Nov 7, 2006
Transaction Output Leaders Ponder Electronic Document Delivery
What are the top fear factors when it comes to electronic document delivery? Are electronic documents decreasing print volumes? Several technology experts weigh in and offer their best advice as OutputLinks considers high volume transaction output (HVTO) and e-delivery.
Electronic document delivery systems are designed to transfer electronic versions of documents from one computer to another. Electronic bill presentment and payment, or “e-billing,” is perhaps the most recognizable application of electronic document delivery because it is a process that enables bills to be created, delivered, and paid over the Internet, but electronic document delivery has applications for many industries, from financial service providers to telecommunications companies and utilities. We asked our panel of experts --- each representing a leading technology company --- to give us their point of view on electronic document delivery, and some of the issues to consider as the high volume transaction output (HVTO) industry continues to integrate paper and digital documents.
E-delivery and Print Volumes
Is electronic document delivery decreasing print volume? “The impact on print volume depends greatly on the type of industry and document being delivered,” says Jeff Deming, vice president and general manager, EDM Products & Operations for Pitney Bowes Group 1 Software. “A utility company can decrease print volumes by introducing an e-billing adoption, due to the simpler form of the bill and that lack of requirement for a paper bill for other processes. A wireless telco company or credit card company, on the other hand, may have less success in reducing print volume, as these bills are often used for expense reconciliation, are looked at more carefully for accuracy, etc. While an increase in e-billing does provide some reduction in print volume in most cases, the biggest impact and benefit to the e-biller is increased customer retention, customer self-care, and simplified dispute management.”
According to Mike Maselli, director, business management, BÖWE BELL + HOWELL, both electronic document delivery and e-billing are making an impact. He says his organization has witnessed instances where print volumes have both increased and decreased as a result of e-delivery. “The real driver behind this issue is the level and quality of marketing an organization puts behind an e-statement or e-billing program, and the policies around whether or not an end-user should be able to receive both print and electronic communications. Many end-users are comfortable receiving electronic-only communications, and only recently have we seen mailers choose to stop print for their e-customers, which is having an impact on the volume of First Class mail.”
Holly Huggins, vice president, general manager, CSF and Biller Solutions for Metavante Corporation, says the impact of electronic document delivery on print volumes is specific to industry verticals. “Telcos have been more successful in reducing print volumes,” says Huggins. “For example, some Telcos make electronic document delivery without a printed bill part of the product bundle itself. E-billing adoption is picking up momentum. The print volume reduction, however, is not the major driver for billers. Billers are more interested in receiving electronic payment while the customer views the bill.”
Scott Smith, security officer with Fiserv-EPSIIA, shares that in most cases electronic document delivery reduces print volumes. “We find that any client who is heavily invested in print and mail services is also strongly motivated to reduce those costs. In conjunction with the rollout of electronic document delivery, our clients usually provide their customers the option to discontinue print and mail service. As those customers become more comfortable with the ability to view, print and download their statements, they are more willing to turn off the paper.”
According to Jeff Williams, d2e product manager for Xenos Group Inc., the use of electronic document delivery and e-billing has reduced the volume of print significantly within their customers industries. “Our customers are looking to expand their customer self-service channels to remain competitive in their industries,” says Williams. “It is expected by customers that organizations provide access to their documents either through email, web or wireless channels so that they can retrieve their information when and where they need it. Such delivery methods greatly reduce costs by reducing printing, postage and labor costs.”
Stephen Brooks, director of corporate marketing for Whitehill Technologies, Inc., agrees. “Electronic document delivery has definitely had an impact on print volume in our customers’ businesses. One client, a Canadian life and health insurer, saved more than a million sheets of paper every month by switching from paper to electronic reporting. They will be able to retire one of their high-volume printers at the end of its lease, saving $10,000 a month in leasing costs. Another customer, a national U.S. law firm, is now delivering all of its reports electronically, saving roughly $60,000 a year on the cost of paper alone. This does not even include the money spent on toner, cartridges, printer maintenance, paper storage and staff hours. Every one of our customers who has made the move to electronic document delivery has realized significant savings in both money and time.”
Harald Grumser, managing director, Compart Systemhaus GmbH, also sees the impact of electronic delivery. “In Germany, print volumes in the direct consumer segment are actually sinking --- albeit in small steps. The level of acceptance, bearing in mind the security issues of the Internet and consumer concerns about e-mail, is very much limited.”
Considering e-Delivery Fear Factors
Notably there are benefits for incorporating electronic documents into an organization’s HVTO, but are there challenges to consider? “The biggest challenge is accurately identifying the business drivers for providing e-billing,” says Deming of Pitney Bowes Group 1 Software. “Most of the benefit is assumed to be in reduced print volume or processing checks more effectively for consumers. This requires adoption to be successful and a dedication to marketing / incentive programs to move customers to e-billing. In reality, the greatest benefit to most businesses is in streamlining service to their customers – in particular business customers. By simplifying the delivery and reconciliation of large bills and invoices, organizations can save tremendous amounts of money in customer service, while creating a better experience for their most-valued customers.”
It all comes down to cost and expertise says BÖWE BELL + HOWELL’s Maselli. “Most companies underestimate the cost of rolling out an e-messaging program. The cost of the software you need to either build or purchase for managing your e-documents is dwarfed by the personnel and infrastructure costs needed to deliver a solution that will meet the availability needs of its users, and the security needs of regulatory offices. The other organizational challenge to consider is that a mailer should not assume they have the required expertise necessary to take on an eMessaging project just because they have experience and understanding of the traditional mailing process and basic HTML design skills. Those skills are important, but need to be complemented with skills for Internet security, marketing in an eCommerce environment, and administrative skills specific for managing spiked volumes of Web traffic. The expectations of today’s Web user are very high, and one bad experience will drive them to switch providers or cancel e-services.”
According to Metavante’s Huggins, billers who do not force the opt-out of printed delivery as a precondition for electronic document delivery are more successful with electronic adoption with their customers, and Compart’s Grumser points to the balance of marketing needs and customer access as a key to success. “On the one hand, the marketing department in particular would like to use the additional freedom made possible by new media and demand better invoice layout and design. And on the other hand, solutions must be adapted to fit the user’s access patterns, and by means of scalable solutions allow for sufficient throughput during periods of high demand.”
Smith of Fiserv-EPSIIA believes that end user comfort level with electronic document delivery has always been the biggest challenge to electronic document delivery. “Many people were rightfully concerned about the security of their personal financial or health-related data,” he says. “Companies who wish to adopt electronic document delivery and e-billing must insure that appropriate security measures are in place to protect the end user’s personal information. Security measures should include both physical and logical components. Physical security measures typically include restricted access to the data center covered by a two-factor authentication solution such as a biometric card reader. Logical protection is provided by hardware firewall solutions, Secure Socket Layer (SSL), stringent user authentication tools and data encryption. The data center should be monitored continuously for intrusion detection and have third party perimeter testing done annually.”
According to Tim Kelly, senior vice president at Rochester Software Associates, Inc., the increased use of electronic delivery definitely raises privacy concerns and rightly so. “In the age of HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley, confidentiality is key. After all, compared to paper, it is much easier for electronic documents to be circulated and potentially improperly. HVTO professionals should inspect every instance of their workflow to ensure that jobs are encrypted at every stage, start to finish,” explains Kelly. Williams of Xenos agrees that the primary concern related to electronic document delivery and e-billing is security. “When a document is sent to a customer via electronic channels, an organization must ensure that the document is sent to the intended recipient(s) and nobody else,” says Williams.
While security is certainly a challenge, Brooks of Whitehill Technologies points to compliance as a major hurdle. “Compliance is a big fear factor. Corporations have many years of experience in archiving paper documents to meet regulatory requirements. They have much less experience in how to properly archive electronic documents. Documents should be made searchable so that they can be easily retrieved when needed. One of the ways in which we’ve helped our customers is by tagging scanned documents, such as TIFF images, so that they can be searched and retrieved later on.”
Advice for Managing Electronic Output
So how does an organization overcome these challenges and realize the benefits of electronic document delivery? Here are some suggestions:
Understand the financial challenges, the benefits
“Electronic document delivery is just one part of a larger customer communications management offering designed to simplify and expand a biller's relationship with their clients, says Deming of Pitney Bowes Group 1 Software. “Understanding the business and financial challenges and potential benefits to the biller are essential in providing solutions that deliver on the promise of e-billing.”
Find a partner
“A company should only take on the processes that they are skilled and budgeted to handle, and partner for the rest,” says BÖWE BELL + HOWELL’s Maselli. “A good example is a data center---the choices are to either invest hundreds of thousands of dollars to build a high-availability center, or partner with a vendor that already has the infrastructure and pay a few thousand dollars a month to use it. Also, develop and build as little as possible – there are many solutions and turn-key services available today that are much more cost-effective to purchase or subscribe to than trying to develop and maintain your own program.”
Get flexible
What ever the approach, Compart’s Grumser stresses that flexibility is vital. “To guarantee sufficient flexibility for the channels to be serviced (e.g. color e-billing and conventional black and white printing) the processes, from creation to invoice delivery, need to be modulized as much as possible.”
Integrate with existing systems
Xenos’ Williams agrees, and advises that when creating an electronic document delivery strategy, organizations must envision solutions which address scalability, performance and integration with their existing systems. “Organizations cannot afford to duplicate functionality and data as this incurs substantial costs for labor, hardware and software,” says Williams. “One approach to this is for organizations to create an electronic document delivery and/or e-billing solution using new technology without reengineering their existing systems. This can be attained by utilizing an SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) model in which they can leverage all of their existing investments along with adding new functionality in a scalable architecture. Additionally, organizations must implement electronic document delivery and e-billing solutions that do not impose limitations on the way that the customer wants to do business. They must ensure that they deliver documents in multiple formats on multiple channels in such a way that the customer can do business in the manner that is most convenient for them.”
Encrypt
Fiserv-EPSIIA’s Smith says, “HVTO professionals should seek to implement strong encryption methodologies for data---both at rest and in transit. HVTO professionals should insure that the e-delivery solution they plan to deploy includes appropriate security measures.”
Plan for stages
“Start small” is the advice from Whitehill’s Brooks. “Most of our clients have approached EDD in stages. They begin by delivering one set of documents electronically---for example, an insurance company delivering agent commission reports to internal users via a corporate intranet. Once the first part of the project is running smoothly, it’s much easier to expand into other lines of business. That same insurance company can then move up to more complex documents, such as policies, and deliver them to external users like customers and agents, via a secure web portal.”
Wrapping Up
Noticeably, electronic document delivery and e-billing provides HVTO professionals the opportunity to achieve substantial reduction in print and mail costs. Overall, electronic document delivery will continue to grow in importance for mailers of all sizes, says Maselli of BÖWE BELL + HOWELL. “It is not only a fast and cost-effective means of communicating with end-users in a very dynamic environment, but it allows a company to provide their users with more information, that is both relative and timely, and available whenever they need it.”
Metavante’s Huggins says it best: “Electronic documents are slowly getting ready for prime time.”
Thank you to our panelists:
Mike Maselli, director, business management, BÖWE BELL + HOWELL
Harald Grumser, managing director, Compart Systemhaus GmbH
Scott Smith, security officer, Fiserv-EPSIIA
Holly Huggins, vice president and general manager of CSF and biller solutions, Metavante Corporation
Jeff Deming, vice president and general manager, EDM Products & Operations. Pitney Bowes Group 1 Software
Tim Kelly, senior vice president, Rochester Software Associates, Inc.
Stephen Brooks, director of corporate marketing, Whitehill Technologies, Inc.
Jeff Williams, d2e product manager, Xenos Group Inc.
To visit these and other leading HVTO vendors visit the OutputLinks eExhibit Hall >>>>