Authored by Aaron Ogden, National Practice Director for our Commercial vertical
We’ve made it to March 2021, which means we’re officially a year into this “new normal” of flexing into hybrid and fully remote work models. Over the past 12 months, I’ve made an intentional effort to keep up with businesses having to navigate so many changes with a lot of unknowns (our clients included). What issues would arise that would cause strain within their day-to-day operations? Were those who were afraid to jump into a digital transformation journey finally dive in head-first? Will some just assume things will go back to normal eventually and take the brunt of process bottlenecks and breakdowns in communication? Only time would tell, and it did.
One area of business operations I knew would be impacted by so many changes in workplace operations would be something behind-the-scenes that many employees don’t interact with or maybe even think about – the mailroom.
Whether a company employs 50 or 250,000 people, having secure and efficient mailroom operations is of utmost importance as they ensure communications and documents are getting to employees as quickly as possible, helping with everything from customer engagement to billing.
Before COVID-19, many mailrooms already had pain points within their operations including scalability, compliance, and ROI. Throw a pandemic into the mix, and now those mailrooms are dealing with a new remote workforce and a complete 180 from the mailrooms of the past.
What’s more, is it doesn’t look like this new working structure will be changing anytime soon. A PwC survey of nearly 700 CEOs revealed that 78% believe remote work is here to stay, meaning many mailrooms straining to keep up with these new operations hurdles need to do something if they want to mitigate stress and bridge their analog-to-digital gap so all processes are running as efficiently as possible.
I know what you may be thinking.
“Why invest in a solution if we may, one day, go back to normal?”
My response typically sounds a bit like, “Do you want to go back to how you were doing things if there’s a better way?” And that’s the truth. There is a better way – a digital mailroom solution that’s built with flexibility, security, and efficiency in mind.
This year, we partnered with Eco-Mail to provide our clients with an innovative digital mailroom solution that many Fortune 500 companies have adopted to keep their businesses moving forward. This platform, especially when paired with the end-to-end suite of services and solutions we offer, created the perfect “future-proofing” solution for businesses and organizations alike.
Why do I need to bridge my mailroom’s analog-to-digital gap?
To put it simply, focusing on bridging that gap will help revolutionize the way you do business by driving greater efficiency, security, and remote collaboration. But let’s get into why it will help.
- Ingest and classify all analog communications as they come in.
- Depending on the intake process, once analog content is digitized we can encrypt it at motion and at rest.
- Automatically analyze and route mail to specific individuals.
- Processing time can go from days to mere seconds, and with extreme accuracy. For example, if your organization employs six people named Adam Smith, the solution will know exactly which one the mail needs to go to.
- Extract the most important information and add it to your system of record.
- Pull important metadata from each piece of mail and import it to your system of record, helping you build a library of accessible, searchable information.
- Integrate the extracted information to power strategic process improvements.
- Utilize information-rich data to inform your business decisions and identify areas of opportunity within your current processes.
What kinds of overhead costs could I cut with this sort of digital mailroom solution?
Our digital mailroom solution is the only full-suite solution to digitize mail in the industry. It can help reduce or even completely eliminate costs associated with:
- Initial Sort & Delivery
- Post-Delivery Sub-Sort
- Interoffice Mail
- Secondary Delivery
- Multiple Mailroom Locations
- Duplication
- Scanning
- Offsite Storage
I know, I know. That’s quite a list. That said, it’s a bit easier to explain how our solution can help reduce overhead costs (and boost ROI!) by showing you how it helped one of the top 20 banks in the country.
At a glance, you can see how this solution can easily consolidate mailroom locations (this client, in particular, was able to consolidate 18 physical locations to only three) and lower the need for additional employees in the mailroom, allowing you to give them more business-critical tasks to take care of.
But digging deeper, you can start to see even more cost savings. The cost to process and distribute each piece of mail was lowered substantially, and the processing time for distributing mail went from ~10 days to just seconds. If that’s not impressive enough, let’s talk about their average cost savings. Looking into all of the improvements the solution helped them achieve, the bank was averaging about $5 million in cost savings year-over-year. Where would you invest that kind of money if you didn’t need to allocate it to your mailroom operations?
One size doesn’t fit all. Luckily, we can custom-tailor your mail intake and ingestion strategy to fit your needs.
Whether you’re thinking of handing off the majority of your mailroom operations, are more interested in still handling things in-house, or maybe are hoping you can get a little bit of both, Eco-Mail offers the flexibility to do just that.
- In-House Management
- You can procure new or utilize existing OPEX scanners and mail opening devices to digitize and import everything into the Eco-Mail solution as it comes in. If you need to procure the equipment for this, we can help you determine what you’ll need to get the job done.
- Outsourced Management
- Eliminate the in-house management of your scanning and data capture completely by letting the experts help. Seriously – DataBank scans and converts more than 1 billion documents every year.
- A Hybrid Approach
- If there are certain areas within the ingestion or scanning process you wish to keep doing in-house while outsourcing everything else, we can work with you to identify the most critical areas of your existing mailroom operations and create a plan unique to your business.
Are there any other benefits to using a digital mailroom solution like this?
Absolutely. The data that can be extracted from mailed documents or communications can help you implement powerful process improvements. Once your company’s mail goes from ingestion to distribution and extraction, you will have a lot of acquired metadata that can be added to different downstream systems like an ECM or ERP platform.
Going back to my reference to business continuity, this data can be utilized to increase the transparency of all things running through your business and can help power informed process improvements or back-end workflows that will enhance your operations far beyond your mailroom.
Curious to learn more about our digital mailroom solution and see how you can ensure more secure and streamlined operations? Watch a 5-minute solution overview to learn more.
About Aaron Ogden
Aaron is a National Practice Director for our Commercial vertical. He began his career right out of college with a degree in Management Information Systems which allowed him to look at software solutions from a business perspective without the need to learn to program. He shares his passion for finding innovative ways to help current and existing customers effectively pursue their business objectives with his team each day.
About DataBank
As a leading end-to-end business process solutions provider, we know that “one-size-fits-all” solutions fit no one. Instead, we’re a one-stop-shop for any tools, services, or solutions tailored to improve every step of your business processes—increasing productivity across the board, saving you time, resources, and money. The best part? Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed.
