Innovative EDRM

Many organisations are continuing down the same old EDRM path, often with a poor end-outcome. But less traditional, rule-based and role-based applications are paving the way for success.

By Tony de Bree

Due to the explosive growth of the internet and the use of new, cheaper technology in general, an increasing number of digital information and knowledge exchanges are occurring on a global scale. Examples of this can be found in everyday life:

E-mail;
Audio files including MP3s;
Presentations;
Electronic books (ebooks);
Documents;
Transactions;
Conference calls;
Payments;
Voice-over internet protocol;
Software;
Webcams;
Mobile phones;
Personal organisers;
iPods;

This means that our world has become a little smaller in many ways – we can interact and transact with people in different countries for a relatively low cost, which implies that we should all revisit our existing strategies and ways of working.

Anyone can see that these interactions represent a wealth of intangible assets that can be leveraged in many ways if you can capture, store, analyse and retrieve them effectively – and then convert into new information or knowledge products and services.

However, there is increasing pressure from internal, national and international regulators to keep all kinds of records about many different types of interactions and transactions, including information about decision-making processes. The main areas of attention are:

Terrorist financing;
US and European Union sanction policies;
Records management and record keeping;
Interaction monitoring and filtering;
Transaction monitoring and filtering.

In practice this means being, and staying, compliant with often contradictory or even conflicting rules and regulations. Sometimes, even unknown rules.

In addition, many state, national and international bodies demand structured records-management policies to address the issues raised by compliance and freedom of information legislation.

The basic objective of compliance is to make sure that your organisation – your strategy, business processes, people, and information and communications technology (ICT) – is always in line with internal and external rules. Given the current state of play, it can be expected that these compliance-related demands will continue to increase in the next few years.

Although that all seems very gloomy, there is a positive side. Storing, capturing, analysing and retrieving all these documents and records can also present enormous opportunities for creating wealth and customer value.

Traditional answers from organisations
Most people will generally react to this in the same way. Many small and medium-sized organisations, as well as larger businesses such as banks and insurance companies will usually take the following, traditional measures:

Appoint large numbers of new employees for compliance, audits and risk management. These in turn will all start their own projects and activities to implement the changes that they think are needed in their own area of expertise or responsibility;
Many will produce a continuous flow of often paper-based guidelines and procedures – or publish them on their internal or external websites – without looking at consistency or applicability;
Everybody will use a multitude of control and monitoring systems, will ask for different reports and management information systems and will all use and demand different archiving solutions;
Different projects and activities will be carried out by different internal and external stakeholders without much internal and external alignment.

From my own experience and from talking to hundreds of people during seminars and workshops, one thing is clear: this approach does not, and will never work. It leads to a waste of scarce resources rather than to a solution for the problem.

We know that many people use advanced technology and digital-communication media to interact and transact in split-seconds across boundaries of organisations and countries. So, how can we think that we can monitor and control them using traditional, even old-fashioned, methods?

The answer seems simple: surely we cannot? However, the solution is there and has been used, for example, in the dealing rooms of banks for many years: rule-based and role-based applications that monitor, detect and record business processes. Without these, every transaction and interaction would have to be stopped and examined.

At the same time, the implementation of these systems has led to leaner and meaner processes (and thus to reduced costs), fewer authorisation and management layers, and to increased quality and speed in decision making. In fact, most decisions are actually made automatically by the rule-based applications. Manual intervention is only required in exceptional circumstances. Last but not least, all records are kept for a long time in case of problems.

An innovative best practice approach
Considering the challenges, the fact that traditional methods will not work and the need for an integrated and aligned approach to electronic document and records management (EDRM), every change or transformation project should actually cover four dimensions:

Strategy;
People;
Business processes and ways of working;
Technology.

All four dimensions of the required change or transformation program should be managed as one project, by one programme manager, under one owner, including the tasks and activities required to implement the EDRM system as an integrated part of the project. Due to the presence of new technology all other dimensions will change, so the EDRM implementation should also support and lead to a new strategy.

The secret of a successful EDRM project using this approach is not in the initial alignment of the four dimensions, but in continuously aligning them. New things will happen all the time so it is inevitable that change will be required accordingly. And the project management, the people and the ICT – as well as the partners and suppliers involved – will have to be flexible and capable of re-aligning.

Four easy steps for implementing EDRM
One way to align the EDRM programme is to actually divide the project management and the planning into four logical, smaller steps. Remember that the end objective of the project should be that all stakeholders and users should be able to capture, store, analyse and retrieve all relevant information and knowledge, including records and documents, when and where they need it. And that they do that while complying with the rules that apply to them.

In the pre-phase of the project it is absolutely critical to have a clear first draft of a high-level process and data-based ICT architecture design. You will also need a new organisational design covering competency profiles and new divisions of roles and tasks. The four stages for EDRM implementation are:

1. Standardisation
Cleaning and filing of all relevant records/documents. This includes actual records management in a non-automated sense. It will also cover standard document categories, classifications and standard security matrices (who is allowed to do what with each record). It is very important that existing problems with ways of working in large user groups are identified during this phase and the next, and then taken into account during the third stage.

2. Imaging and scanning
All paper-based records in different formats will have to be imaged and scanned. These should be stored in flexible content repositories that can be accessed in a compliant but user-friendly way. Implementing powerful search engines will reduce the fear of records being lost completely. At this stage, users will already start to see the advantages of the new system.

3. Implementation of rule-based workflows
We never make fundamental changes in ways of working or implement new workflows and procedures in stages one and two. The advantage of this approach is that users can get used to working in different ways with the new technology, while also experiencing the benefits from it. In stage three, however, organisations will actually become more customer-centric, often with new people, new jobs and new processes. From a managerial and project-management perspective this is where the most ‘pain’ and the more severe resistance can be expected.

4. Integrate business components with the EDRM solution
Important examples are electronic contact management and customer-service components, including complaints handling. Again a data and process-based solution, working on the principle that everybody should be able to have access to all documents and records unless otherwise stated.

What is the role of technology in a successful EDRM project?
Until now, we have not covered the topic of technology in this article, which has been done on purpose. The reason why is a simple one. Many EDRM projects that have failed were started or driven by an ICT perspective. That is a guarantee for failure. One of the other main reasons for failed EDRM projects is that decision making and project management is driven by internal ICT departments that often have a low esteem for clients or business/organisational representatives.

Using previous workshops on this subject and from my own experiences, it is clear that in many organisations, business and ICT alignment is still a major issue. And on top of that, one of the main organisational bottlenecks to be aware of is that many ICT departments, especially in larger organisations, do not know exactly what the new technology is capable of. Even in the past three years, technology has evolved in that you can do much more for much less. Businesses that are unaware of these changes tend to propose older solutions from well-known vendors.

If we go back to the main objective of the project, we can actually see that the following ICT requirements and facilities add great value and, if implemented correctly, can provide a monitored and compliant self-service model for many internal and external stakeholders:

Full process integration including internal and external stakeholders;
Rule-based dynamic e-forms;
Role-based access models;
Rule-based security models;
Rule-based workflows (tight and flexible) with compliance embedded;
Unified contact database;
Rule-based routings of documents and records;
Audit trails;
History;
Event-driven applications;
Generating alerts;
Monitoring progress and (compliant) behaviour;
All thin or slim client browser-based.

If you look at this list very closely, you will notice that there are many features of expert-system design, decision-support system design and knowledge-based design used. That is in line with the example we gave from the bank’s dealing room and is appropriate for the external challenges you will face – this type of technology provides flexibility.

These are the areas you should look to cover in your requirements, design and choice of software and supplier. If you want to know more about a concrete example, request a copy of a case study about an actual application.

Achieving a return on investment
There are many ways in which you can achieve a significant return on investment (ROI) by using such an integrated approach with new technology for EDRM. A few practical examples include:

Reduction of full-time equivalents in many different processes (43 to 53 per cent);
Implementation of automated procedures and new ways of working;
Prevention of certain undesirable events from happening (for example, deletion of documents or not being able to find documents);
Reduction of opportunity costs (for example, cost of compliance, litigation and claims);
Alerts when important changes in the client profile, data or product and services portfolio occur;
Reduced time required for (commercial) review of client data or client profiles and documents;
Global secure and compliant thin/slim self-service access (when allowed), including for clients.

Critical success factors for any EDRM-project
Many people have asked me over the years if there are any specific things that I have learnt about success and failure within EDRM projects. We all have to realise that in many cases an EDRM project is nothing more and nothing less then a specific example of a large project involving drastic changes in ways of working and use of technology, people and strategies. Here are some things I have realised from my own experiences and by talking to many project managers and executives.

There has to be a clear vision and strategy in the organisation;
A small, highly balanced and competent team should be empowered to do what is necessary;
Use a holistic or integrated approach as we have discussed;
Ensure that there is fast decision making, a clear mandate and that there are short, direct reporting lines to senior management;
Avoid large working groups and steering committees;
Choose the right external partners;
Choose the right technology;
Choose people with a ‘teamwork’ attitude;
Include managers and other employees that have the ability to see opportunities instead of only risks;
Do it once – but do it right.

All of these topics are covered in more detail in focused master classes and workshops and in books relating to issues including stress management and time management.

Tony de Bree is a part-time change and project manager at ABN AMRO in Amsterdam. He also runs a freelance advisory business. For more information go to http://www.go4estrategy.com or contact Tony by e-mail at: tony@go4estrategy.com.

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Some tips from the EDRM front.

Manage by opportunity and not by fear;
Think ‘money’ not ‘costs’;
Connect the EDRM-project to a flexible strategy;
Take the integrated approach;
Structure and protect small projects with achievable deadlines (four to six months maximum);
Empower a small team with direct lines to CEO/top-manager;
Use new technology;
Avoid the big suppliers.