eGistics is showcasing CloudDocs at Fusion 2011 in Orlando!

eGistics is showcasing CloudDocs at Fusion 2011 in Orlando!

by Nathan Khani, CloudDocs Solution Specialist

eGistics’ flagship product, CloudDocs, is on center stage at Fusion 2011 with a focus on Accounts Payable! We are busy putting the finishing touches on our new AP Quick Template, which, along with the Human Resources Quick Template, provides users with a running start to take the sting out of business document management. We are very excited to provide a revolutionary way to manage business documents.

Why the focus on Fusion?

Fusion-istas, as I affectionately call them, love innovative ways that bring efficiency to accounts payable and/or accounts receivable. CloudDocs is right up their alley. It saves time and money with its truly innovative way to capture, index and separate documents. It allows users to focus on what they are doing rather than how they are doing it by providing a clean, easy to use interface, and completely relieving the user of the need to know where documents are located. Instead, users can focus on quickly locating documents required to complete the task at hand, whether it be part of an approval process or related to faster, better customer service.

Furthermore, CloudDocs securely protects your sensitive files in an environment that is Payment Card Industry (PCI) certified, compliant with SAS 70, supports HIPAA privacy requirements. For the last 14 years, we have provided secured hosting for major financial institutions. You can be confident that your documents are protected with the same level of security that we provide our banking customers—without the big price tag!

CloudDocs ensures that your AR/AP documents are safe from the threat of disaster. We’ve all heard horror stories about companies devastated by natural disasters. With CloudDocs, electronic copies of your documents are kept in a geographically redundant environment so that regional disasters cannot damage or destroy them.

Currently, we are offering a 30-day trial version of our Standard and Professional Edition plans! Please click here to find more information or to sign up for your free trial. You can also call me directly, and I will be more than happy to address any questions you may have, and help you plan a solution that best fits your company’s needs!

Nathan Khani

CloudDocs Solution Specialist

972.851.3135

nkhani@egisticsinc.com

CloudDocs Takes Air!



Visit egisticsinc.com/clouddocs to learn more!

 by Randy Davis, VP Sales and Marketing Operations

TAWPI Capture 2011 marks the official introduction of eGistics' new flagship product, CloudDocs^TM to the business world. World, meet CloudDocs. CloudDocs, meet world.

CloudDocs is the culmination of over 14 years' of experience in providing for the capture, storage, protection, finding and management of important documents and data for the nation's largest financial services companies. We now bring that experience to the service of the Small and Medium-Sized Business market.

Let me be clear. This is an introduction, not a launch. We want you to be able to learn about CloudDocs, visit the CloudDocs Web site, give us your feedback, and otherwise let us know if you want to be notified when it is available. To entice you a bit, if you register to be notified we'll automatically enter your name into our drawing for an Apple iPad, to be given away in April.

So what does CloudDocs do? In the simplest terms, it helps you complete document-oriented business processes. From your PC, you can scan documents, index them (for easy search and find), securely store them in our Tier 4 data centers, and then retrieve any document (or related documents) with one or more search terms and a click of the mouse.

CloudDocs organizes the documents for you, so you don't have to struggle with creating folders and sub-folders and sub-sub-folders. Nor do you have to worry about file names. By using one or more search terms, familiar to your business, you (or your authorized users) can be viewing documents in seconds, no matter how long they've been stored. No one has to "figure out the filing system." CloudDocs does that for you.

Please visit the CloudDocs Web site and give us the privilege of letting you know when CloudDocs is ready. There is, as they say, no obligation.

Do You Discriminate?

by Randy Davis, VP Sales and Marketing Operations

Well, when it comes to electronic document storage management, you should. Discriminate, that is.

In the cloudy skies of storage management (hosted storage, in the now old vernacular. As a further aside, with a wink and nod to Yogi Berra, have you noted that concepts are getting old much younger now?). Anyway, in the cloudy skies of storage management you almost need a vendor traffic controller to work your way through the congestion. There are some excellent choices out there, depending on what one needs.

Ah, that's the crux of the matter. What does one need? A simple needs assessment may start with a need to store stuff: documents, photos, video, audio, databases, images, graphics and so on. There are plenty of solutions in the Cloud to do that.

But many of those solutions seemed aimed at individuals who need a place to collect stuff, and create some kind of organized, hierarchical schematic that will enable them to pigeon hole stuff with the hopes of finding it later via some search term. Even companies that claim to serve the business community seem designed to encourage the ad hoc storage approach.

The business use of document storage is much more stringent. (Let's see, you need to find the invoice that contains the payment amount for account 837394, paid between March 15 and June 30, 2006. Oh, and you need to see if any explanatory notes or correspondence or payments are attached to the invoice. Can you have all that to your boss in the next 60 seconds, please?)

So, a more thoughtful needs assessment should include a way to easily accommodate standard document data that can be indexed; the ability to associate, attach or link related documents and information together; and the ability to find just the information you need so that you can use it. By the way, one of the many benefits of such an approach is the ability to transfer document research responsibilities to others in a group, temporary employees, or new staff.

Why am I discussing this? Part of the reason is to remind you that we have provided the power of the structured document storage management approach to our enterprise customers for many years. Now we are in the process of providing the same capabilities to the Small to Medium-size Business market. In the next few weeks we'll be introducing you to our new flagship product, CloudDocs(TM).

To keep informed about our plans and upcoming launch, be sure to become a follower of this blog. Just use the Follow button in the right hand column.

Also, don't hesitate to add your experience, opinion or question by using the Comment space below.

Changing the CFO’s Perception of AP

By R. Edwin Pearce

Historically, if you asked a CFO to tell you the first thing that popped into their mind when you mention accounts payable (AP) processing, they likely would have responded with some variation of “cost center.” The fact is, as a percentage of revenue, the costs associated with AP processing typically represent a small blip on the radar of most companies. But as companies have tightened their spending as a result of the recent economic downturn, that blip is now a significant opportunity.

More than 75 percent of AP departments report into the CFO, according to various studies. With CFOs keenly interested in cost containment and improved cash management, AP leaders would be well served to find ways to deliver strategic benefits to the organization. Notably, 56 percent of CFOs believe AP represents a more strategic opportunity for improvements than it did two years ago.

One reason CFOs are changing their tune on AP is that they are seeking ways to avoid further layoffs, while weathering the recession. To this end, most are tightening controls over employee spending and placing greater emphasis on measuring and monitoring the company’s financial health.

These types of activities are clearly in the AP department’s wheelhouse.

CFOs are looking past the traditional paper-encumbered stereotype of AP and focusing more closely on the tremendous amount of financial data that flows through AP. From this perspective, they see AP as a means to improving working capital management, reducing supply chain risk, and greatly reducing the incidence of fraud. Most importantly, CFOs recognize that AP can help a company improve its cash position by extending days payables outstanding, avoiding late payments, capturing early-pay and volume discounts, and ensuring that payments and orders are compliant with contracts.

At many companies, AP no longer is merely a back-office transaction function where efficiency and low cost of operations are the only requisites for success; AP processes are being more tightly linked with treasury functions to help maximize working capital management. This is part of an overall move to align core processes across business functions to support corporate strategic initiatives.

While this increased corporate standing is good news for AP departments, they must also be ready for CFOs to more closely assess their performance based on key criteria such as costs, service delivery, error rates, timeliness of responses to inquiries, compliance, and vendor relationships.

This makes it imperative that AP departments continue their automation initiatives. Not only does automation help AP departments improve on-time payment performance, reduce errors, slash costs and enable greater visibility into financial data. But it also delivers the quantifiable data on process performance that CFOs will require as AP evolves into more strategic partner for their organization.

R. Edwin Pearce is executive vice president of sales and corporate development for eGistics, Inc., a provider of e-document solutions. He can be reached at 214-256-4607 or via epearce@egisticsinc.com.

Seeding the Cloud

By Randy Davis

A recent article in Banking & Payments Industry Update #1447 greeted the new year with prognostications about the use of cloud computing by traditionally conservative stalwarts such as "large banks" (who have been reluctant to outsource anything). Another article in Document Imaging Report (Dec. 23, 2010) waxed prolific on the growing influence of cloud computing on enterprise software, citing predictions by Saugatuck "that as much as 40% of new software sold in 2014 will be cloud-based."

OK. We experienced similar enthusiasm with the advent of ERP, CRM and the paperless society, and we'll see how this cloud euphoria plays out.

Don't get me wrong. I like the cloud, and believe that it will endure as a viable technology for the foreseeable future. I also like the flexibility it can provide in the rapid delivery of "pay as you go" services. In fact, eGistics has been a "cloud player" for almost 16 years, and is strongly moving forward with new, exciting services rooted in a cloud infrastructure. Using a well-worn cliche, "Watch This Space" for upcoming announcements regarding a new cloud e-document storage management service offering, as well as a "Platform as a Service" offering that enables companies to quickly enable their own applications to utilize e-document capabilities.

In the lyrical words of Bob Dylan, "the times they are a changin'," and, looking back on the economy of 2010, we can only say, thank heavens! We at eGistics look forward to working with you to provide new, cost effective and innovative solutions that will enhance your own service offerings to your customers and users.

By the way, please take our poll at the bottom of this blog page to indicate your company's interest in using the cloud!

Happy New Year!

Cloud computing's "green" credentials

By R. Edwin Pearce

The market for cloud computing has expanded quickly over the past few years, largely driven by its ability to deliver impressive economic benefits to cash-strapped organizations. But a new study finds that not only can cloud computing keep operations in the black, it also can help them be "green."

Pike Research reports that the growth of cloud computing will have important implications for both energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In fact, by 2020 cloud computing will lead to a 38 percent reduction in worldwide data center energy expenditures, compared to a business-as-usual scenario, Pike Research reports.

“The growth of cloud computing will have a very significant positive effect on data center energy consumption,” says Pike Research Senior Analyst Eric Woods. “Few, if any, clean technologies have the capability to reduce energy expenditures and GHG production with so little business disruption. Software-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service, and platform-as-a-service are all inherently more efficient models than conventional alternatives, and their adoption will be one of the largest contributing factors to the greening of enterprise IT.”

To be sure, cloud computing's "green" credentials and environmental impact aren't the top reasons for organizations to deploy the technology. But they are certainly key incremental benefits, particularly for organizations that list environmental sustainability among their strategic objectives.

R. Edwin Pearce is executive vice president of sales and corporate development for eGistics, Inc., a leading provider of hosted document management solutions. Pearce can be reached at 214-256-4607 or via epearce@egisticsinc.com.

Cloud computing growing up fast

By R. Edwin Pearce

The next year will be big for cloud computing, with the technology transitioning from “early adopter status” into a mainstream platform for IT. That’s according to IDC, a leading research and advisory firm, which ranked the maturation of cloud computing among its top IT predictions for 2011.

IDC predicts that spending on public IT cloud services will grow at more than five times the rate of the IT industry in 2011, up 30 percent from 2010, as organizations move a wider range of business applications into the cloud. Small and medium-sized business cloud use will surge in 2011, with adoption of some cloud resources topping 33 percent among U.S. midsize firms by year’s end.

“[Cloud computing] can no longer be invested in, or managed, as sandbox efforts around the edges of the market. Instead, they are rapidly becoming the market itself and must be addressed accordingly,” warns Frank Gens, senior vice president and chief analyst at Framingham, MA-based IDC.

Gens is exactly right. Organizations of all sizes are taking a hard look at cloud-based solutions as a way to avoid the hefty capital investments and ongoing maintenance and upgrade costs associated with traditional on-premise solutions, and to ensure their IT infrastructure remains up-to-date.

In addition to changing the way organizations access business applications, the growth of cloud computing also will bring mobile banking and payments one step closer to reality, IDC predicts. But this also is true of mobile applications in other industries, most notably healthcare and insurance.

What do you think?

R. Edwin Pearce is executive vice president of sales and corporate development at eGistics, Inc. (www.egisticsinc.com), a leading provider of hosted solutions for payments and document automation. He can be reached at 214-256-4607 or via e-mail at epearce@egisticsinc.com.