Strategy

From Document Manager Magazine Vol 20 No 05 - September/October

Document management in the cloud just might turn out to be the 'killer application' that the IT industry has been waiting for, argues Simon Shorthose, Managing Director, ReadSoft UK

2012 is fast becoming the year of the cloud, touted as the saviour of enterprise and consumer alike: from reducing on-premise storage to backing up your mobile phone. It is easy to see why when cloud based services can deliver innovative ways to react to the world we operate in. This is especially the case for organisations that need the ability to flex their business up or down as required, keeping them agile and ready to make the most of opportunities. Yet of all business applications, moving document management to cloud has the potential to deliver the most far reaching changes to the way small and medium enterprises operate.

SMALL CLOUDS MEAN BIG BUSINESS
Times are still tough for small businesses in the UK, and this has not been helped by the increasingly common issue of invoices not being paid on time. More than a third of invoices are currently paid late, and that is giving rise to cash flow problems and days of valuable employee time chasing and processing invoices. For the small firm operating close to the wire, it is an issue that can rapidly result in staff layoffs, loss of business or even the need to secure additional finance in the form of loans.

For small companies that struggle with a large proportion of invoices arriving by post, using technology to automate the processes is a sensible business decision. Unfortunately the cost sometimes rules out smaller businesses. Cloud computing changes this with systems and services hosted virtually and accessed via the web from a PC or even a mobile device.

For smaller businesses limited by how they best use staff time, cloud offers a fast, flexible alternative to adopt new technology to help drive business forward. According to recent UK Fast research, "80% of organisations have experienced improvements within six months of moving to the cloud." According to the Cloud Industry Forum, the provision of office automation, plus accounting and finance applications within the cloud, are line-of-business drivers that have will have significant impact on businesses this year. These will impact more employees and lead to considerable change in working methods as poor administration, cash flow issues, disputed work and in particular slow payments are more easily addressed.

Less than a third of small companies have yet implemented cloud based invoicing technology, but that will change because small businesses are better placed to take full and fast advantage of the cloud. Small businesses can scan, upload or send documents and invoices via e-mail. Cloud based software can then automatically extract relevant data, verify it, and send it to the receiving applications; and images can be automatically stored in the cloud or on the business' own storage.

With no more than a networked onetouch scanner, and web access, any company can use the cloud to bring all their back office invoice processes - collection, storage and management - online in a very easy, painless manner. This means they can at last operate more efficiently, reclaim cash which was rightfully owed and crucially concentrate on growing their business as opposed to chasing paperwork.

BUILDING A BETTER BUSINESS
Cloud is the great leveller because its services are affordable. This is particularly the case for medium sized organisations which can now access process automation technology - from accounts receivable and payable, to managing purchase orders and stock allocation - all of which would previously require onpremise installation at an unaffordable cost. The key for the small to medium business is that because you only pay for what you need, there is no capital expenditure, only operational expenditure. Accessed and managed online, the ability to automate the back office through the cloud, means medium sized companies can rapidly alleviate the need for, and demands made, of 'paperwork drones.' Employers can remove the repetition and monotony of manual processes, which represent considerable business costs, and now employ staff to drive revenue generation through more strategic, involved roles which bring real value to the company.

And we are not just talking about advantages for the finance department. Bringing document process automation into the cloud is also valid for the HR department. Working with regular processes such as employment contracts, holiday allowance and on-boarding new staff, the HR department is well positioned to take advantage of document automation within the cloud.

The process of employing staff demands a high level of compliance, including handwritten recording of conversations which needs archiving. This can generate considerable cost if manually searched and retrieved for potential lawsuits. Bringing HR document automation into the cloud can bring all this tagged data into an employee file, where it can be easily and quickly searched to ensure compliance and reduce employer risk.

This is also relevant to companies seeking to onboard new employees as the economy recovers, when they need to be able to demonstrate compliance when informing new employees about health and safety, terms and conditions, pension schemes, healthcare policy, phones, laptops, security codes, company car - all are recorded and automatically associated with the employee file.

This ability to demonstrate HR compliance from within cloud becomes even more crucial across verticals where by their very nature, staff and infrastructure may be temporary. Consider the construction industry where worksites not only preclude on-premise installation, there may not even be on site access to a PC or scanner. In such scenarios, cloud enabled document automation can still operate, fulfilling the demands of HR, with the use of little more than a connected mobile device with a camera.

LEVELLING THE PLAYING FIELD
For the medium sized enterprise, cloud based document process workflow is going to prove to be a killer application because it allows companies to act - and react - like they are operating a large enterprise content management (ECM) system. This is possible because automated workflow processing can now migrate to the cloud and will be agnostic in terms of your enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. So whether an organisation operates SAP or Oracle, or any other ERP, there is no need to throw out and rebuild your ECM.

Using cloud not only gives a medium sized business the instant scalability to challenge a larger competitor without the need for capital expenditure. It can also be taken a step further, if an organisation opts to use SharePoint and bring that into the cloud as well. In such a scenario a business' electronic data can be tightly integrated through workflow processes into business applications as a part of a unified cloud delivered ERP system.

Document management in the cloud empowers small and medium organisations, and gives them the professional tools to really gain control over business, taking full advantage of the lower overheads as automation simplifies operations, all within the cost controlled cloud environment. It gives medium sized organisations the agility to challenge their bigger competitors on a freshly levelled playing field and then grow their business exponentially in the future.

More info: www.readsoft.co.uk

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