Perceptive Software Helps Electric Utility Automate Processes And Harness Intellectual Capital
Sunflower Electric has selected ImageNow by Perceptive Software for its ECM solution to streamline back office processes and maintain institutional knowledge
Perceptive Software, creator of enterprise content management (ECM) solutions, including ImageNow® document management, imaging and workflow, announced recently that Sunflower Electric Power Corporation of Kansas recently selected ImageNow for an initial deployment in its finance and human resources departments.
Since 1957, Sunflower has provided wholesale power and transmission services to its member-owners, six electric distribution cooperatives in western Kansas. To aid in providing its members with the best possible service, decision-makers at Sunflower realized a need for an enterprise content management solution. ImageNow was selected, in part, because it could be easily implemented within the existing infrastructure of systems and scaled out as needed.
"Our technical team was very impressed with the solution being web-services based and that it didn't require a multi-year implementation that may be difficult to customize," said Bill Branch, vice president and chief information officer at Sunflower. "Perceptive's value is in the fact that ImageNow can act as a wrapper around any of these larger platforms, which allows it to coexist and interact with Oracle® , Exchange®, SharePoint® , or whatever system is in use."
Branch explained that beyond ImageNow's ease of implementation and seamless integration, the traditional value of an ECM system weighed into Sunflower's decision as well. In response to an accelerated emphasis on compliance within its industry, the corporation was presented with a need to reduce paper use and storage and thoroughly document its policies, procedures, and processes company-wide.
"Many of our processes are highly manual, and ImageNow has the necessary capabilities to reduce our paper usage and automate some of our business processes. We'll be saving a lot of floor space that we can now use to house new employees as we continue to grow," Branch said. "From the compliance standpoint, we are going to use ImageNow as the catalyst to document the policies, processes, and procedures associated with reliability compliance--the most important initiative in the electric utility industry right now. Our initial corporate function for Perceptive's software will be in finance and human resources, but ImageNow has the capacity to touch every major area in our corporation—compliance initiatives are just one example."
Sunflower also plans to expand ImageNow to other departments to help retain intellectual capital as many of its most knowledgeable employees begin to retire.
"In our industry, capabilities and infrastructure continue to grow and develop, but a lot of the people who are very prominent in important roles in companies like Sunflower came to work in the post-WWII era when the industry as a whole and the nation's power requirements were burgeoning," Branch said. "Now they're approaching retirement. We need to retain some of that intellectual capital and use it in a way that will be useful for subsequent generations of employees. Gartner's research showed positive growth in Perceptive Software."
About Perceptive Software
Perceptive Software, a stand-alone business unit within Lexmark International, builds enterprise content management software to help organizations effortlessly manage the entire lifecycle of their documents and information, fueling greater operational efficiency. Organizations in more than 30 countries rely on Perceptive Software and its flagship product ImageNow® to simplify their business processes through cost-effective content management solutions that create immediate and lasting impact. For more information, visit www.perceptivesoftware.com
SOURCE: Perceptive Software