines company receives paper invoices in its mailroom. Once invoices are
received, they are routed the next day to the appropriate accounts payable clerk for
processing. Because of the paper shuffling involved, it now takes three to four days
from the time invoices are received for them to be processed. An outsourced services
provider will accelerate the process by receiving and opening mail on the airlines
company’s behalf, scanning the invoices and capturing critical data, and uploading the
data to an FTP site to populate the company’s payables database – all on the same day.
 
This process will enable the company to process most of its invoices in one or two
days. In turn, this will enable the company to take advantage of early-payment
discounts – one of its strategic goals.
 
A Small Manufacturer
Hoping to improve quality of service, a small ball bearings manufacturer is planning
to have an outsourced provider scan its daily production logs and electronically tie
them to the purchase orders associated with individual orders. The manufacturer
will then have the documentation associated with every order – from raw materials
and production to payables and shipping – at its fingertips, not spread across different
departments as paper. This will enable the manufacturer to more quickly research
customer inquiries, including the potential source of manufacturing errors.
 
The Bottom Line
Outsourcing document scanning and data capture has long been seen as a way to
reduce costs.
 
But as the examples above illustrate, outsourcing also helps companies improve
their bottom line in ways companies may have not even considered, while addressing
strategic business objectives.
 
For this reason, companies need to consider outsourcing, or risk falling behind their
competitors.
 
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