Choosing the right technology solution can be an intimidating task for those companies looking to commence their digital transformations.

In fact, the number one question we hear from clients is “Which solution do I need?”, often quickly followed by “How much does it cost?”

The answer to the first question varies greatly on the size of your organisation, industry, business type, and specific needs.

It isn’t something that can be solved by a ‘one-size fits all approach’ and it typically requires one our team to visit your business and document your processes so that we can properly understand how we can best help you.

The need for a Needs Assessment

Therefore, knowing what solution fits your business, requires a “needs assessment”. Put simply, a needs assessment does what it says on the tin, it identifies your company’s “needs” by finding gaps in results that can be filled via improvements in systems or processes.

Roger Kaufman, who is considered by many to be the father of needs assessment theory, said there were three levels of needs: mega (how your organisation relates or contributes to society), macro (how you relate to your external partners), and micro (your internal processes).

At Docuworx, we start by helping you optimise your micro needs, which in turn leads to improvements at the macro and the mega levels. After all, companies must fully optimise their internal processes if they want to have productive relationships with their partners and customers.

Below you will see a list of questions we might ask you in the course of accounting needs assessment:

• How long does it take you, on average, to process invoices?
• How much time is typically spent on data entry and filing paper invoice?
• Have you ever lost paper copies of invoices? What happened next?
• Are you required to match invoices, purchase request and proof of delivery documents before posting payments?
• Do you currently scan any of your invoices?
• Do you feel any of these processes take too long? Which ones?

We will also find out how many users you have and if an on-premise or cloud solution is preferred.

Once we have all the info we need, we will begin to tailor the ideal solution to you.

Mountains of data, but what to do with it?

Every organisation produces and collects data and so it isn’t surprising that the amount of data in the world is growing fast.

According to the global consulting firm IDC, there will be 175 zetabytes of data in the world by 2025.

Source: Data Age 2025, sponsored by Seagate with data from IDC Global DataSphere, Nov 2018

For perspective, a zetabyte is a trillion gigabytes! The point is, data isn’t going anywhere – it will only grow – and it is becoming increasingly obvious that the more data you have on your customer, the better. But you just don’t need data, you need that information to be structured, organized and easily accessible.

Take Amazon for example, which is now a trillion-dollar company. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos often says that the reason his company is so successful is because of its obsession with customer experience (CX).

Using the information generated by 200 million users and 1.5 billion items, Amazon can provide world-class CX that is seamless and personalised. Amazon is successful becuase it knows its customers and devices like Alexa help it understand them even better.

Climbing the mountain

You may be in a different industry, but your business, like any other, must harness the data it has to improve its operations.

As a platinum provider of Docuware, we have the solutions you need to start on your digital transformation journey.

With Docuware you can centralise valuable document and process knowledge in one system, integrating it directly with your enterprise resource planning (ERP) for a holistic view of your data.

To learn more about how we can help you reduce costs and optimise your business, contact us today.

Digital transformation is more than just a catchphrase, it is a global movement that is improving businesses and customer experiences worldwide.

Although embarking on a digital transformation can be daunting and requires investment, many companies worlwide are starting that journey because they know it will pay off in the future.

We’ve already looked at how Blockbuster missed their big opportunity to digitally transform their business, and we all know how that ended for them.

The inverse of this is, of course, Netflix, which is now a $122 billion-dollar company. As noted by customer experience expert Blake Morgan, when done strategically, digital transformation can improve stock prices and revenue in the long run. Consider the chart below:

Source: Forbes

However, these are all American-headquartered companies. How about in Australia? Well, one Australian conglomerate which has recently begun to embrace digital transformation is Wesfarmers (ASX:WES).

In June, Wesfarmers held its Strategy Briefing Day, outlining the key initiatives it had undertaken in FY19 and its plans for the years ahead.

‘Data & digital’ was one of the key areas of focus for the group, which said it will continue to invest in its e-commerce and efficiency capabilities as well as improving back-end systems and processes to support future growth.

More specifically, Wesfarmers last year invested in the creation of an Advanced Analytics Center which uses purchasing and other customer data to calculate and calibrate the value of customer offers and loyalty programmes.

“The advanced analytics centre will assist in utilising data science and best-practice analytics to enhance our decision making, develop new business opportunities and help solve problems across the group in a range of areas including customer insights, pricing, ranging, salesforce effectiveness and supply chain management,” Wesfarmers Managing Director Rob Scott said.

Over the past five years, Wesfarmers’ Bunnings hardware store chain has been the main target of growth expenditure, according to the FY19 Strategy Briefing Day.

Source: Wesfarmers Strategy Briefing Day

This is in part due to Bunning’s disastrous entry (and exit) from the UK market but also involves the Wesfarmer’s ongoing investments in digital transformation.

When you think about hardware stores, digital technology is probably the last thing that comes to mind.

However, in FY20 Bunnings announced that would be outlaying $30 million on upgrading its online sales platform to enable click-and-collect.

Following an initial pilot in Tasmania (Bunnings is not rushing this after the UK debacle), click-and-collect will be rolled out in Victoria and then the rest of Australia.

As part of the Bunnings digital transformation initiative, Wesfarmers says it is investing in “specialised skill sets” to accelerate its data and analytics capabilities.

Broadly speaking, these capabilities will span four use cases:

• Safety -identifying contributing factors to safety incidents,
• Localisation- in-store product ranges are tailored to meet local conditions
• Inventory optimisation- to improve in-stock position and increase productivity
• Personalisation- for personalised marketing and customer interactions

Source: Wesfarmers Strategy Briefing Day

Wesfarmers is also accelerating its digital transformation efforts across other parts of the group.

Blackwoods, which is the largest provider of industrial and safety supplies in Australia and also part of the group, is currently in the process of replacing its 30-year-old Focus COBOL-based system with a new Microsoft Dynamics ERP.

However, according to the latest reports, this initiative has been facing some roadblocks, as the team battles to migrate a generation’s worth of legacy code.

“The performance of the Industrial and Safety business was disappointing, reflecting the impact on Blackwoods’ earnings from ongoing investment in customer service and the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system,” Scott said in Wesfarmers FY19 results briefing in August.

The struggle to implement the new ERP system highlights how digital transformations may not always go smoothly.

However, if the brains behind the world’s – and Australia’s- biggest companies think it is worth it, you should definitely be looking at how to digitise aspects of your business.

As for Wesfarmers share price, after a rough end to 2018, this year has seen it steadily climb, rising approximately 23% year to date. While that isn’t as dramatic as some of the gains seen in the American companies mentioned earlier, it is certainly still an impressive increase.

Source: Google Finance

At Docuworx, we facilitate the digital transformations of business and organisations across Asia-Pacific, specialising in document management and workflow automation. To learn more about how we can help your business, contact us today.

Firstly, what’s wrong with manual invoice processing?

Well, like many human-led processes, it is time-consuming, costly, hard to oversee and prone to error. On the other hand, automated invoice processing is: fast, increases productivity improves accuracy and most importantly, helps you to reduce costs.

These days there is a lot of fear that robots are going to take all the human jobs and wipe us out of existence. Indeed, if you walk into a factory you may be surprised at the number of robots that are working on the assembly line. Or if you go to a McDonald’s, you might be met with a tablet rather than a human when it comes to placing your order.

The reality is that in most cases, robots are augmenting rather than replacing humans in the workforce. In many cases, they are doing the menial, laborious or backbreaking tasks that most of us would rather not do, or they are assisting us to make our lives easier.

While there are many aspects of accounting that still require the “human touch” or the “soft” skills required for certain types of decision-making, there are some accounting tasks that robots excel at and that they should be entrusted with.

Using the right software solution, accounting departments can go paperless and automate mundane processes such as routing and approvals.

At first, you might think of automated accounting as something that is complex or scary, but in reality, it can be quite simple. Here’s how it works;

Step One: Capture

Our DocuWare solution uses intelligent optical character recognition (OCR) to automate data entry. OCR allows you to quickly and easily capture information from invoices and ensures those documents are instantly available to everyone involved by uploading the document to a central repository. DocuWare can be integrated with most other popular office software solutions so that the capturing process is greatly simplified and it allows you to ensure compliance by matching purchase orders with received goods and services.

Step Two: Index

As your invoices are captured, all of the accompanying structured and unstructured data is sent to a centralised and secure repository. Then, DocuWare’s document management system indexes them, allowing you to search, manage and modify documents with ease. DocuWare also allows you to make sure each version of the invoice is the latest version, eliminating unnecessary duplicate files.

Step Three: Approve

After an invoice has been captured and indexed, DocuWare’s workflow automation allows you to define how the approval process is executed. You can establish automatic approvals based on invoice amounts, vendor or any other criteria, or set up an automated workflow to route invoices to the key decision-makers. Compliance and productivity are improved thanks to the transparency of the process and as a result, you’ll save money and foster stronger relationships with your customers.

Want to learn more?

Automated invoice processing is just one of the many ways Docuworx helps companies and organisations across Asia Pacific with their digital journeys. Docuworx can show you how to remove huge amounts of work from your accounting team by digitising every invoice and implementing intelligent indexing for secure storage and instant retrieval. We can also help you design preconfigured workflows for approval routing or setup straight-through processing to help speed up the payment process and keep your business on the path to success.

Contact us today and register 

For our next luncheon presentation to find out more about how workflow automation can improve your business.

Or For more info on automated invoice processing and workflows, 

Contact us today.

It is often said that many of the jobs that people do today didn’t exist 10 or 20 years ago. With technology moving at such a quick pace, it can be hard to keep up with all the developments and new terminologies. Indeed, one of the first questions we often face when dealing with new clients is “What is a workflow?”

Put simply, a workflow is a collection of business processes that are executed to achieve a specific goal.

What distinguishes a workflow from a process, is that workflows generally have more moving parts, and are the sum of multiple related processes.

Workflows can be simple or complex. An example of the former would be approving an invoice, while the latter might include the multiple steps required to connect several departments and manage inventory.

Without the use of a workflow solution, the traditional processes that comprise a workflow tend to be menial, repetitive and time-consuming tasks.

In the past, employees might have to physically deliver documents, sort through files and contact various people throughout the organisation to execute a single workflow.

However, with a workflow automation solution, software is able to automatically route tasks according to a defined set of rules, which greatly streamlines things.

For example, let’s say an employee wants to record an expense they have incurred. They can do this by simply taking a photo of the receipt with a smartphone and uploading it into the company’s document management system. The system can then recognise the value of the expense and send it to the appropriate person for approval. Once approved, the expense can be re-routed to accounting so that reimbursement can be arranged.

In essence, there are four types of workflow: manual routing, which are very simple workflows sent through the system manually by a user, ad hoc, which are slightly more advanced than manual routing, rules-based, which allow for pre-determined and standardized processes to be executed without user interaction, and advanced, which are highly structured but flexible workflows that transition between automated and ad hoc as required.

There are a number of workflow solutions on the market, so choosing can be difficult. After scouring the market, we identified Docuware as the best solution and have since become an authorised platinum partner of Docuware in Australia.

With Docuworx, your business can save considerable time and effort via the use of Docuware automation and workflow solution, assisting you with:

• Visual Workflow Paths Provide consistency and visibility into your day-to-day tasks
• Task Routing accelerates the decision making and approval process automatically
• Workflow Designer enables drag-and-drop customizability

Before embarking on your digital transformation journey, it is important that you strike the right balance between simply digitising processes and rejigging your entire business. Workflow automation should be seen as the enhancement rather than replacement of your business, and, for this reason, should not be feared.

We begin each engagement with our customers by visiting their business and analyzing and documenting their business processes. We call this the “discovery phase” and it is a crucial step in understanding a business so that we can help tailor-make the right solution.

Contact us today and register for our next luncheon presentation to find out more about how workflow automation can improve your business.

As the pace of digital transformation picks up worldwide, many organizations are faced with a question: Where do we start?

Although companies we speak to are quick to understand that digitizing aspects of their business is a necessity in today’s environment, taking that first step can be daunting.

At Docuworx, we often suggest going paperless as a first initiative for companies looking to commence their digital transformation.

Key Benefits

The key reasons for this are that it is something that can quickly produce measurable results and, perhaps more importantly, it is achievable within a clearly defined and relatively short timeframe. Here are some of the compelling reasons for going paperless:

• Eliminate clutter: No more filing cabinets, printing devices, and paper storage.
• Streamline workflows: Our Docuware automated workflow solution makes the right content available at the right time for the right person.
• Increase agility: You are just competing with the company next door anymore. Globalisation means you have global competitors that are also improving their systems yearly. In this environment, you must stay competitive.
• Reduce business risk: Digitising your documents makes it easier to adhere to compliance and reduces the likelihood of missing documents. Docuware estimates the cost of each missing document is, on average, $700, while each misfiled document costs your business $125. In addition, 70% of business risk failure is due to catastrophic paper loss and 98% of enterprise printers are unsecure and open to hacking.
• Forge better customer relationships: Having all your information instantly available at your fingertips means you can improve the speed and quality of your service.
• Enhance visibility: Digital workflows improve transparency, allowing management to monitor processes for smarter decision-making.
• Save the planet: Hit your ‘green’ initiative targets and reduce your carbon footprint. It is good for the planet and your company’s image.

Having addressed the ‘Where’ and the ‘Why’, it is time to move on to the ‘How’. We recommend three steps to achieving this digital transformation.

#1 Develop your team and analyze processes ( Days 0 – 30 )

Develop your team: It is safe to say that no initiative will get off the ground without support from your company’s leadership team. In this deciding phase, you may also want to get input from end users who often understand more about the day-to-day work than their managers do. Make sure everyone is onboard with the initiative and that they are aware changes are coming.

Analyze processes: Next, you must dig into your business processes to analyze how you capture information. You will ask and answer key questions such as, ‘How does information enter my business?’ ‘How and where is it stored/accessed?’

#2 Design the solution and create awareness (Days 31 – 60)

Design the solution: In this phase, you will decide which software components and features best suit your business. You will also need to decide if you are implementing a cloud-based, on-premise, or hybrid solution. No two businesses are alike, and modern solutions require flexibility.

Create awareness: Now you have the mapped the processes and chosen a solution, it is time to create awareness across your business. Schedule regular meetings to show employees how the solution can benefit them.

#3 Deploy your solution, train, and go live (Days 61– 90)

Deploy your solution: Depending on the size of your business and the solution you have chosen, deployment may involve several phases of testing. Test early and often to resolve any issues. Again hold meetings to review the solution and begin training IT administrators and power users.

Train: Once the system is fully deployed, run through one of your processes with sample documents or files as a training exercise. Training time can vary from a few hours for the end users who are limited to a small number of workflows to several days for system administrators. Go live and begin using the solution. Make sure to note any pain points, keeping in mind that the paperless office is an evolving ecosystem.

Go paperless with Docuworx

Ready to take the next step? This is where we come in. Docuworx is an authorised platinum partner of Docuware in Australia, which means we can provide you with the solutions you need to go paperless in 90 days.

Established in 1988, Docuware operates worldwide with offices in Europe, North America, and, most recently, Asia Pacific. With more than 300 employees and an annual revenue of Euro 100 Million (2017) DocuWare is one of the leading international suppliers of software for document management.

Docuware is available in more than 70 countries and in 16 languages. The number of installations exceeds more than 18,000 and more than 600,000 users work daily with DocuWare.

Don’t get left behind in the digital world. To learn more, contact us today.

Digital transformation is the process of using digital technologies to improve existing business processes or create new ones.

Going digital has a myriad of benefits, allowing companies to increase speed and efficiency while reducing costs.

Companies just getting started have the advantage of being “born digital” but older or already established entities must embark on digital transformations or risk getting left behind.

Why do it? A useful analogy is the VHS/DVD rental industry.

Back in 2000, CEO of Netflix Reed Hastings offered to sell Blockbuster CEO John Antioco his business for US$50m.

At the time, Netflix ran a DVD mailing service which Antioco considered to be “very small and niche”.

Netflix spent the next few years creating an online digital library of streaming content.

The rest is history. Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in 2010 and today, Netflix is worth over US$130bn.

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How can CFOs kick-start digital transformation?

All over the world, companies are at various stages of their digital transformation journeys. Within a company, the CFO is usually the driver as they are in charge of many of the processes that are digitised.

Recent research from global consultancy McKinsey & Company shows that 40 per cent of finance activities can be fully automated, with another 17 per cent mostly automated, as per the chart below.

While stats like these are impressive, they can also be intimidating for companies as the most common question we hear from clients looking to start their digital transformation is “Where do we start?”

Furthermore, many CFOs tell us that they want to spend more time on digital initiatives.

But the fact is, CFOs still spend more time on traditional finance activities than researching the latest digital trends, which is fair enough as they still have their jobs to do.

The risk is that by failing to start on that journey, the CFOs – and their companies – will get left behind.

As a company that facilitates the digital transformations of companies across Asia Pacific, Docuworx believes that the best way to start that journey is for CFOs to work with the leadership team to identify the tasks and processes that can be streamlined via digitisation.

Yet that meeting can be hard to organise for CFOs of small to medium businesses that are focused on the day-to-day running of things.

To help overcome this, we visit companies, documenting their processes and workflows to can help CFOs see the areas that can be digitised first.

The chart above is a reminder of the vast potential of digitisation and once CFOs realise what it can do to improve the bottom line, the case for digital transformation becomes a no-brainer.

At Docuworx, we know every company is different, so we tailor the best solutions for each of our clients.

For the proactive CFOs out there that want to kick-start the process, consider the following five tips:

• Assess your current business and establish the new processes that could be implemented. These could be big or small, depending on your requirements and ambitions.
• Identify the key solutions you will need to commence your digital transformation and choose a vendor.
• Engage with your employees to describe the new processes and discuss how they will impact operations.
• Create a roadmap including finalization of vendors, the phased introduction of the solutions and employee training.
• Determine how you will measure the success of your initiative – what are the key performance indicators?

Looking to embark on your digital transformation?

For Your Personal Invitation to Our Next Luncheon Presentation

REGISTER NOW

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Paperless healthcare on the rise and readily accessible to smaller players

At Docuworx, we often recommend going paperless as an initiative well-suited to those looking to start their digital transformation. A recent story from a healthcare provider in the US highlights some of the benefits of going paperless and how you don’t have to be a major player with a huge budget to digitise parts of your business.

In August 2019, the Williamson Memorial Hospital announced that it has implemented a paperless registration process and Meditech-as-a-Service (MaaS) a web-based electronic health record (EHR).

The paperless registration process allows patients to electronically sign all documents, resulting in significant paper and cost savings for WMH while also providing a superior patient experience.

Meanwhile, the cloud-based MaaS delivers all benefits of EHR without the burden or costs of in-house IT responsibilities and hardware.

WMH patient access director Angela Davis said going paperless not only helped reduce costs associated with paper and printing, but also freed up important office space.

“We can conduct business more efficiently resulting in faster responses to patients,” she said. “Having a paperless system allows for efficiency for our patients and clients, which is very important. You can easily and securely provide and receive documents that are needed in a much shorter time span while also assisting other patient care needs.”

It is a common misconception that a digital transformation such as the one being undertaken by WMH must be an expensive and difficult process that can only be done by large players.

On the contrary, there can be significant advantages to being smaller and nimbler, as there are fewer employees to train on the new systems and less legacy infrastructure to deal with.

WMH is not a sprawling, multi-million-dollar city hospital with thousands of beds, it is a 50-bed community hospital in West Virginia.

Now, thanks to paperless registration, WHM staff can quickly collect, manage and share registration information without printing or scanning forms – and they have more space to do so in. As a result, they can focus on patient care rather than paperwork, improving the patient experience in the community.

Docuworx’s Document Managing Systems can store patients records in a central document pool for easy access and retrieval.

The hospital of the future means more patients, shorter wait times, and better use of bed occupancy – all while meeting growing demands in quality. A critical part of this vision is finding the most modern Document Management and Automated Workflows System.

Looking to embark on your digital transformation?

For Your Personal Invitation to Our Next Luncheon Presentation

REGISTER NOW

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