The Paperless Payoff

Though the computer has been ubiquitous in offices for decades, the "paperless office" has been, in many places, more dream than reality. One place this has been particularly true is in government. "Government tends to change slowly," notes David Campaña, chief technology officer, New York City Department of Finance. "Any government entity is heavily paper-based. It has a lot to do with culture and habit."

The New York City Department of Finance collects property and business taxes, parking fines, and other revenue, totaling about $24 billion a year. This represents moe than 1/3 of the city's overall revenue. Organization of the department is divided among 15 operational and support areas, including payments, treasury, collections, internal audit, budget, contracts, information technology, and employee services. The Treasury unit is the largest generator of paper, accounting for about half the department's volume, followed by collections, internal audit, and employee services (which is another name for human resources).

Home to about 2,100 employees, the department has approximately 200 copiers, 600 fax machines, and nearly 1,100 printers. Though dollar figures are hard to come by, Campaña found the department had a monthly burn rate for printer toner of $7,000. And that was just for one type of printer; the department has five types.

Producing all this paper is costly, as is storing it. An example is the collection of bail monies. Between 700 and 1,000 bail cases are handled weekly, each producing 5 to 30 pieces of paper. The pieces of paper just from bail can number in the hundreds of thousands annually. Another example is the internal audit. One such audit can result in 1,000 documents. Initially stored in file cabinets in the department's offices, eventually these paper records are shipped to Brooklyn where they are warehoused. "We have a gigantic warehouse, costing $60,000 per month in rental charges, with tons of paper," says Campaña.

This is all expensive, and reducing costs was a goal when Campaña started looking for paperless recordkeeping solutions. But improving customer service was even more critical. "This technology is really revamping the way Finance does business with its citizens, which is more important than just saving money," says Campaña. "If we can change our business practices just slightly, we can drastically change our customer service."

ECM REDUCES DOCUMENT RETRIEVAL TIME
The way Campaña chose to improve his operations was by installing an ECM (enterprise content management) solution from Xerox. Until the ECM system was installed, the department was metaphorically split between the digital world — as represented by Microsoft's SharePoint, and paper — which was stored in untold numbers of file cabinets filled with manila folders. "I had one system that was digital and the other was paper that has now been turned into digital," says Campaña. The two systems are stand-alones, and Xerox has a component that allows the user to look at both SharePoint and DocuShare Content Management from one access point. Users scan documents into a Xerox WorkCentre 5655 MFP device that converts the documents into PDF files that can then be forwarded to the appropriate location.

John Ravalli, an internal audit supervisor in the Finance Department, is a user of the system. In the past, department employees would archive their work. This involved packing boxes, creating an inventory of what was in the box, contacting the archives for a pickup, and sending the box to the archives.

Then, when they needed to retrieve a document stored in the archives, another multistep process was required, involving finding the files on an archive inventory listing, identifying which box the files are in, contacting the archives, and finally having the box pulled and delivered to the user. "I now have an intern scan our files into DocuShare. When I need to review an old file, I go online and click on the link to the file," notes Ravalli.

Employees not only benefit from saving time, but so do customers, who previously had to wait days for a response that can now be provided in minutes. The ECM system has "drastically improved customer service," says Campaña. "If we have a complaint, say, about taxes, it previously took 48 to 72 hours to pull the case because the file is in the warehouse. Now, we can access the file in moments because of DocuShare."

The ECM system boosts customer service in other ways, too. Once you have things digitalized, says Campaña, self- service can be offered. An example is rent stabilization abatements. "When they send in their applications by snail mail," says Campaña, "it goes into a manila folder, which sometimes is a black hole that is hard to find." When the system is entirely up and running, the application will be scanned and indexed and customers will be able to access the documentation themselves from their computers. "This gives a lot of reassurance that we are actually processing that application," says Campaña.

INCREMENTAL IMPLEMENTATION FOSTERS ECM ADOPTION
Campaña decided to implement the new ECM system incrementally to see how users would react. Currently, the department has seven machines, one in each department area that is using the system. Users number about 230, of which Campaña estimates about 1/3 are very active. Next will be a rollout to the top 10 areas within Finance that are most paper-intensive. Campaña projects this will involve 20 to 25 machines. Eventually, if everything is placed online, 60 to 70 machines will be required. By mid-2010, he hopes to implement what he calls "The Third Plan," the goal of which is using the ECM system to reduce copiers, printers, and fax machines by 1/3.

Generally, adaptation was fairly easy, since most people knew how to use a photocopier, which was all that was required to use the Xerox machines. And, most people knew how to search using Google, which is practically enough knowledge to use DocuShare.

There were some holdouts, admits Campaña. "Some had done it the old way for 15 years. They are used to going to file cabinets. Now they have to go to a Web portal." He goes on to note, "The adoption rate is nearly 100%. Only those who don't use copiers don't adopt, but nearly all use copiers."

When considering this ECM solution, the department was at a point where the leases on its copiers were running out and therefore due for replacement. These copiers were from several vendors. By leveraging an MFP, the department was able to choose a one-vendor solution. Xerox was chosen, says Campaña, because its solution integrated well into the department's processes and it could do all the department required.

To learn how an ambulance service company saves storage space by replacing paper files with electronic ones, visit http://tiny.cc/S25BS .

The New York City Department of Finance leases its new Xerox WorkCentre 5655 MFPs. The DocuShare Content Management and SMARTsend software, on the other hand, were both purchased at a cost of approximately $33,000. Each required a SQL server, which the department already had, which cost a total of about $20,000. "I spent a bit more than $50,000, and that gave me 230 users," says Campaña.

OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY DRIVES ECM EXPANSION Campaña's strategy for getting funding to expand the system is based on emphasizing to upper-level management the benefits, which includes saving money, improving customer service, increasing efficiency, and reducing the department's carbon footprint.

Success, he says, requires a different kind of strategy. "Without a clear strategy of what we want to do and what are our goals, ECM will be just another acronym that nothing comes out of." His strategy was to not emphasize the technology. Instead, he talked about how the department could streamline its processes and, from an operational perspective, what the technology could do to improve the business process.

"It is easy to focus on money — we'll save on paper, we'll reduce our machine inventory. But you need to think about how you can fundamentally change your business to improve your service. If you start the conversation with money, you will end with money, but you won't affect your business." Instead, his strategy was to focus on the end result. "I said what you do now, you will continue to do, but you will get an electronic document which you can share with the click of the mouse. The focal point should be optimizing the business process, which everybody leverages.".