Millennia Group Blog

There are dozens of processes that every employee must participate in during the typical work week. Review the budget, create the report, enter the new contract. When does it make sense to automate that process?

If the process happens every day all day, yes, automate it. If the process is complicated and prone to errors, yes automate that. What if the process only happens once a week or once a month? Let’s look at a few other key reasons to automate.

 text

A technology issue that companies deal with on a regular basis is using one application for managing active or working documents and a separate application for the archived or final documents. Active being defined as documents in the creation or working stage and final being final or executed.

This situation exists because of how and why these documents are created, accessed and shared. Certain employees are document Creators and others are document Users and their needs are very different. The Holy Grail is one application to manage both. The reality is you need two applications. Let us explain why that is not a bad thing.

 text

IRS Publication 4837, otherwise known as “Achieving Quality Examinations through Effective Planning, Execution and Resolution” published by the IRS Large Business and International Division, indicates that it would be wise to have supporting documents readily available when audited.  Because you want to defend your position and you really don’t want the cost of responding to the audit to be greater than the potential tax impact.

The IRS will make Information Document Requests (“IDRs”) to support claims made on any entities tax return involved in an audit.  Various types of documentation support revenue recognition and expense claims.  It is highly recommended that this documentation being organized, accessible and easily reproduced – sounds like a perfect scenario to justify an electronic document management system (“EDMS”).

 text

There are plenty of references in our daily lives to the future and yet, somehow, we don’t always spend time to really consider the future. Songs refer to the future, books refer to the future, so do TV shows and movies, the news and much more. Even the Government is now talking about a Secretary of the Future.

In fact, it may be very useful for all of us to spend a little time each week to consider the future. Not the dreamy type future, but the realistic future that is occurring right before our eyes. For instance, will you need a pen ten years from now or will every contract be signed digitally? Amazing how a simple thought like that can set a process of critical thinking in motion.

 text

In a past era processes were set in stone. Assembly lines were created and they ran for three shifts a day year after year. Big mainframes were programmed and some of those programs still run today. Change was slow and methodical for both consumers and businesses.

Today, manufacturers and businesses of all types are struggling to meet the new era’s requirements and challenges including personalization and on-demand. The only way to manage in this environment is to have a workforce and applications that embrace and smooth the way for change – in 5 minutes or less. text

We have heard it from nearly every company that we have come into contact with over the past 20 years – “the entire office was recently consumed by the search for the Pensky file”. Most likely 15 to 20 years ago they were absolutely referring to a paper file. Now this reference is to a digital file, which in some cases makes it even harder.

If finding documents in your document system (SharePoint, network folders, Box, etc.) is painful and time consuming, you could call Sherlock Holmes or try to reorganize the files with the help of Martha Stewart. Reorganizing is of course the better approach and therefore, you should take some time to learn about Taxonomy.

 text

During a recent lunch conversation a comment was made about the great benefits of business intelligence (“BI”) – a tool used to connect lots of information dots to generate useful data. However, that was quickly followed by a second comment about the often failed attainment of those benefits. The culprit seems to be bad or incomplete historical data, ie data stuck in documents or inconsistently entered data.

Another discussion at this lunch centered on co-tenancy, a complicated topic that impacts the commercial real estate industry. As an example, a co-tenancy clause could allow one tenant to reduce its rent if another, typically significant, tenant exits the property. The significant tenant is a draw to the property that benefits other tenants. So how do these two topics relate?

 text

Documents used to be shared by photocopying and FedEx. That progressed to PDF and email, which has been replaced by free file sharing websites. There are also highly secure deal sites available for Wall Street transactions. The reality is that all of these methods are in use because each one meets somebody's unique need for security, simplicity or both.

In today's world of massive amounts of information being available and demanded, many times the need is to share hundreds or thousands of documents. To share that quantity of documents is not practical with email or FedEx. Some type of organized, online access is required. But how do you make it both simple and secure?

 text

All of our clients that have implemented our workflow solution have done so to improve their efficiency and profitability. However, it has become very apparent that there are significant added benefits derived from the process metrics reports that are generated. 

A quick definition of process metrics is the number and duration of activities throughout each workflow process, ie. how many completed and how long did it take. Additional measurements are possible depending on other data available within the system, such as completions by region, by person, by amount, etc.

 text

Put another way - Quelle 弱形 normalization and Поче is it महत्वपूर्ण?  Think for a minute about trying to read your email but every email is in a different language?  What happens if you don't know the language or the coworker you forwarded it to doesn't know that language?  Then it becomes a real problem and very inefficient.  If you could always funnel those emails through a translator before they hit your inbox, the problem disappears. 

 text