magazine
14
Cover Story
The proliferation of communication
channels, from physical and electronic
mail to social media and mobile
messaging, means that in one sense
the medium is no longer important:
a business today should be able to
communicate across all channels. Yet,
for consumers the question remains
highly pertinent, and, increasingly,
they expect businesses to send
messages via their choice of medium,
whether that be digital or paper-
based.
The need to support digital and
physical channels has implications for all
aspects of business operations, not least
the processing of incoming messages.
With invoices, sales orders and other
business documents needed for the
same process coming in through multiple
channels, and in a variety of formats, it
makes no sense to maintain separate
paper-based and electronic processes.
Doing so leads to bottlenecks and
complexity at a time when businesses
are judged on their speed of response
and professionalism.
Instead, more businesses are choosing
to bring together hard copy and digital
documents in fully integrated paperless
workflows and are reaping major benefits
as a result. These range from faster, more
accurate business processes to reduced
printing/copying costs, a smaller carbon
footprint and less need for hard copy
storage space. Because documents are
held in digital form, it becomes easier
to send them to customers via their
preferred channel, electronically or
printed and posted.
Document convergence
As a leading mailing and communications
company, Neopost has been helping
businesses of all sizes address the
challenges and opportunities presented
by the convergence of hard copy and
electronic communications. In the last
two decades, through a combination of
in-house R&D and company acquisitions,
it has expanded its portfolio of products
and services to facilitate streamlined
processes for inbound and outbound
communications.
Scanning and document management
are essential ingredients of such a strategy
and a growing part of Neopost’s offering.
At the end of March, it acquired Data
Capture Solutions Ltd, a provider of
information management software and
services, with which Neopost has had
a long-standing relationship, both as a
business partner and as a customer.
Bringing Slough-based DCS under its
umbrella will enable Neopost to provide
records management and business process
optimisation services to organisations of all
sizes, with a particular focus on the digital
mailroom and cloud-based electronic
document management solutions.
All-in-one simplicity
Through its IMW-20 all-in-one document
management system, Neopost already
offers such services to small and
medium-sized businesses. The compact,
desktop unit is a complete solution
featuring a duplex colour A4 scanner
with 50-page document feeder; an all-
in-one touchscreen PC with a 1000 GB
hard drive capable of storing millions of
documents; and document management
software with automatic optical character
recognition and pre-defined workflows for
Which is more important, the message or the medium?
Paradoxically, this question is both more and less relevant
today than ever.
How Neopost is helping
businesses streamline their
document workflows
invoice processing and mail distribution.
The combination of a complete, fully
integrated hardware solution and an
easy to use touchscreen interface has
made this a popular solution with small
and medium-sized businesses that in the
past might have lacked the confidence to
adopt digital workflows.
One such is Paula Rosa-Manhattan,
a Lancing-based manufacturer of fitted
kitchens. Part of Ballingslöv International,
a Swedish supplier of kitchen, bathroom
and storage systems, it installed an IMW-
20 mail management system in order
to bring the lean production methods
used in its factory to key administrative
processes, in particular the processing
of invoices and statements, as Max
Caunhye, Head of Finance, explains:
“We operate ‘lean production’
methods, so we constantly review our
processes to ensure any inefficiencies
The need
to support
digital and
physical
channels has
implications
for all
aspects of
business
operations...
Paula Rosa-Manhattan has saved 100 square
yards of space by scanning paper files
