At Your Service

Using Contract Services to Corporate Advantage

By Tom Dale
August 1998

Welcome to a new monthly feature of Imaging and Document Solutions -- a column on various services important to us as implementers of imaging and document management technologies. This column will address in detail various imaging- and document-related services: image capture from paper and microforms, media duplication, media-to-media conversion, data format conversion, document indexing, image-assisted data entry, OCR conversion, business continuity -- including contingency planning and disaster recovery, on-site facilities management and off-site record storage, to name a few. We encourage you to submit questions about real situations you encounter within your organizations. Let this column be a resource.

Outsourcing, broadly defined, is the use of contract services for the attainment of functions performed within an organization. Sometimes organizations use external suppliers to keep up with the scorching pace of technology innovation and business change. Other organizations wish to minimize distractions to allow management to focus on operations and core competencies.

For some businesses, outsourcing helps their stock price -- it increases revenue per employee (note that the business outsourcing certain tasks ends up with fewer employees and the outsource provider ends up with more!). When using contract services, management sleeps better at night if the outside provider has a core competency in the outsourced function. Organizations might choose to outsource in order to improve business focus, gain access to world-class capabilities, accelerate reengineering benefits, share risk(s) with a vendor, reduce operating costs, free resources for other purposes, provide resources not available internally and remedy difficult-to-manage functions.

Demand for services has been increasing in the document technology area, in general, and in the financial services area, in particular. In financial services (banking, insurance, brokerage), mergers and acquisitions require businesses to address paper-based and electronic records. Document preparation, document tracking, document scanning, indexing, format conversions, etc. have become critical success factors. Many organizations have outsourced these functions to professionals in order to save time, money and headaches

William Doey Jr., president and general manager of IKON Business Imaging Services (Walnut Creek, CA 510-930-7700) says he has seen a tremendous explosion in demand. "Customers come to us with various business problems centered around imaging and document services," he explains. "Many of our clients want on-site scanning -- we know how to set up, train and manage the people, minimize labor and optimize technology. We combine project management, subject matter expertise (or process knowledge) with our engineering expertise to do the required job."

Doey notes that businesses are placing increased emphasis on business continuity, which has boosted demand for services such as business recovery, disaster recovery and vital records protection. In the area of outsourcing, Doey say there are opportunities in mail rooms, print rooms and transaction processing.

Use of contract services for imaging and document management applications requires informed judgment. To pick the most appropriate approach, you should start with a detailed analysis of your organization and of the service needs in question.

In this column, we intend to explore the business, process and technical issues associated with contract services. We'll help you decide when to handle the job in-house, when to bring in a service firm for a one-time project and when to outsource the whole operation. Remember, the important thing is to preserve your organization's most precious assets -- information, time and money. Let us be . . . at your service.

Tom Dale is executive vice president of IT solutions at Automated Data Sciences, Santa Monica, CA. He also serves as Chair for the Association for Information and Image Management's Emerging Technology Advisory Group. He may be reached at tomdale@erols.com.