South African office automation suppliers and their customers are being forced by a tough economic climate to get back to the basics of cost reduction and efficiency.
According to Ryan Miles, COO at Itec: “SMEs and corporate customers are becoming increasingly price-sensitive in their document output purchasing patterns, which is putting enormous pressure on distributors and resellers to streamline their own businesses.”
He believes many South African companies have the need to reduce operational costs and they are not interested in hearing about the next big thing, unless vendors can clearly demonstrate its value. “This is a year of conservatism in client spending. Clients are not looking for bells and whistles, so we are going to focus on solutions that deliver according to market needs. For example, many clients see no benefit yet in cloud printing and the infrastructure isn't really there to support it.”
Miles says tough competition and economic conditions are helping to drive consolidation of the office automation and document output channels. Distributors such as Itec are increasingly investing in their dealers and franchises to build economies of scale and efficiencies. Small independent dealers in the industry that are not part of a bigger distribution chain will struggle to survive, he adds.
“We believe that to remain competitive, print and copier suppliers will need to shift high volumes and have efficient back-office infrastructures,” says Miles. “For example, Itec has invested heavily in remote management and mobile workforce tools to be able to offer high service levels to its client base.”
Bryan Rufener, MD of FileBound Africa, says the need to find, control, optimise and protect information is basic to business today - across all industries. “But, even though this need is universal, the information managed within each industry is different and each presents unique challenges. What businesses need is a document management solution that is flexible and can be configured to handle the particular requirements of each industry.”
Rufener believes what is needed is a solution that adapts to your needs, not one that requires a company fit into its preset configurations. “Documents and information drive your organisation, and your long-term success is dependent on this. Without the right core office solution, it's difficult to control costs, make informed decisions, profitably process transactions, maintain regulatory compliance, and successfully manage growth.”
According to Aldo van Tonder, CEO of FOXit, document management is much more than storing documents in a central repository or having a file plan that tells you where what document resides. “Document management should be the heart and foundation of collaboration. Most communication in an organisation is around documents in one way or another, and collaboration is tightly linked to document management. This is also the single biggest area where businesses could invest in green IT initiatives as well as optimising processes in a business.”
Ursula Dorfling, Kofax channel manager at EOH Application Management, explains that the industry is not without its share of challenges. She believes the biggest challenge facing some enterprise customers is the change management and maturity of the organisation, when adopting a document management strategy. “Another challenge is also having an end-to-end view and understanding of document-driven business processes before embarking on finding the right solution, as there are thousands of really great document management solutions available today. Taking a step back and obtaining and documenting end-to-end business processes that are driven by data and documents, as is the case in 99% of business processes, will help organisations choose the appropriate enterprise solutions right upfront.”
Legislation and data growth
Another challenge is the impact legislation has on document management, and this can no longer be overlooked.
According to Rufener: “The legislative impact on business is key to any document management solution, and in the past, was often overlooked. Now, business fully understands the implications of such Acts and the dangers of not implementing and managing their documents. Document Managements is a tool that enables business to fully comply to ensure that no legal action can be taken against the company.”
Kerry Allemann, consultant at Master Data Management, says: “Volumes of organisations' data continue to grow exponentially. Along with this, ever-increasing numbers of laws and regulations around the management of information must be complied with, at risk of heavy penalties, including fines and imprisonment of negligent parties. Together, these factors pose a challenge for any organisation, particularly when trying to balance the requirements of regulations that demand data retention with those that require data destruction. In order to mitigate the risks of breaching the various statutory and regulatory requirements governing information management, sound data governance is required.”
Locally, she says, laws touching on information management have existed for decades, but with the introduction of the Electronic Communications and Transactions (ECT) Act emerged a trend towards actively governing information management. Today, a multitude of regulations must be complied with, and this number continues to grow.
“Non-compliance attracts substantial consequences, in the form of reputational damage, financial penalties and/or prison terms for those who are deemed to have failed in the execution of their fiduciary duties. However, the sheer volume of data makes compliance onerous, and the multitude of legislation could turn into a business and compliance nightmare if information is not managed correctly. Add to this the variety of systems of information storage, from e-mail to spreadsheets, and the complexity of the problem becomes clear. If data storage systems are siloed, or if the data that these systems contain is not clean and synchronised, then challenges will inevitably arise,” she says.
“Compliance with information management legislation is not a simple matter of cleaning, updating or enriching data, however, but of addressing underlying business or system processes that cause data to be incorrect or inadequate. By implementing a data governance strategy and the right data management tools, organisations can prioritise areas that need to be addressed in order to meet legislative requirements. If data is effectively managed, impending and future information legislation can be dealt with more easily, thereby mitigating risk and minimising impact on the organisation,” she explains.
Cloud and other trends
Besides legislation, cloud is also having a lot of impact in the document management space. “A cloud solution allows businesses to enjoy all the advantages of a complete document management system without the upfront capital investment of an installed solution,” says Rufener. “You get all the benefits of a unified, scalable solution without the high costs, risks and complexity normally associated with document management software. With a Web interface, this low-cost solution is simple to learn and use.”
According to Dorfling, the cloud will be a massive contributor and an influencer on how document/content management solutions are positioned within organisations. “With the advent of Microsoft Skydrive, Apple's iCloud, etc, companies will need to bed down document management strategies to ensure compliance to companies' security and risk policies. While the cloud brings convergence and improved collaboration, without a proper strategy and a single service provider, individuals can distribute content across various clouds, making control an even bigger problem than it is currently.”
Rufener says, internationally, the trend is already set in the cloud, and businesses are finding that it is extremely easy and efficient. “Locally, we are somewhat constrained due to bandwidth costs and upload/download speeds, but there is a shift towards the cloud and the more people and business understand this concept, the quicker it will be adopted,” he says.
In other trends, Miles says the print, copy and scan market is moving away from a product focus towards solutions and services. “Clients want the peace of mind of knowing they have a reliable and low-cost print infrastructure, but they also want help aligning document output solutions with business process automation.”
He believes SA is lagging the global move towards true managed print services, where a chosen supplier takes full responsibility for an organisation's entire print infrastructure, including all services, support and supplies. However, as local suppliers offer more comprehensive MPS solutions and focus on educating their clients about the benefits of MPS, the local industry will catch up.
“Managed print services sees the service provider conduct an in-depth assessment of the client's print environment to identify opportunities to drive down support, maintenance and consumables costs in the printing and imaging environments. This may involve consolidating and centralising printers, scanners, fax machines and other output devices. The managed services provider should be able to reduce and manage costs of document output on the client's behalf - and guarantee cost-savings with a predictable per-page cost and create workflow efficiencies for its clients,” he says.
According to Dorfling, the growth in the mobile capture space will create more opportunity for positioning of content management solutions across the enterprise, as opposed to being localised. She also believes social networking for business is becoming increasingly prevalent.
First published in the 21 March issue of iWeek.
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