IDM Conference Puts the Spotlight Back on Imaging
IDM Conference Puts the Spotlight Back on Imaging
November 2, 2007: With the paperless office still far from a reality, IDM’s Imaging 2.0 Conference and Exhibition brought business imaging back to the frontline as a number of speakers shared their stories from across the globe.
In a Sydney hotel, visitors arrived from across the country to share their experiences and share ideas on tackling the inefficiencies and difficulties associated with paper-based processes and procedures. While delegates listened to case studies and expert advice inside the conference room, 13 exhibitors presented their imaging solutions on the exhibition floor outside.
Pamela Doyle, a director on the board of AIIM and international spokesperson for Fujitsu reminded the crowd of the ever increasing need for organisations to get on top of their paper-based inefficiencies. “Our global and competitive economy has organisations concerned about their competition and realising the need to get on top of their processes,” she told the audience.
“Another factor is that we’ve moved into a time of natural disasters,” Doyle said before also outlining the move from government agencies worldwide to mandate regulations affecting the ways in which organisations deal with their records.
Surprisingly though, the research presented from AIIM indicated compliance was not the driving force behind document imaging. “Compliance is real and relevant, interestingly though, we’re seeing over 50 percent of end-users describe themselves as in the early stages of considering compliance,” she said.
From a more broader enterprise content management put of view, Doyle outlined AIIM’s views on the trends occurring. While document imaging comes under the broader banner of ECM, the concept as a has been taken to new heights through the rise of social networking, service oriented architecture and or course the move from Microsoft into the space. “With Microsoft and Oracle now in this space it’s becoming more mainstream,” she said. “I’m not quite sure of Oracle’s strategy with the acquisition of Stellant, but Microsoft is probably a little more obvious with SharePoint.”
Meanwhile Keith Theisen, Vice President for Treasury at Wells Fargo in the US, described his own organisations reason and means to moving to an imaging platform for cheque payments. As the US’s first bank to provide online account access, the organisation is far from immune to innovative process improvement implementations. “This is something we’re proud of and explains why we’re investing in technologies for the future.”
The Wells Fargo investment involves moving to a platform to improve process efficiencies and security around a form of paper that refuses to go away – cheques. “Cheques are still big business in the US. There’s still about 37 billion of them written on an annual basis,” he said. “So solutions for automating them and making them more efficient is very important.”
Theisen outlined to his audience how Wells Fargo developed an imaging solution designed to allowing users at the point of receiving the cheque, to scan in a detailed copy of the document and process it online. It’s a solution assisting organisations as big as WalMart in processing the one billion cheques they still receive annually.
David Shaw, senior architect at National Australia Bank delivered his organisation’s strategy to get on top of inefficient and unsustainable paper-heavy processes while independent consultant Peter Webb sparked some heated debate over lunch as delegates discussed his views on return on investment of ICR/OCR technologies.
Later on in the day case studies from Monash University and the National Archives of Australia were presented while Fujitsu, Ricoh, Equilibrium and independent consultant Graemme Harrison.
Read all the news from the speakers, exhibitors and delegates in the next edition of IDM Magazine.