For better or for worse, companies in the US are continuing along the path of outsourcing non-essential competencies. Many outsourcing projects are funneled offshore or are performed via complicated relations via partners of outsourcing companies. The exact process and path of the outsourced work tasks can become very opaque and it is easy for these types of projects to spiral out of control because oversight is difficult.
The common thread in most of this kind of work is a framework based on documents and workflow. Technology that allows efficient capture of data and routing of the information streamlines these operations. Electronic capture of information via multi-purpose scanners and software that converts data to specific file formats can allow information to be quickly brought into the system and then routed quickly to the appropriate people to process and act on the information.
Automated capture and routing can offer cost savings to any company that is distributed and has multiple work-place locations, including
outsourcing partner facilities.
Other benefits of this kind of automation include:
- A complete audit trail with history and timestamps of all actions taken on the information
- Capture and routing are usually components of an overall ECM framework.
The added benefits of ECM and data archival, search and retrieval offer huge ROI in themselves.
- Privacy and Security. Electronic data is more easily secured than paper documents.
- Security by Access privileges. Only uses with appropriate privileges will be able to access and view information.
- Disaster recovery. Electronic data can be backed and recovered more easily than paper should a disaster occur.
