For many organizations, paper documents still play a prominent role in business processes. Helping companies move to more electronic-driven workflows and improve access to digital documents needed for mobile and cloud computing are a growing business opportunity for the channel.
This opportunity is being spurred, according to market analyst firm Harvey Spencer Associates, by “a need for corporations to understand and process a wide variety of information from multiple locations.” This information needs to be interoperable across different systems and retrievable and consumable by users regardless of location and access point. Increasingly, MFPs are hubs for this information – both for document output and input – in managing information workflows.
The MFP is built to support hybrid document management processes with its capabilities to copy, print, fax and scan. However, in most organizations, MFPs are vastly underutilized devices, and many times are not connected to document workflows. There is a huge business growth potential in helping customers gain more value from the hardware they purchase, or already own, with value-add software and services. As Harvey Spencer has noted, “the value is in the business solution not in the device, which is an enabler.”
A well-choreographed discovery process is a key for resellers and dealers to understanding which business solution will unlock the sale. For example, as you visit with customers, there are visual cues that you can be on the lookout for spotting. Keep an eye out for excessive use of paper storage in the form of filing cabinets, bankers boxes and paper trays as well as paper handling equipment, such as local printers and shredding devices. These cues point to a heavy reliance on paper and an organization which can benefit from streamlined workflows.
In addition to observing your prospect’s work environment, here are three areas for conversation starters to engage with them.
Conversation Starter One: Document Challenges
Ask your prospects questions such as: What are the document challenges their company faces? What are their business critical documents and describe the document security issues the organization faces? Would your prospect say the document retrieval process at their company is poor, fair, good, or very good? Are they currently using an electronic document repository? If yes, how is it working? If no, why not?
Discuss how documents move through their organizations and where bottlenecks are occurring. Start with basic questions, such as: Do they file and retrieve paper documents? How do important business documents get shared throughout the organization and what is the process from capture to archive? How have they been tracking who is scanning documents and what they are scanning? What user behaviors related to print, copy, and capture would you like to better understand and drive?
Be sure your discovery efforts identify critical requirements in document workflows. For example, check if the prospect works with paper forms – and if yes, see if they enter form data into databases manually. What methods do they have in place to get information from various input sources into business processes? Look for other manual processes that can become automated workflows, such as recreating electronic versions of paper-based information and manual redaction or stamping of documents.
Focus the conversation on the pain points of processing inbound paper documents and electronic image files as opposed to the production of printed documents for distribution or publication. Understand the issues of processing paperwork that needs to be scanned with document conversion and recognition technologies so it can be integrated directly with back-end systems.
Conversation Starter Two: Document Accessibility & Systems
Be prepared to move beyond document questions and probe deeper with conversations to understand the infrastructure the organization has in place – and identify where the opportunities are. Learn whether or not your prospect has a content management system in place where they could be managing paper documents that are now being managed in a physical filing system. And if they don’t, find out if they are thinking about purchasing a content management system in the future. These types of initiatives are a growth area and often have a healthy budget for solutions such as capture and conversion technologies that foster content ingestion and access to content for collaboration.
Other infrastructure to inquire about includes collaboration system such as Microsoft SharePoint, home grown systems and fax servers – to see whether or not they are part of their electronic document workflows. And don’t overlook asking about outsourced services, such as fax and couriers. Knowing about these services help determine the true costs of moving paper-based information and where savings can be made.
Conversation Starter Three: Document Workflow & Security
Is data integrity important to the prospective customer? If so, how is data ensured to be accurate if it is being captured or manually entered? Ask whether the organization faces compliance issues related to their content and if yes, which ones. Determine whether the prospect is required to maintain audit trails for document processes such as storage, access and distribution. Look into document security requirements, such as whether the company encrypts electronic documents and what are their current authentication methods. Non-secure printing behavior can expose information and lead to compliance risk, associated fines, damaged reputations and even revenue loss. Asking these types of questions will expose some of their security concerns and areas for improvement, opening the door for new business opportunities.
These three conversations will help you map a prospect’s current document-based workflows. They will allow you to learn who has the ability to scan what documents, where, and how much time the organization spends scanning. You will also develop a broader view of how paper documents flow into content management and other business applications.
Through the discovery process, you will gain a better understanding of the full scope of the opportunity in front of you. Identifying the current state of a print and capture environment within an organization will reveal areas where you can streamline workflows, increase employee productivity, reduce risk of information loss, and save IT resources. And this approach will better position you to craft of solution that addresses your prospect’s pain points and increase your chances for sales success.
