MANAGE, COMMUNICATE, THRIVE

Online Statements - Driving Savings & Benefits

Despite the increasing digitization of the world today, paper is still a chief mechanism of communicating with customers. The Postal Service estimates that U.S. households receive over 150 billion pieces of mail each year. While about 75 percent is “junk” mail, bills, statements and other transactional documents make up the remaining volume.

Ever since the first electronic bill presentment and payment solutions in the late 1990’s, the notion of paperless billing has been a holy grail for many businesses and organizations. But until recently making the transition to electronic billing has been too complex and expensive for many organizations to consider. But a new breed of solutions like Statement2Web allows you to migrate from paper to electronic statement delivery without the high cost and high level of support needed in the past.

If you have considered moving your customer statements to an online delivery mechanism in the past, now may be a good time to reconsider how Statement2Web can assist in making your strategy a reality. One clear benefit is in postage – by far the biggest expense associated with printing and mailing customer statements. Indeed, the cost of postage has risen 24 percent in the past eight years and organizations often struggle to make the most of postal savings in the face of ever-changing USPS regulations. Moving to online delivery is one way to battle these rising operating costs.

Online statement delivery can dramatically improve your cash flow as well, since customers are more likely to pay outstanding bills more quickly in an online environment. One click is all it takes to pay the outstanding balance vs. having envelopes sit on desks and in in-baskets waiting for attention. This is an important improvement to cash flow, especially in today’s economy.  

Contact us today to learn more about how we can help through our network of independent and certified Statement2Web partners.

Call 770-814-4284 or email info@outsourcemanagement.com

Managed Print Services – Gain Cost & Operational Benefits

There is a problem confronting small and mid-sized businesses today: mis-managed office printing and copying. Pick any department or any business process and you can bet that printers and copiers are essential tools to get the job done. But despite their importance to company performance, printers and copiers are rarely managed as a corporate asset. Often budgeting is fragmented among various departments and resource planning is for the most part based on proposals from incumbent vendors rather than internal strategy. This inevitably results in increased operating costs, sub-optimal performance of the environment, and lost opportunity for process improvement.

Printers and copiers are an environment that is ripe for greater efficiency and cost savings. Analysts estimate that companies in America spend 6% of their annual revenue on work group printers, copiers and scanners. Ironically, despite significant advancements in office technology most companies struggle to control and minimize the costs associated with office documents. As a result, workgroup printing and copying remains an untapped opportunity for savings and improvement in most organizations today.

One way to get your output under control is through Managed Print Services (MPS) – a strategy to analyze and manage document output devices throughout your company with an eye to minimize the costs. Other benefits come from enhanced productivity, increased efficiency and improved environmental sustainability (to name a few).  

The best Managed Print strategies follow this famous adage: Good data equals good decisions. You must first have a clear understanding of a number of benchmarks in order to optimize your environment. Important data points include device usage, service and uptime, supplies and consumables, and peak demand; among many others. Without a good baseline analysis even the best MPS strategy can run off course. But gathering and analyzing “speeds and feeds” is only one part of the MPS equation. You must also purposefully monitor and examine the environment with an eye to constantly adjust machines, features and placements as needed to ensure optimal performance and cost-effectiveness. Organizations often focus their attention on printers and copiers only every few years when it is time to renegotiate a lease agreement. Ongoing management is needed to ensure both your machines and your vendor contracts perform as expected.

Getting the most from MPS requires an independent view. Most copier companies and print equipment suppliers provide “fleet management” as a value-added service, but these vendor supplied resources typically lack the perspective and motivation required to ensure the best results. After all, vendors and suppliers often benefit financially from inefficiencies in your printer and copier environment. An independent and vendor-neutral resource is essential in order to perform unbiased analysis and most effectively manage the ongoing performance of your fleet.  

 
Contact us today to learn more about how we can help through our network of independent and certified Managed Print4U partners.
 
Call 770-814-4284 or email info@outsourcemanagement.com

OMI Sponsors Interview Jeff Hayzlett "The Mirror Test"

OMI provider of Statement2web and Managed Print4u is pleased to sponsor the Document Strategy Podcast - Episode 21 - with host Kevin Craine and interview with Jeff Hayzlett, the best selling author of the book "The Mirror Test," on the podcast. Jeff was, until just recently, the chief marketing officer for Kodak. Known for his outspoken appearances on numerous TV reality shows, including Celebrity Apprentice with Donald Trump, Jeff has built his career on having the ability to get people to look up and pay attention to the problems at hand. And as Jeff points out, if you aren't willing to look at what's working and what isn't - and then take the necessary steps to fix them -you are in for a rough ride.

Listen to the Interview with Jeff Hayzlett:

Click Here

Transpromo Communication Strategies in the Real World

There has been a lot of buzz about “Transpromo” recently – the concept of customizing bills and statements with personalized messaging aimed at wooing existing customers with additional products and services. By including relevant and personalized marketing content, monthly statements can rise above the din of competitive messages and transform into a beneficial marketing edge. And since they require an action, bills and statements rarely find their way into the trash.

 

Unfortunately, Transpromo is an overused word and an underused technique. As a result, many organizations are missing significant opportunity to build a competitive edge. One reason for this is that most strategies touted by industry pundits and large systems suppliers have been simply too complex and costly for most organizations to consider in the past. But times are changing. Transpromo technologies and concepts have matured, making both the complexity and the price points more manageable. Now is the time to take another look at how transpromo communication strategies can make a difference or otherwise risk being left behind by your competition.  

 

How can you begin to take advantage of transpromo in the real world?  One way is to start with your online customers. After all, if you have already converted a portion of your customers to online statements – through Statement2Web, for example –  you already have a discrete group of customers that are perfect candidates for a transpromo strategy. These customers already interact with you online, plus you have a great deal information about what they read, what they click, and what they buy. This makes it easy to initiate transpromotional marketing for additional products and services -- you have a trusted communications channel with your customer paired with a wealth of information about their interests and account history.  

 

 

Proving the success of your transpromo efforts is easier with your online customers vs. a similar campaign in print. By virtue of being online, it is easy to capture data on what your customer clicks, and what information is read, and then track the response. You can even automate a follow up with an email, direct mail, or a phone call. Ultimately, your online customers can be a great test bed for broader cross-media marketing initiatives; once a campaign or approach has been proven effective in the online environment it can be moved out to other more traditional print-based marketing channels.

 

The bottom line is this: Don’t get left behind when it comes to transpromo. Contact OMI today to learn more about how we can help you make the most of simple strategies that will grow your business and build customer relationships.

 

Call 770-814-4284 or email info@outsourcemanagement.com

OMI Sponsors Go Green! Protect the Environment & Bottom Line Webinar

Go Green! Protect the Environment & Your Bottom Line |Live on Thursday, March 11th at 2:00 PM EDT | 11:00 AM PDT 

Upcoming Live Event On-Demand Sponsored by OMI:

                   

Just a few short years ago, the buzz was all about "going green." Then the bottom fell out of the economy, and everyone's focus shifted to "saving green." But the two concepts are not mutually exclusive. In fact, this shift in our collective consciousness offers credit unions not only an opportunity to adopt more sustainable and responsible practices but to expand their business to meet these changing consumer demands.

From electronic statements to wind/solar power offices, financial institutions are meeting the needs of a constituency with increasing awareness and concern about the environment. In many cases, these practices and investments can yield immediate and long-term savings for the organization. Some can actually help add to your bottom line.

Join us for this CUtv event which covers several areas in further greening of your business, including:

Sans Paper: No longer is it necessary to kill a forest each month to provide monthly account statements. Nor is it necessary to turn over your paper money . . . for more paper.

Transportation: Have you switched your lending marketing focus to attract more "hybrid" auto loans? Or perhaps you can join the growing number of credit unions who are meeting their demand for bicycle loans.

Green Architecture: The public is increasingly more aware of and more demanding of their retail and service partners to be at the forefront in energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and sustainable resources.

Green Architecture, Part 2: Many homebuilders are leading with environmental benefits. Consumers are looking for houses that both fiscally and environmentally responsible -- and lenders to with similar values to partner with them.

Remote Deposit Capture: Another tool to help consumers save time, money, and gas with fewer trips to deposit checks -- allowing staff to concentrate on areas of customer service that require face-to-face attention. 

 

OMI Reduces Paper At Pacific Northwest Medical Center

                                                                     

The old adage, “good data equals good decisions,” holds true for this leading medical center in Washington State that recently adopted Print Management Software to better analyze and monitor their workgroup printing environment. With approximately 500 printers spread across a 13 site campus, it became clear to the team of IT analysts that a more complete and flexible business intelligence tool was needed in order to encourage users to reduce printing and adopt electronic document delivery using PDF. The goal was to build user awareness concerning the total cost of printing to the organization. The team also sought to better administer printer leases and vendor billing as well.

After evaluating several competing options, OMI was selected to deploy software solution enterprise wide. OMI provided a flexible and complete print tracking software that monitors printers and printing to help organizations track user activity, identify problems and quantify the total cost of printing. According to the systems analysts on the team, the new solution has bolstered awareness and visibility concerning the environment across the organization. As a result, they are now in position to build meaningful strategies to reduce printing costs by moving to an increasingly electronic environment.

 

 

          Hear the Results!

            Click Here

 

 

The Business of Being Green

 

By: Green T The world is changing. Like the many great empires who came before us, for the first time, we are learning how to cope with having too much. The magazines that used to tell us what to buy now tell us how to de-clutter our lives. Business has also taken a turn. Mail is not received the way it was 50 years ago. In recent years, what used to be a practical and appreciated means of communication has become a burdening clutter. Within merely one year the average person comes in contact with 663 pounds of paper. According to Inform.org "Only about 10% of the paper we consume in a year is preserved in the form of filed documents, photographs, and books or magazines." As our mailing practices change, business must change with it. See How Business is Changing

 

 

Statement2web Competitive Edge at 1st Security Bank

 

                            Listen         Read

"A lot of financial institutions offer electronic statements and Statement2Web certainly puts us up there with the best of them. It is certainly something we needed to offer in order to be competitive."

Headquartered in Mountlake Terrace, Washington, 1st Security Bank of Washington has been serving customers since 1936. This local bank is dedicated to serving customers' financial needs in the best way possible with the most advanced technologies and services. 1^st Security places the highest priority on customer service, and offering products, services, and rates that rival the best.

It's no surprise then that 1^st Security began in 2006 to offer their customers the convenience and security of electronic statements using Statement2Web from OMI, a managed service that gives banks and credit unions the ability to quickly and cost-effectively implement electronic statements. 1^st Security has just recently upgraded to the new version of Statement2Web and, according to Sandy Hutchins from the business services division, the move has provided a new level of customer service and target marketing that gives the bank a competitive edge.

Sandy Hutchins feels that electronic statements via Statement2Web are helping 1^st Security expand beyond their current market and reach new customers. "It is really allowing us to better serve our existing customers and as new customers come in it is something more that we can offer. Coupled with the added security and the convenience, it makes it an attractive product to have."

National Distributor Cuts Cost with OMI Managed Print Solutions Group

                          Listen         Read

 Reducing Print,Cutting Costs, Boosting Efficiency at National Distribution Company

"Vendors have asked if they could come in and look at our fleet so that they could save us money. I have to explain to them that we've already taken care of it ourselves."  Keith Royle, Computer Operations Manager-

A National Distributor has distinguished itself over time through its growth, financial success and industry-leading efficiency; so it's no surprise that the company recently embarked on a project to curb overspending in their office printing environment. The OMI Managed Print Solutions Group was engaged to assist with the project and provide objective analysis, and PrinterRx, detailed data gathering software, was used to collect printer device and performance information.

Since the company has a variety of operating centers with a diverse network of printing, copying and multi-function devices, a centralized analysis and management strategy was needed to ensure cost savings and the highest return on investment for their printer fleet.

According to Keith Royle, Computer Operations Manager, This National Leader in Distribution was able to immediately reduce the number of devices in the fleet based upon the analysis. "We wanted to validate our print volumes, as well as what was being printed and who was printing the documents to the MFP devices we have on the floor," said Royle. "And so far what we've done here at our home office is that we had 150 printers and now we only have 37."

Savings as a result of the downsizing have been significant, not only because of the reduced fleet size, but also because the analysis uncovered work going outside of the company that could be more cost-effectively produced inside.  "There was a lot of work that was being done outside, and instead of having it done by somebody else, we're bringing the work back here." By virtue of having better visibility into the volumes and types of documents being printed, the company is now able to make more intelligent decisions about where output needs to be produced for the best cost.

Statement2web Sponsors Educational Podcast on TransPromo Market

 

Statement2web sponsors Document Strategy's educational podcast on the current state of industry as it relates to utilizing transactions such as account statements, bills, invoices and other transactional related documents as the primary marketing communication medium to constituent base. The podcast discusses the definition of Trans Promotional communications, recent advances in technology and live reporting from the Trans Promo Summit recently held in Boston.