Business Process Management – Not just for the enterprise

A recent study has been carried out by IBM on attitudes to business process management (BPM). The survey, conducted by YouGov, spoke to 650 senior business decision makers from small, medium and large UK firms. One of the most significant findings was the difference in attitudes to BPM between small and large firms. The survey found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that the larger the business, the more likely they were to have plans in place to update their business processes in the next two to three years – demonstrated by 70% of those businesses with 250+ employees having BPM plans in place, compared with only 31% of those with less than 50 employees.

BPM is centred on making processes efficient and flexible in response to the company’s expansion. The implementation of faster and more effective business processes aligns all aspects of the company and, as such, usually results in improved client services. 85% of the senior business decision makers identified ‘line of sight’, ‘visibility into work occurring across your organisation’ and ‘clear understanding into how your business is performing’ as key to a business’s success. However, despite the majority believing this, very few SMEs practise what they preach as they are under the impression that they cannot afford to implement systems that aid in BPM.

Document management systems however are one means by which to create a transparent, streamlined business – a major pre-requisite for effective BPM. By consolidating all documents electronically into one central system, employees are able to access client information that would otherwise be difficult to lay hands on, and therefore deal with any queries directly. Time spent on manual processes is dramatically reduced with companies often seeing a return on their investment after the first year – challenging the wide belief that BPM solutions are only affordable to the enterprise and demonstrating real value for companies of all sizes. 

The impact of the proposed EU data reforms

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI), a UK business lobbying organisation, has shared its concerns over the proposed changes to the EU data protection regulations; specifically, the potential financial impact on businesses as well as the risk of data compliance restrictions stifling innovation.

The CBI argues that many innovative business models, citing advertising and the music industry as examples, rely on data-sharing to generate revenue and ensure they are providing a tailored user experience and suggests that proposed reforms would restrict businesses’ ability to do this.

In addition to implementing data-sharing restrictions, the CBI highlights the financial consequence of complying with the reforms. The European Commission claims that its proposals will save businesses €2.3 billion a year, across all EU countries, by creating a coherent and streamlined approval process for organisations working across EU states. However, the CBI believes that this is an overestimation of the business benefits and overlooks compliance costs such as changing IT systems, re-training staff, implementing call centres to handle data compliance issues and, in some cases, appointing a Data Protection Officer. While costs are likely to be incurred in order to comply, businesses need to carefully consider the potential cost should they suffer a data breach.

Businesses could potentially face fines of up to two percent of their revenues should they fail to report a breach in the 24 hour time period and the cost to brand reputation should not be overlooked either, as recently demonstrated in the news reports surrounding Global Payments’ data breach.

Those that choose to implement a document management system mitigate the risk of suffering a data breach and incurring huge fines as their documents containing sensitive data are stored in a central, secure system. Other cost burdens that the CBI highlight, such as re-training and IT refresh, would also be significantly reduced, if not eliminated, as the document system is integrated with existing IT infrastructure, improving ease of use.

Click here to find out more about how a document management system could help improve your data protection processes. 

Compliance headaches and inefficiencies

Regulatory burdens have always been in evidence. However, the landscape has changed greatly in recent years. The banking crisis, Enron et al and increasingly sophisticated, technically savvy and organised fraudsters are all high profile wake-up calls demanding a support network. That comes in the shape of legislation, regulation from professional and overseeing bodies and peer pressure for better practice.

Anti-Money Laundering, KYC, Suitability, FATCA etc mean that brokers, wealth managers and IFAs are exposed to a range of potentially threatening issues. With massive consequences for failure there’s increasing operational effort and expense needed to keep on top. Working practices evolve but, more often than not, they generate increased operational workload. As the burden compounds then you can be sure that the potential penalties for exceptions will also be rising. It’s no surprise that the numbers of compliance-facing staff therefore continue to rise. Against an economic backdrop where efficiency and cost savings are more important than ever this is a recipe for greater overheads with no appreciable return.

This latest Invu white paper examines a selction of issues faced by businesses in the finance sector, in particular the broking and wealth management communities. It’s not exhaustive but it does pick up some of the significant issues faced on a daily basis and some that are on the way. Many of these issues are burdens which IFAs, insurers, mortgage advisors and even accountants in practice face. Whilst setting these out we also identify the role of technology in mitigating them, most notably, of coure, via document based solutions.

Find out what role document solutions can play in mitigating the risks and reducing the day-to-day compliance impact and download the “Wealth Management – the case for eDM” from our resources section at www.invu.net

Stamping out business costs?

Ouch! There can’t be many of the day-to-day business staples that suddenly rise by in excess of 30% but that’s what’s happening to the humble stamp. For a standard letter size, first class stamps are to rise from 46p to 60p. and second class stamps from 36p to 50p. Then there’s the uplift for the bigger letters and packets too. Ofcom’s taken the brakes off so we’ll be getting used to postal service charges increasing as Royal Mail seeks to balance its books whilst simultaneously investing in major modernisation.

For those issuing paper invoices, contracts and correspondence or marketing literature then the franking machine will be costing you a lot more this year. For professional firms like accountants this is a particular headache. In these days of social networking, e-commerce and even old-fashioned email the continuing volumes of paper based documents can be a surprise. However, the fact is that post can be a significant cost for some businesses. This is another burden which makes it all the more difficult to keep a lid on costs.

Of course, dealing with documents electronically removes this. Storing and actioning all correspondence, invoices etc via document management solutions is a logical approach. When something simply has to go out by post then it should be the exception rather than the rule, email and e-commerce the norm. Secure portals and digital signing tools further cement the move away from post. We’re delighted that we’re on the cusp of launching a joint initiative to market with accountancy web and content specialists PracticeWEB to enable portal connectivity. Having security and immediate access in the office and for clients and suppliers joins up the way we work, without the inherent delay of post and without bumping up costs 30% at a time.

Teamwork paying off at Wembley

Yesterday was an incongruous mix – Wembley stadium dressed up for an NFL game between the Tampa Bay Bucaneers and Chicago Bears and “the home of football” home to hoards of accountants. This was the keynote IRISWorld event where Phill Robinson and his team got to say, “Hello Wembley” to massed rows of accountants worrying more about the numbers and the future of their practices than the 3 lions. The stadium is very impressive of course (and so it should be) and with a target attendance of c.800 IRIS pulled out all the stops to do justice to the choice of venue. OK – typical exhibition drop-out rates meant that the actual number was somewhat under but what this single community saw was an example of a well-focused team talking directly and knowledgably to its customers about what they wanted to hear. And it’s this aspect that struck home as being most impressive. The financial community has a very important concept: KYC – Know Your Customer. Wembley and the other IRIS roadshows was a fine example of how to know your audience en masse.


The headline plenary sessions were good and strong and stuffed with subject matter experts from the ICAEW and Microsoft. More importantly the mood-music and buzz around the break-out rooms and the exhibition stands was confident; an acknowledgement that this was no waste-of-chargeable-time, but an important tool in knowing how to guide each individual practice. And it wasn’t all futures and jam-tomorrow. One of the sessions was a very simple hints-and-tips talk and it was just as packed as the bright-new-future presentations.

IRIS’s branded version of Invu (IRIS OpenDocs) was well in evidence and it confirmed our view that Invu’s integration with IRIS and it’s strong positioning with accountants was natural and now, almost taken for granted. On the IRIS OpenDocs stand, a steady stream of attendees sought more info (“how does it work?”, “what’s the cost”), but the number one question? Email, email, email. How do I handle the sea of emails I get? Almost from day one in our relationship with IRIS, the need for a flexible email solution was a top agenda item and directly led to Invu Email Manager coming to market. Yesterday continued the evidence that this was well judged.

The last couple of years have seen a lot of change at Invu, including the IRIS partnership. Standing back and reflecting, this was and continues to be an extremely positive partnership and Wembley showed the benefit of dealing with the experts in an area. Invu deals with a number of domains as well as solving some more generic issues in other sectors and it’s important not to lose that focus. Where we get close to the issues faced by individual customers or sectors we have a solution set which can be a veritable chameleon. But you have to understand what’s needed and what works best for each business. As Invu delivers more individual mid-market type solutions our focus on what’s needed for a successful solution teaches us a valuable lesson in listening closely to what our customers want. This varies by business sector and by customer and we’ve had to change the way we work. In fact this has been a major and hugely positive transformation. Wembley showed that with a strong, capable and domain expert partner we can deliver on both fronts with trust and confidence. IRIS and other partners keep us on the ball so we cannot ever afford complacency. Without getting smug, Wembley reinforced the partnership. For some of us with many years spent delivering software for accountants it wasn’t quite like coming home, but it was pretty close.

Software for the real world….

Like software businesses the world over we find ourselves testing new releases in something of a vacuum – attempting to replicate the actions and environments of the real world can be a thankless and impossible task. Where the software can be used across a number of business scenarios and the twists and turns of a wider user community can vary enormously the scope of error is compounded. It’s an issue which the software community has wrestled with for many years now. Other than long, in-depth and often automated testing, the most common belt and braces proving route is by customer validation. Beta site testing is used the world over whether it be the big names like Microsoft, Oracle, Sage and others or the niche software provider.

Invu’s Early Adopter programme is typical. But we know that alongside those who are genuinely keen to see what’s round the corner, for most businesses the attraction can appear limited. We’ve been giving this a lot of thought. You see, high quality, real-world pre-release feedback is nothing short of gold dust. It can be the difference between success and embarrassment in some cases. But there must be something in it for the customer.

That’s why we’re formalising the Early Adopter programme with some sweeteners to add to the standards. (The standards being: a bit of first-mover advantage so you can be up and running before your competitors, enabling you to plan out your implementation and getting closer to the vendor and therefore being more influential in future product direction. There’s also the issue of ensuring the software quality for yourself – don’t trust anyone else, gain your own confidence etc. This is what large organisations with major roll-outs will do anyway so some of you may already be used to a period of User Acceptance Testing before new software is available to the business in a live environment.)

We’re looking for a good spread of customers across a range of organisational types. If you join us we’d like to make it a worthwhile exercise for all parties. Our most recent Newsletter leads with this request and asks that if you’re interested that you contact Mark Palmer or Sandeep Kang. Of course, we’ll be asking some customers and partners directly. But it would be great if you put your hand up first before we even send the invitations out….