A while back I read a research paper by Gartner, Inc. that discussed the importance of Content Enabled Vertical Applications, or CEVAs. While the drive for automation, efficiency, cost reductions and facilitation of revenue generation is what every corporation is looking for from technology companies, it amazes me that most have taken the easy road and automated everything after the fact; either after the transaction is complete or significantly after the event occurred. I will explain further in a bit.
The Problems
There are a number of general problems out there that we live with or deal with from time-to-time like applying for insurance, applying to graduate school or helping a student apply to college, completing paperwork when buying or selling a house, completing paperwork when submitting claims, filling out forms at doctors’ offices, filling out forms at county offices … do I need to go on?
We all simply complete the required paperwork, but I know a lot of you think, “Why the hell isn’t this automated? The doctor asked me the same questions last time I was here.”
You live with it because it isn’t that bad, and you really don’t go to the doctor everyday or help your child apply to college everyday … or apply for new insurance everyday.
But, there is a major problem. You fill out forms by hand using a pen while someone else keys it into a back-end system of some sort (hint: the ENTERPRISE CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM). Your handwritten form is inherently fraught with errors (while you won’t admit it, your handwriting does stink, and it is getting worse every day because you use e-mail to communicate instead of writing a nice letter to your mother, which is another subject … memo to self: write more to your mother).
Where was I? Ahhh yes … fraught with errors that are very costly to fix and potentially cause very bad and unintended (we’ll call them) situations. Typically, you spend unnecessary time with a receptionist who has to take the brunt of the situation. Or even worse, the error causes someone to prescribe a potentially dangerous medicine, and you get sick or worse.
Nonetheless, the people on the receiving end of the redundant, ill-conceived forms are inundated with issues that are time consuming, costly and error prone. So why does this problem still exist? (I know I ask myself this every time I complete a form.) Well, here is the answer: Software and data vendors have focused only on the problem of what to do with the form once it is received for processing.
What of ECMS?
ECMS are all over imaging, storing, indexing, distributing, and managing a completed document. These solutions have come a long way, but I would suggest they have yet another leap that must be made to solve the problems I have been discussing … if I have to fill out one more form for health insurance…!
Back to that research paper by Gartner entitled, “Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management, 2007“: Gartner discusses that the top ECM vendors, namely IBM, Oracle, EMC, Open Text and others, offer very similar components in their suite of services. Gartner stresses that while EMC vendors’ customers have been screaming for industry-specific solution on the front end of CEVAs, the vendors have not offered solutions other than customized, expensive, single-problem, non-repeatable solution provided by overpriced professional service/consulting partners (where billable hours are still king).
We know these partners as the “companies nobody ever got fired for hiring” … EDS, Accenture, etc. Gartner states that all major ECM vendors must focus on CEVA solutions to maintain a competitive advantage in the ECM space.
Hmmmmm … Easy to deploy and maintain. Repeatable CEVAs for any industry. Interacts with customers, sales reps, outside agents, wholesalers, managers, and back-end ECM systems. Facilitates the entire transaction origination - potentially paperless - through the company, back and forth to the customer, keeping everyone informed of the status every step of the way. Hmmmmm … It’ll never happen!
WRONG, it can happen. Right now. It’s available!
The Efficient Forms Transaction Origination Platform (TOP) was created for this purpose and is designed to allow business analysts with domain knowledge (note: non programmers), to configure, deploy and maintain complex CEVAs.
The horizontal solution is changing the way data is captured, forms are completed and data is transmitted to ECM solutions. TOP-created CEVAs are not meant to replace any components of existing ECM vendors’ suites. TOP solutions will dramatically extend the functionality of these ECM solutions, and ECM customers will rejoice!
And one day you will tell your children that they have it easy. “When I was growing up, we had to actually fill out five or more forms every time we went to the doctor … with a pen no less … on every separate form, I had to re-write my name, address, social security number … you don’t know how lucky you are!”
