Digital Mailrooms: Fixing Your Weakest Link in the Customer Value Chain

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Executive White Paper

Digital Mailrooms:
Fixing Your Weakest Link in
the Customer Value Chain
Business case for the centralized digital processing of paper- KEY TOPICS ADDRESSED
• Lifecycle costs of paper-based mail and customer-generated
based mail, business forms, faxes, and email, speeding an documents
organization’s overall time to satisfy customer requests for • Exhaustive inventory of compound documents by industry
• Distributed fast-cycle collaboration with virtual customer
information, order processing, and service fulfillment engagement files
• Featured use-case productivity models:
- Loan processing
Business process benchmarks analyzing faster cycle-time contributions - Order processing
to the customer engagement and revenue pipeline of new customers - Accounts receivable
and existing accounts - Mortgages

TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
3 Summary
4 Executive Primer: Digital Mailrooms
11 Digital Mail Processing
19 Strategic Use Cases and Payback Scenarios
34 Enterprise Content Processing Infrastructure

ECM | Business case for speeding the time to satisfy customer requests for information and service fulfillment with digital mail processing systems

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AuTHor coNTrIbuTorS
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Mailrooms: Fixing Your Weakest Link of a question) <the ~ of all that
in the Customer Value Chain. GISTICS can be said upon the matter—R.
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GISTICS | EXECUT IVE W HITE PA P ER | Digit al Mailroom s : F i x i n g Yo u r We a ke s t Li n k i n t h e C u s t o m e r Va l u e C h a i n 2


What summarizes the business case for digital mail processing and the deployment of digital
mailrooms?

DigitalMailrooms.2.5 ©2009 GISTICS Incorporated, All rights reserved
WEAKEST LINK OF CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT SERVICE-FULFILLMENT CYCLES TIME TO SATISFY CUSTOMERS
Most large business-to-consumer and public In the course of interacting with customers, This paper makes the case that sluggish,
sector organizations seek better and less hundreds to thousands of organizational staff, error-prone mailflow processing suppresses
costly ways of serving customers, growing as well as partners, must satisfy a diverse revenues from both new and existing
revenues, and reducing exposure to risk. range of customer criteria for information customers, diminishing overall satisfaction,
or service fulfillment, using all available brand equity, and loyalty.
This paper makes the case that automating
information sources, including paper-based
physical mailroom operations supports all three The digital, online, pan-regional processing
correspondence, forms, and documents.
strategic aims, shoring up one of the weakest of customer-generated paper-based
links of customer engagement: cycle times and The inbound handling and distribution of communications—a function of DIGITAL
mistakes in physical mailflows. individual pieces of mail—letters, orders, MAILROOMS—speeds an organization’s
contracts, etc.—often represents the weakest overall time to satisfy customer criteria for
CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT link in the customer value chain, adding timely and more personal service fulfillment.
The growing preference of customers for significant time delays, paper management
Faster time to satisfy customers unlocks
online, interactive services continues to drive costs, and barriers to fast-cycle collaboration
revenues already in engagement-revenue
overall expectations of value and satisfaction, among decision-making teams.
pipelines, adding the equivalent of 2.9 days of
demanding that enterprises improve all The manual, duplicated, and physical revenues to the firm.
customer-facing business processes. logistics workflows or mailflows consist
This paper demonstrates how other
The relatively new term, customer of receiving, sorting, distributing, and
productivity dividends (cost and labor savings)
engagement, conveys a new strategic priority using customer-generated paper-based
fund enterprise wide digital mail processing
and operational capability of the enterprise: communications.
and paperless business processes.
how to attract, serve, and keep customers for Mailflow processing that includes orders,
life. change orders, complaints, requests for SUMMARY
Networked customers demand faster, information, and contract amendments Digital mailrooms increase revenues,
more cogent, and transparent fulfillment of (especially compound, multipart documents
speeding an organization’s overall
their requests for information, service, and that require two or more people to review and
contribute to an appropriate response to the
time to satisfy customers in the
satisfaction.
customer) slows an organization’s overall time engagement-revenue pipeline and,
Digital mailroom processing marks the next to satisfy customers and potential buyers. thus, funding enterprise wide digital
logical step in improved customer engagement. mail processing.

GISTICS | EXECUTIVE W HITE PA P ER | Digit al Mailroo m s : F i x i n g Yo u r We a ke s t Li n k i n t h e C u s t o m e r Va l u e C h a i n 3


Section 2
Executive Primer:
Digital Mailrooms

PAGE ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS ADDRESSED
5 What’s the strategic case for Digital Mailrooms, automating the
digitization and process orchestration of in-bound physical mail,
email, business forms, faxes, and compound documents?
6 What assumptions support the case for digital processing of
in-bound mail, business forms, compound documents, and emails
with attachments?
7 What areas of a customer value chain benefit from digital mail
processing?
8 What constitutes a service-fulfillment cycle, framing the productivity
contribution of digital mail processing?
9 What types of mail drive the business case for digital mail
processing and centralized digital mail rooms?
10 How do faster cycle-times of digital mail processing contribute to
major launches, customer engagement, and revenue pipelines?

GISTICS | EXECUT IVE W HITE PA P ER | Digit al Mailroom s : F i x i n g Yo u r We a ke s t Li n k i n t h e C u s t o m e r Va l u e C h a i n 4


What’s the strategic case for digital mailrooms, automating the digitization and process orchestration of inbound physical mail,
email, business forms, faxes, and compound documents?

LIFEBLOOD OF ORGANIZATIONS Greater asset-utilization rates FASTER CYCLE TIME INCREASES SALES, LOWERS COST, AND ADDS
represent handling higher PROCESS AGILITY
Finding and serving customers define the
volumes of more diverse and
purpose of all organizations, commercial or
complex interactions with buyers TIME TO SATISFY CUSTOMER REQUESTS FOR SERVICE OR INFORMATION
public sector.
and customers—how firms satisfy
Manual Mail Processing 4.5 Days Days
4.5
If customers represent the lifeblood of evolving customer requirements,
organizations, then communication serves as especially among networked
the heart and workflows as the arteries. buyers. DIGITAL MAIL
PROCESSING
ALL ABOUT CYCLE TIME Greater business process
transparency gives management 1.6 Days 2.9 Day Cycle-time Gain
This paper makes the case that digital new operational and data-based
processing of inbound mail, customer insights—how firms can focus on Productivity Drivers Productivity Dividends
correspondence, and compound documents higher value-added opportunities • Centralized mail-item processing: • Sales pipeline acceleration
speeds the fulfillment of requests for service and challenges. -Extended operation hours / shifts
-Peak level loading with subcontractors
• Incremental closings of opportunistic deals
and information, creating productivity • Faster processing of complex
• Lower lifecycle costs of business records,
dividends. Better visibility of high-priority workflows: forms, and compound documents
accounts means senior managers -Loans • Greater asset-utilization rates through
-Leases consolidated mailrooms and teams
PRODUCTIVITY DIVIDENDS can track and expedite delays in -Multivendor systems
• Greater business process transparency
establishing new major accounts -Statements of work
and monitoring
This paper shows that greater productivity in or the handling of nonstandard
• Faster problem determination:
-Customer complaints • Better visibility and handling of high-
mail workflows returns its investment in several customer requests—how firms can -Change orders and expedited priority accounts and situations
areas:
backorders
make their quarterly goals without -Disrupted vendor supply chain flows

Sales pipeline acceleration represents faster creating a big mess or breaking • Faster receivables workflow:
-Outstanding item resolution
buying cycles—the result of faster, more the system. -Proof of receipt or acceptance • Instant multiparty collaboration:
-Subcontracted work
-Instant bill presentation
informed interactions with new and existing Digital mail processing can deliver • Instant online status:
-Multiproduct / multivendor
configurations
customers. additional dividends, emphasizing
-Rerouting
-Ad hoc “Huddles”
-Risk, compliance, or clearance
-Remote office / call center

Incremental closings represent opportunistic the particular aspects of individual -Peer-to-peer handoffs
-Quick approvals
decision making

sales—often the result of faster approvals and organizations, industry norms, and -Fast escalation / triage

expedited order processing. statutory requirements. Time_to_Satisfy_RFI.A.1.5 © 2009 GISTICS All rights reserved.

Lower lifecycle costs represent going digital Faster processing of inbound physical mail and documents
saves an average of 2.9 days in the time it takes to receive,
earlier in the document lifecycle, lowering costs sort, and route customer communications to the appropriate
of administrative labor, interim paper storage, internal staff or department, producing a number of immediate
and long-term business records archives. economic benefits and longer term process management
options.



What assumptions support the case for digital processing of inbound mail, business forms, compound documents, and emails
with attachments?

NEXT STEP IN THE JOURNEY OF AUTOMATION Faster cycle times in customer- FIXING THE WEAKEST LINK OF CUSTOMER VALUE CHAINS
facing communications, interaction,
Business IT history reveals that automation
and handoffs accelerate the core
of seemingly small units of work throughout a Digital
business process of finding and Mail
large organization often produces significant,
keeping customers. Processing
long-reaching effects.
AUTOMATES Time to Satisfy
The figure to the right depicts the core TIME TO SATISFY REQUESTS Requests for Service
SPEEDING
assumptions that support the case for digital Centralized mailroom operations
Centralized or Information
Mailroom
mailrooms, emphasizing three immediate, speed the routing of digitized Operations
BY WAY OF
long-lasting benefits: items, using workflow engines and
Handoff Delays,
Monolinear Queues,
REDUCING
• Increased productivity of frontline business records managers—how and Manual Searches
knowledge workers and trade partners— firms integrate digital mailflows into
especially those parties that contribute to their core business applications and Throughout a Customer Value Chain
revenues and customer satisfaction business records management. Communications, Interactions, and Handoffs among
• Improved satisfaction of customers Staff, Trade Partners, Customers, and Regulators
Digital mail processing automates
through faster service-fulfillment cycles and Greater

the digitization, profiling, and
better, more informed answers by frontline

ADDING ACTIVITIES
PRIMARY VALUE-

Manufacturing

MA
cataloging of all inbound mail and

Development
New Product

Service and
Distribution
Operations/

Leadership
workers

Marketing

DIF F ERENTIATION
Logistics/

and Sales
Logistics

RG
Inbound

Support
faxes, including email with attached

Digital_Mailroom_Case_A.2.3 ©2009 GISTICS Incorporated, All rights reserved.
IN
• Enhanced orchestration of complex, pan-

R&D
documents or images, business
regional business processes—important in
Organizational Infrastructure

SUPPORT ACTIVITIES
forms, and complex multipart Finance and Legal

the era of consolidation and globalization of documents.
Human Resources

a workforce
ICT Infrastructure
Procurement and Vendor Management Lower
This paper explains each of these
IT THEN FOLLOWS THAT
SERVING CUSTOMERS key assumptions, quantifying D I G I TA L MAILROOMS PROVIDE THE MISSING LINK,
the business value of bottom-up
As wryly noted by Peter Drucker, the guru
automation.
on management and knowledge worker INCREASING IMPROVING and ENHANCING
productivity, “A firm has no other purpose than
to find and keep customers.”
Digital mail processing Productivity of Front Customer Satisfaction, Orchestration of
Customer value-chain models depict the constitutes the next logical- line Knowledge Workers Loyalty, and Share-of- Complex, Pan-regional
primary and support activities of a firm, step in enterprise automation and Trade Partners Wallet Revenues Business Processes

calling attention to the central role that and business process • Customer service • Better informed answers • Innovating new services
management, speeding the • Account development by staff • Launching new offerings
communications, interaction, and handoffs play time-to-satisfy requests for
• Contract administration
• Risk or compliance
• Faster fulfillment of customer
needs
• Processing new accounts and
complex orders
in finding and keeping customers. • Fewer defects, mistakes, • Servicing customer requests
service and information by and do over's
customers and trade partners.
• Greater visibility of priority
customer accounts



What areas of a customer value chain benefit from digital mail processing?

VALUE-CHAIN INTERACTIONS SERVICE-FULFILLMENT CYCLES It then follows that faster inputs to those
service-fulfillment cycles, coupled with more
Each organization within an industry or Over the span of any business day, a larger
complete and accessible “answers” increases
business ecosystem incorporates the value- enterprise will start and complete a multitude of
overall productivity in the customer value
added products or services of upstream tasks in service of customers.
chain: increased revenues!
suppliers, adding distinctive value to its
Service fulfillment describes the basic work
own products or services that downstream
of serving customers and serving those who
customers incorporate and pass along to the
service customers. The faster a firm completes
end-chain customer.
service-fulfillment cycles represents a primary
The figure on the right depicts a value-chain source of revenue: satisfied customers.
business entity, suggesting how digital mail
processing might spread throughout many ANY AREA THAT RECEIVES EXTERNAL MAIL OR DOCUMENTS BENEFITS FROM DIGITAL MAIL PROCESSING
areas of the enterprise.
Communications, Interactions, and Hand offs among Staff,
VALUE CHAIN BUSINESS ENTITY Trade Partners, Customers, and Regulators
Michael Porter, the international authority on
competition, first introduced the concept of a
value chain business entity, emphasizing the Greater
ADDING ACTIVITIES
PRIMARY VALUE-

value-adding activities of the firm.

Manufacturing

Marketing and

MA
Development
New Product

Service and
Distribution
Operations/
In the example shown to the right, the higher

Leadership
Logistics/

DI FFERE NT IATI ON
Logistics
value-adding activities start with R&D and

RG
Inbound

Support
new product development and conclude with

Sales

IN
R&D

service, support, and leadership.
However, every firm must build and maintain
Organizational Infrastructure
SUPPORT ACTIVITIES

SERVICE
(or access a partner’s) organizational FULFILLMENT
infrastructure—support activities. Finance and Legal CYCLE SS F

E
ASS
In particular, the ICT infrastructure

UL
Human Resources

FILL
(computers, telecommunications, data centers,
etc.) supports digital mailrooms, integrating ICT Infrastructure
automated mail processing with existing or
PLAN
Procurement and Vendor Management Lower
newly developed workflow platforms and Value_Chain_Entity.E.1.2 © 2009 GISTICS Incorporated, All rights reserved.

records management systems. The elimination of one communication or interaction cycle (follow-up telephone call, fax, email)
in the time to satisfy ALL paper-based requests for service or information can add up to tens of
millions of dollars in savings and increased revenues.


What constitutes a service-fulfillment cycle, framing the productivity contribution of digital mail processing?

SERVICE-FULFILLMENT CYCLES BRAND VALUE • Permanent collections of all related
information objects and feeds—digital
Industry benchmarks of business response Customer satisfaction represents many
customer files—enable faster completion of
times to customers using telephone, email, aspects of a complex business operation
service-fulfillment cycles.
website, online contact center, fax, and coming together to meet or exceed the
physical mail services reveal significant delays customer’s expectations and criteria for value • Online service-fulfillment cycles enable
for physical mail and faxes. and quality. account managers and executives to monitor
the number of completion rates of service-
The figure on the right depicts the common Fast, courteous, well-informed, and effective fulfillment cycles by account, workgroup, and
element of all customer requests, a service- answers, fulfilled correctly on the first time region—a way to manage by exception and
fulfillment cycle. represent the ideal. marshal resources to achieve a strategic
Current condition represents a status quo Digital mail processing moves an win.
until a precipitating event occurs, initiating a enterprise closer to that ideal in four FASTER TIME TO SATISFY REQUESTS CREATES NEW BRAND VALUE
service-fulfillment cycle. ways:
The clarity, succinctness, and form of requests • Digitization of physical mail, Current Condition
B ra n d
often vary, ranging from hysterical complaints forms, faxes, and compound REWORK
START
HERE
documents creates more
SUB-CYCLE(S)
(weak, ill-formed requests) to well-reasoned !
1

potential answer-making
2

and comprehensive descriptions of the 3 PRECIPITATING

problem, likely causes, and possible solutions. resources. Affirm Equity INCIDENT

• Secure, searchable, online
Assessment may entail a single staff member global repositories enable Detract Complain
responding to a customer’s need, applying a any number of authorized
known policy (or policies) and resources at participants to use answer- Satisfaction Request
hand (information and applications) to satisfy making resources.
the customer—clearly the ideal situation. Insufficient
Keeping customers Assess
However, many service-fulfillment cycles
require internal or external multiparty, entails answering
Confirm

S
questions and

TION
S
multistep workflows, delaying cycle

IE
RT
provisioning PA

ORA
AL
times and contributing to the heightened services. Faster
RN

LAB
E
INT

OL
dissatisfaction of customers. service-fulfillment

YC
RT
PA
cycles of customers’ LTI
These multistep workflows may include requests increase EP,
MU
TIST

S
IE
many iterative cycles and a changing cast of satisfaction and Fulfill MUL

RT
PA
Plan NA
L

workflow participants across the phases of the likelihood of EX
TE
R

assess, plan, fulfill, and confirm of the service- retaining loyal
customers. SERV
ICE-FULFILLMENT CYCLE
fulfillment cycle.
Service_Fulfillment_Cycle.A.2.2 ©2009 GISTICS All rights reserved



What types of mail drive the business case for digital mail processing and centralized digital mailrooms?

CRITICAL MAIL ITEMS IN COMPLEX MAILFLOWS TIME TO SATISFY CUSTOMER REQUESTS Complex workflows also emphasize what
we call service-fulfillment cycles—demand by
How many important pieces of mail get lost The bottom figure on the right depicts a
customers for information related to a buying
in the daily shuffle of mailrooms and Website category of critical mail items in complex
decision, support related to using a product or
communications, delaying sales cycles, workflows—a small, often quite diverse, and
service, and service of an account or program.
creating higher-cost personal interventions meaningful portion of all inbound mail that
by field sales or customer service staff, or represents considerable value: new accounts, High volumes of inbound mail can obscure
putting the firm at risk of noncompliance with orders, and service requests. critical mail items. Complex workflows
regulations? with multiple parties and hand offs entail
The number of decision-making variables
additional risks: delay, mistakes, and customer
The sheer volumes of mail and the diverse or items to consider in taking well-informed
dissatisfaction.
types of mail make it difficult to answer that actions and the number of participants who
question. engage in two or more decision points all
contribute to the complexity of core business
In this paper, we make the case that the digital
processes.
processing of higher added-value mail will
deliver sufficient short-term value that the firm
will recoup the total investment in a centralized
digital mailroom.
The top figure on the HIGH VOLUME MAILFLOWS OFTEN HIDE CRITICAL MAIL ITEMS
right depicts how greater
volumes of mailed and GREATER GREATER GREATER GREATER

emailed items and a greater
High-risk Critical Mail
Number of unique types of mail and documents processed

number of unique types of Mailflows Items in

and authorizers per service-fulfillment cycle
making variables, and service-fulfillment steps

Number of variables or items to consider
mail and documents can Complex

Number of workflow participants, decision-

Number of decision-makers, reviewers
in taking a well-informed action
mask inherent business Workflows

DECISION POINTS

PARTICIPANTS
risks—communications and ENTAILMENTS
documents that entail a
TYPES

greater number of workflow
participants, decision-making
variables, and service-
fulfillment steps.

FEWER FEWER FEWER FEWER
Doc_Volume_Decisions_Participants.B.1.3 © 2009 GISTICS, All rights reserved.

LOWER VOLUME GREATER LOWER VALUE GREATER
Number of mailed and emailed items processed


Digital Mailrooms: Fixing Your Weakest Link in the Customer Value Chain

Digital Mailrooms: Fixing Your Weakest Link in the Customer Value Chain

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