Millennia Group Blog

There is no denying that many businesses absolutely need automation in order to get to that next level of efficiency.  Unfortunately, large companies with large budgets drove the development of most automation solutions and therefore, those solutions are very complex.

This legacy complexity creates an actual and perceived barrier to implementation.  Small to medium businesses (“SMB”) don’t have the training and support resources, nor the cash runway to implement and achieve the promised benefits from automation.  But SMBs, don’t be deterred, there are automation solutions that will fit your budget, workforce and customer needs.

For over 20 years our company has been providing services and solutions to the commercial real estate industry.  It’s a very large industry.  Depending on which stats you read, the U.S. commercial real estate industry is valued at over $15 Trillion dollars and growing by almost $70 Billion a year.  That is the size of the U.S. stock market. 

The commercial real estate industry is also very complicated.  It consists of developers, investors, advisors, managers, brokers and lenders.  These parties form partnerships, joint ventures, REITs, TICs and dozens of ownership structures.  And all these interested parties can be involved in a single property and they all have one thing in common - they have a copy of the same lease document.  At least it should be the same document.

If it’s a common refrain in your company that nobody can find anything on the file server or in the document management system, you are not alone.  In many cases a company believes this is because they have a digital document organization problem or possibly the lack of a document czar. 

Just because a company is not staffed entirely with former librarians doesn’t mean that a lack of organization is the only problem.  There may be other factors at play, like for instance, rapid growth or a string of acquisitions.  However, what’s really missing might be a document collection strategy.

It’s no surprise that no two businesses are exactly alike and certainly no two employees are either.  Our differences, along with the options provided by technology and changing circumstances, create a tremendous number of possible outcomes as it relates to information creation.  This is especially true of information in the form of documents.

Every day in every business, employees are creating documents, searching for documents, receiving new documents and sharing documents with others.  It’s imperative that the information makes sense, otherwise errors are made and time is wasted.  But since we are all different, don’t be surprised at how someone else defines what a document is and in what form it’s delivered. 

At some point every business probably feels a bit undervalued or unappreciated by customers or maybe by the markets.  This may or may not be justified, but we’ve all been there.  Over the years we have gained a deep understanding and appreciation for one group of businesses in particular that might feel this way – manufacturers. 

There is tremendous complexity in the manufacturing business model of sourcing parts, labor and materials, making something out of that and then selling and servicing that product.  Then there are also government regulations and customer compliance requirements to factor in.  There are highly complex software applications that help keep the cost of that seemingly simple widget at $2.00.  It’s really not so simple.

It happens every day in our professional lives, we need information to make decisions or to complete tasks.  To assist us in this effort we try to use our memory, the internet and information stored away in filing cabinets, desk drawers and computers.

Sometimes decisions or tasks are completed quickly from a single source of information.  For instance, “was customer order 12345 invoiced?” – you can easily look it up in “the system”.  This becomes more complex if the question simply expands to “and was it correct?”.  Just like that you need much more information to come to the correct decision.  It would be nice if there was only one place to get the complete picture.

The typical mobile phone these days has a 2 ¼” x 4 ¼” screen and a pop up keyboard.  Most cost something close to $500-$750 and will soon move up to $1,000 – not counting cellular service.  A very competent Windows laptop can be acquired for the same price and a powerful tablet computer can easily be obtained for a lot less.

For many of us a laptop or tablet, possibly with a supplemental monitor and keyboard, is our primary workstation.  Most of us also accomplish much of our daily tasks using some type of cloud based solution, such as a CRM, financial system, document management system or email.  So when we need to be mobile AND get work done, it’s no problem.  But, how much of that work can we actually complete using only the ultimate mobile workstation, our expensive new phone?

Some day in the future it is plausible that paper documents in the business world will disappear.  Electronic documents, however, in the form of PDF’s, Word files or Excel spreadsheets, will continue to exist.  In fact, it will be a very long time before documents, and the content of the documents, cease to be important in the business world. 

Technology has enabled simple processes or transactions to occur entirely with online forms and direct data entry.  But there are still many instances where the content in a complex document becomes the data for accounting or ERP systems or documents.  It is easy to see what was keyed in, but In Documents we trust.

How will artificial intelligence (“AI”) impact our world?  There are knowledgeable people talking up the potential positive uses of AI and there are knowledgeable people voicing concern over the potential problems.  On the positive side are articles generally oriented towards business efficiency gains, of which IBM’s Watson is a widely seen example. 

Many companies are looking for a better way to help manage the explosive growth files and documents and they are hoping that AI and Watson can benefit them.  The rate of growth is exponential and that is creating increased user search times and poor results accuracy - inefficient.  AI might help users find the information that they are looking for, but Watson is going to have to get to know each user and know each user very well first.

I don’t think I would like to be in the folder, inter-office envelope, paper clip or staple businesses.  They had a great run.  They served a very good purpose.  But it’s time to move on to new forms of workflow.  Yes, that’s right, paper clips, folders and envelopes were the first workflow tools.

Paper clips and staples separated documents into relevant parts.  Folders and envelopes kept the collection of information together as it moved through the company for decision making purposes.  Plenty of business decisions still rely on a collection of data and documents.  So where have all the folders and paper clips gone? To digital workflow packages, which are the new tools for business process.