Strategic Document Outsourcing Cuts Costs and Improves Customer Communications

Pete Basiliere, Gartner

Interest in strategic document outsourcing has surged as the economy has soured. Companies like yours seek ways to cut expenses and capital costs while still publishing targeted, relevant communications and marketing collateral. However, you must not only ensure outsourcing improves customer communications and lowers costs but also that it does so without sacrificing quality and confidentiality.

Strategic document outsourcing (SDO) is the business process outsourcing (BPO) subset focused on the printed and electronic publication of customer communications, including content creation, multi- and cross-media presentation and incoming document processing. The documents are typically generated by enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems such as accounts receivable and customer relationship management (CRM) databases, as well as unique direct marketing campaigns. The communications may be:

·         Transactional – the invoices, statements, checks and other accounting forms as well as policies and regulatory documents that record your organization’s interactions with its customers.

·         Sales collateral – the static and variable materials put into point of purchase displays, trade show booths and carried by account executives to illustrate your organization’s product line.

·         Direct marketing – direct mail and other marketing campaigns that solicit business from your prospective and existing customers.

·         Informational – as simple as a letter thanking a client for an order or a broad announcement about the relocation of a sales office.

SDO enables targeted and dynamic print and non-print communication, going beyond basic transactional documents and the static, non-variable printing of marketing collateral, technical documentation, and other documents that traditionally came off an offset printing press. Outsourced services include:

·         Document composition and content creation services

·         Transactional documents and marketing collateral that are printed and mailed

·         Transactional documents and marketing collateral presented electronically (Internet, intranet, mobile devices, etc.)

·         Print and electronic campaign response analyses

·         Incoming paper-based communications that are scanned to an electronic workflow

Whether the communications are in print or electronic media, or are campaigns combining the two, strategic document outsourcing enables you to focus on your core products and services while entrusting customer communications to a specialist service provider.

Strategic document outsourcing cuts publishing costs while retaining your customers and growing revenues. Numerous providers have been publishing bills, statements, direct mail and other print and electronic communications for their clients for many years. Engaging an SDO provider shifts your labor, material and overhead costs to the provider who, because of its expertise and aggregated volume, often has the ability to publish the communications for less, even when a profit margin is added onto its costs.

SDO providers typically serve a broad number of markets and accept output from several client systems. In order to do so efficiently and cost-effectively, providers ranging from DST Output to Xerox follow a service delivery model that offers standardized processes and a unified, one-to-many technology platform. The service provider typically manages, executes and publishes the communications based on your business process inputs (ERP, CRM and others), and may offer related content creation, management and storage processes. While only the service provider can execute the print and electronic outputs, you provide the data and content to be published.

Importantly, strategic document outsourcing is not just about print and mail. SDO encompasses electronic presentment via email, the Internet, mobile phones and other technologies. Bits of data can be published in both physical and electronic form relatively easily. Gartner advises the selection of a provider with these capabilities, which enable you to switch campaigns quickly and smoothly.

I have been researching the document outsourcing industry since 1999, a decade in which the concept evolved and became more accepted. Strategic document outsourcing differs from the traditional approach you may be familiar with by facilitating third-party publishing of all your customer communications in whatever media your customers and prospective customers prefer.

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