DOCUMENT Strategy Winter 2020

SPECIAL FEATURE

CCM SOLUTIONS EXCLUSIVE - PAGE 30

DOCUMENTmedia.com | Winter.20

2021:

WHAT’S NEXT? WORKPLACE CHALLENGE: THE COVID-19 AFTERMATH EVOLVING CCM PROCESSES ARE CREATING NEW OPTIONS

MADMEN3

TABLE OF CONTENTS volume 27 issue 4 | Winter.20 | DOCUMENTmedia.com

FEATURES 10

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Crises Highlight Outdated Processes Cataclysmic disruptions push supply chains to go digital

By Connie Moore

The Future of Omnichannel

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What will CCM look like in 10 3 Years?!

By Pat McGrew

18 Workplace Challenge: The COVID-19 Aftermath

Maintaining a remote workforce of some scale, into the future

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Evolving CCM Processes Are Creating New Options

As CCM has become more sophisticated, so have the demands made upon it

By Kemal Carr

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We Went Straight to The Experts

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Top 5 Trends We Learned at DSF ‘20

2021: What’s Next?

By DOCUMENT ADVISORY BOARD

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By Scott Draeger and Allison Lloyd

DEPARTMENTS 06

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By Bob Larrivee

Letter from the Advisory Board

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What’s New

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Think About It

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SPONSORED CONTENT 05

Papyrus CCM Received Best Marks in Gartner Peer Insights

07 The Key to Transformative Customer

Communications Management

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Digital Killed the CCM Star?

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How to Build A Digital Communication Hub for Print Suppression

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Using Collaborative Communications to Drive Better Customer Experience

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Which Customer Communication Management (CCM) Solution Is Right For You?

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APPLICATION ARTICLE

Papyrus CCM Received Best Marks in Gartner Peer Insights The Papyrus Software solution is used by world’s largest global corporations to introduce flexibility and provide service that seamlessly spans all channels — from physical to digital. Papyrus customers gave our CCM platform an average of 4.5 out of 5.0 stars based on 67 reviews in the Customer Communications Management market, according to Gartner Peer Insights.

Customers gave Papyrus high ratings in all categories and were very satisfied with the Papyrus Software Support & Service.

Papyrus Software offers a single platform solution for the design of any outgoing business document type and communication of any complexity.

The digital transformation roadmap must span across print and digital, offering customer interactions by all electronic channels while providing support for high-volume document output, single interactive letters and real-time message distribution.

Papyrus customer Dow Jones tackled the above challenges with a strategic approach, consolidating all worldwide output on Papyrus Software’s digital communication platform. The new Statement Presentment and Delivery Solution running in the Amazon AWS cloud was built using an agile approach by three teams around the globe in the US, India and Europe.

The solution provides consolidated print and electronic delivery of statements, bills and letters. The system allows business departments to manage the print and email bundling selection. Data originates from PeopleSoft worldwide with a mixture of languages, including Japanese, Russian and Mandarin — often in the same data field. Multichannel output occurs via email with attachments, archived PDF and mailroom PDF for invoices and letters.

The number of templates is greatly reduced by migrating from monolithic templates into modular building blocks to be reused across all documents. All is maintained centrally when change is needed, resulting in time savings and less effort, allowing more control over all content across print and e-delivery.

From Physical to Digital Customer letters, invoices and documents are mission critical and sit at the heart of your applications. Managing these communications is time sensitive and often creates a burden for the bustling IT department. Papyrus Software offers a solution that empowers the business users without reliance on IT. The Papyrus Business Designer allows the business user to take ownership of all documents and customer correspondence.

Business users can design, maintain, extend, change and signoff templates, layouts, tables and text building blocks.

Our customers are able to set new standards in communicating with their clients and considerably enhance the Customer Experience. They achieve about 20x higher daily communication

Papyrus CCM Platform Empower business users to improve CX Reduce number of document templates Ensure compliance, improve quality control Provide full omni-channel communication

production and 50% savings in time, while increasing efficiency and agility with business users managing up to 95% of the overall business communication.

WellCare Health Plans, an American insurance company with more than 6.3 million members, utilized the Papyrus platform and experienced a 75% reduction in printing, paper and physical file storage costs, along with a 20% reduction of rework due to quality measures. Job lifecycle time savings are at least 20% due to eliminating the human hand-off bottlenecks and adding ad-hoc goals that trigger predefined workflows.

Move Business Correspondence to the Web Supported by Papyrus’ WebClient architecture, clerks can access the system independently from their office locations and easily create documents and forms that cater directly to a customer’s needs by simply answering prompted questions.

The associated document and form connects to the company’s back-end services and fetches required data on the fly.

The system notes the clerk’s decisions and performs any required work, automatically assembling the business document that will exactly match the customer-specific situation, while taking all relevant regulations into consideration and making sure there are no mistakes or omissions.

Another Papyrus Software customer Die Mobiliar, a Swiss insurance provider with nearly 1.7 million customers, implemented a centralized correspondence solution for its 4,000 clerks with the Papyrus Platform. The new solution exceeded expectations for Die Mobilar, reducing the number of document templates, allowing synchronous integration with back-end system using WebServices and significantly decreasing time to market for new services.

info@isis-papyrus.com 817.416.2345

LETTER FROM THE ADVISORY BOARD

End Your Year By Preparing for the Best 2021 We all agree that 2020 has been one humdinger of a year in the customer communications business. It has seen some companies flourish and others succumb to the challenges of shutdowns and lockdowns. For some companies, it has been a time to accelerate development of new products and services, while others have looked for ways to reduce the number of offerings in favor of those with the greatest interest to their customers and the best margins. It’s an exercise that every company approaches differently, but the goal is the same: survival.

Survival will require ongoing attention to how client needs are shifting, but also how your company will meet new workplace and supply chain challenges. It will require staying informed because change is in the air and change brings questions. Will we see permanent changes to the way we work? How will clients want to distribute essential communication? What has to change in how we manage our supply chain relationships?

These are only some of the big infrastructure questions and the answers do not come easily as we approach the end of the calendar year because so much is still up in the air.

This is an industry that has weathered economic downturns and emerged with new technologies and communication approaches to meet changing needs. Each industry segment and the solution providers who serve them will again shift to build communication workflows

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and supply chains that have continuity to previous business processes while laying the groundwork for business processes that are emerging from the challenges of 2020.

This edition is designed to help. Use it as your GPS as you look at planning for 2021. The trends identified by the advisory board on page 22 are based on decades of experience, watching the cycles and tracking how the industry responds.

But, don’t just read the board’s take — talk to your vendors and your staff, especially whose who have customer contact. Make it a regular part of your cadence to touch base across your ecosystem to find those differentiators that will lift you above your competitors.

Supporting the trends overview are great articles that build the pillars for your 2021 strategy. Bob Larrivee brings you guidance on the new workplace challenges you may face while Connie Moore brings an excellent overview of why you should be reviewing your supply chain today. Sandwiched in between are my article on what to look for as you review your omnichannel offerings and Allison Lloyd’s wrap-up of the virtual DSF ‘20. End your year by preparing for the best 2021!

Until next time.

PAT MCGREW

president Chad Griepentrog publisher Ken Waddell managing editor Erin Eagan [ erin@rbpub.com ] contributing editor Amanda Armendariz contributors Paul Abdool Kemal Carr Bob Larrivee Pat McGrew Connie Moore advertising Ken Waddell [ ken.w@rbpub.com ] 608.235.2212 audience development manager Rachel Chapman [ rachel@rbpub.com ] creative director Kelli Cooke

PO BOX 259098 Madison WI 53725-9098 p: 608-241-8777 f: 608-241-8666 email: customerservice@rbpub.com DOCUMENT Strategy Media (ISSN 1081-4078) is published on a daily basis via its online portal and produces special print editions by Madmen3, PO BOX 259098, Madison, WI 53725-9098. All material in this magazine is copyrighted ©2020 by Madmen3 All rights reserved. Nothing may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. Any correspondence sent to DOCUMENT Strategy Media, Madmen3, or its staff becomes the property of Madmen3.

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APPLICATION ARTICLE

The Key to Transformative Customer Communications Management Many business enterprises are in the midst of some type of transformative change. The impact of a pandemic has seen significant disruption in many businesses and has accelerated institutional changes already in motion.

In fact, a recent digital engagement report from Twilio revealed that enterprise decision-makers view COVID-19 as a serious change agent in their organizations’ digital communications strategy:  97% of executives say the pandemic sped up their digital transformation  95% say they’re looking for new ways to engage customers  79% say COVID-19 impact has prompted budget increases for digital transformation This new environment has had a significant impact on customer communications management (CCM) decisions.

Many corporate clients going through CCM transformation have found the current environment a tipping point where consumer preferences, societal changes, and new protocols have all combined to accelerate the selection of a trusted partner for this journey.

It’s news to no one that trust is an essential part of relationships, both personal as well as in business. However, with organizations increasingly driven by the confluence of commerce and compliance, this trust factor has become, possibly, the most important value when selecting and partnering with a CCM service provider.

For those of you in the throes of this process — or preparing to be — it’s critically important to step back and ask the right questions. Here are three that will serve as a solid foundation: 1. Can I trust my CCM service provider to understand my changing customer communications needs and create an innovative solution? Since most decisions are made on the basis of risk management, it is important to understand that your service provider understands the current state and more importantly the future state of customer communications.

2. Can I trust my CCM service provider to create a scalable solution that is dynamic enough to grow and adapt to a changing environment? This answer will be evidentiary. A CCM service provider needs to show significant background in implementing both large scale and integrated solutions with success.

The trust factor has become, possibly, the most important value when selecting and partnering with a customer communications management service provider.

3. Can I trust that my CCM service provider will be here tomorrow?

This may be the most important question. As you evaluate CCM service providers, keep your short list limited to those who can exhibit a longstanding track record in this business as well as high probability it will remain in this business well into the future.

As with any significant organizational change, successful CCM transformation requires confident decision making and an investment tied to clear outcomes. It may seem unusual in this 21st century to think in terms of trust and not immediately think in terms of technology.

It’s true, many CCM service providers have the newest technology. Yet, a considerably smaller cohort has the rare combination of technology, people, and processes that an enterprise can trust will be there to support their customers today and tomorrow.

www.rrd.com/bcs Russ Borgman russ.d.borgman@rrd.com 201.280.4569

What’s New Catch up on all the news, opinions, and featured articles that caught our eye on documentmedia.com.

A Point of Inflection: Remote eDiscovery COVID-19 has changed the way we work, perhaps forever. As legal departments and law firms rushed to transition as much of their teams to work from home as possible, many found their infrastructure was not yet up to the job, especially with such little notice – and at such scale. https://documentmedia.com/ article-3049-A-Point-of-Inflection-Remote-eDiscovery.html

Harvesting the Benefits of Your Technology Investment Starts with the Right Support

The birth of what we now know as customer communications management (CCM) began almost two decades ago with the ability to personalize what were then called “documents.” Over the years, those documents have evolved into complex CCM applications designed to support an enterprise’s initiatives to improve the customer experience. https://documentmedia. com/article-3045-Harvestingthe-Benefits-of-Your-Technology-Investment-Starts-withthe-Right-Support.html

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It’s No Longer Business as Usual

Of the many things we’ve learned from the COVID-19 crisis, one is how difficult it can be to do business as usual outside of the office.

Many organizations were caught off guard by the mandatory business shutdown triggered by the pandemic. While some companies were able to make the transition seamlessly, others were scrambling to a create a workable virtual environment in a timeframe that felt like a fast-moving tornado. https://documentmedia. com/article-3054-It’s-No-Longer-Business-as-Usual.html

Finding the Right Partner for Your Customer Communications Transformation In the broadest sense, “transformation” means retiring manual, legacy business processes and systems and replacing them with a reimagined, more efficient and effective process and modern tech stack. With so many of us now working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for digital transformation is coming into sharper focus. https://documentmedia. com/article-3056-Finding-the-Right-Partner-for-Your-Customer-Communications-Transformation.html

Hybrid Mail Helps Enterprises and PSPs Address Work from Home Challenges

Even before COVID-19, work from home arrangements were increasingly common as digital transformation turned virtual collaboration from an occasional job perk into a popular alternative to brick and mortar operations.

According to a survey conducted by MIT, 15% of respondents had worked from home prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 and 34% switched to a teleworking arrangement during the pandemic. These results suggest that as many as half of all Americans are working remotely. https://documentmedia.com/article-3060-Hybrid-MailHelps-Enterprises-and-PSPs-Address-Work-from-HomeChallenges.html

The State of Surviving COVID-19: Perspective from Three PSPs

How are companies within our space handling the pandemic? How are they adapting to the new reality and what hoops must they jump through to continue to do business? We took some time to find out from a few print service providers we know. We queried how they are dealing with trying to keep production flowing, while focusing on employee safety, a nervous workforce and stringent government regulations. https://documentmedia.com/article-3050-The-State-ofSurviving-COVID-19-Perspective-from-Three-PSPs.html

APPLICATION ARTICLE

Digital Killed the CCM Star?

In 1979, the British new wave group the Buggles released their best-known single “Video Killed the Radio Star”, two years before the rise of MTV changed television and music as we knew it. Throughout the 80’s, musicians embraced the new digital medium and through innovation found new ways to reach a larger audience. While it can be debated whether they embraced this new channel out of desire or necessity, the impact on how we experienced music was clear.

This story repeated a decade ago as music streaming services changed how listeners consumed a musician’s ‘product’.

While perhaps not recognized as equally culturally significant, the continued, and intensifying, shift of customer communications from paper to digital channels has parallels to these events. However, unlike the composers of 80’s classic music, many of us in CCM failed to embrace these new channels. The result?

Digital communications teams were developed outside of the traditional CCM/print departments. These teams have grown as channels expanded and developed point solutions that have contributed to a decentralized CCM infrastructure. A reckoning is coming, and CCM teams have an opportunity to embrace digital through innovation.

Traditional CCM solutions were built for print and adapted to support digital channels. While these adaptations facilitated delivery to digital channels, they failed to leverage the full capabilities of each unique digital interaction. Digital point solutions overcame that deficit but contributed to CX inconsistencies plaguing many industries today. The coming convergence of these technologies is our MTV moment.

The time has come to shift our thinking from ‘document composition’ to customer communication as part of a customer experience platform. Communications can be documents but, increasingly, they are SMS alerts, event driven emails (e.g.

Covid 19 response), targeted marketing messages driven by data analytics and reinforced on web portals. CCM teams need to reclaim their mandate by becoming the Communication Center of Excellence within their respective enterprises.

The FIS Touch-CX™ platform provides all the innovations needed to embrace the digital generation and return to a centralized communication management practice:  Data aggregation, normalization and analytics that foster enrichment of data

 Centralized communication design & management  Integrated, multi-channel outbound & inbound communication management  Preference management and digital consent  Content on-demand served to other systems/processes throughout the customer journey  Governance & compliance capabilities critical in highly regulated business environments FIS has worked with banks, insurers and wealth management providers to bring together stakeholders across the enterprise and develop a communication architecture & strategy built for the 21st century real-time, digital world while leveraging the expertise, governance & proven processes developed by CCM teams supporting traditional channels.

Are you “stuck in the 80’s” with silo’d customer experience and CCM technologies battling for position? Like REO Speedwagon, will your CCM strategy last the tests of time? Email FIS today and let our communication management experts help you understand how Touch-CX can benefit you and your organization today.

414.248.3055 brian.paulson@fisglobal.com www.fisglobal.com

By Connie Moore

CRISES HIGHLIGHT OUTDATED PROCESSES

Pandemic(s), wildfires, hurricanes and other cataclysmic disruptions push supply chains to go digital

Supply Chain of the (Near) Future Supply Chain Management Circa 1990s

Painful disruptions highlight the need for business continuity and mitigating against market disruptions.

Post-crisis, enterprises will accelerate investments in technologies that bridge information and process gaps within the supply chain, including process automation, robotic process automation (RPA), Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, cloud, collaboration and information management. Technologies will flow into the supply chain to overhaul outdated processes and mitigate the risk of future market shocks.

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lobal supply chains have largely been ignored by content and process technology vendors.

Despite strategic investments in supply chain management (SCM) software, companies still rely heavily on hard copy documentation and manual processes to undergird and work around enterprise software, creating a gap between what SCM applications and manual processes can do. Few businesses can truly track, trace and analyze — much less adapt, optimize and improve — their supply chains.

Today’s Challenge Immediately, enterprises urgently need to build more transparency, efficiency, integration and agility into supply chains by bridging the gaps between ERP, SCM and manual processes.

Crucial areas for improvement include:  Digitizing labor-intensive, inefficient, paper-based processes  Leveraging business insight from data analysis and process intelligence  Bridging key collaborative elements within supply chains IMMEDIATE ATTENTION REQUIRED Three key areas to focus on are:  Digitizing paper-based processes.

The supply chain’s paper burden is immense, with dozens if not hundreds of hard copy documents used in transportation, quality assurance and billing. For example, managing the movement of agricultural products is often slow, paper-intensive,

expensive and riddled with errors.

Despite technology, most of these documents, from bills of lading to invoices, are hard copy.  Leveraging data analysis and process intelligence. Supply chains produce thousands of data points. With the increased use of IoT for tracking and tracing, these data points will increase exponentially. Supply chain data is information-rich, yet despite big data, machine learning, analytics and AI, it is often poorly managed and unleveraged.  Bridging collaboration within supply chains. Supply chains are interconnected links between suppliers and third-party agencies, including producers, storage, transportation, wholesalers and retailers. Using automation to bridge gaps between links, share information and collaborate to ensure the smooth flow of goods and services is essential. Yet, unless trust is integral to the system, an organization may question the data. For example, though an IT system may say that X amount of inventory is in stock, without relationships in place, most parties will verify the situation manually. (“Intelligent Process Automation — Transform the Customer Experience by Tackling the Dreaded Handoff Syndrome,” Deep Analysis) Moving Forward Business leaders can take quick actions to alleviate pain points during a crisis. Recommendations include:

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 Use process mining to reduce friction. Uncover real-time issues through process mining tools that analyze core processes for root causes — seeking insights into deviations, the causes for delays and factors driving costs higher. Process mining can increase business agility by streamlining work processes going through CRM, ERP and digital process automation systems. (“Process Mining & the Lost Art of Continuous Improvement,” Deep Analysis)  Get a “SWAT” team to identify wasteful work activities. Unautomated activities, once tolerated or ignored, now strain the virtual workforce.

This includes dependence on paper forms, physical mail, and manual workarounds. Put your Six Sigma black belts and Lean practitioners to work on increasing agility and eliminating bottlenecks. (“Digital Transformation — Bridge The Skills Abyss,” Deep Analysis)  Use agile to quickly implement case management (including document management, digital decisioning, and digital process automation). Focus on automating or eliminating manual steps, activities, and processes — while also eliminating physical documents that clog the system.

Target case management at dynamic process instances that take different paths to completion. (“State of the Digital Process Automation Market — Trends 2020-2025,” and “State of the Digital Process Automation Market — Current Assessment 2019,” Deep Analysis)  Use RPA to automate time-consuming, wasteful activities surrounding ERP, SCM and CRM. Automating tasks with RPA may only be temporary, but even that short-term approach can help to bridge performance gaps during extreme disruption to supply chains and other processes.  Explore blockchain to create shared and trusted networks. Enterprise

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







blockchains provide the means to distribute a single version of the truth and ensure the need for only a single shared copy of an invoice, bill of lading, delivery note or manifest throughout the chain. Consortiums and government bodies are actively working to build standards and procedures leveraging blockchain to reduce errors and to speed up slow and costly activities like customs clearance in import/export.

Digitize paper to capture, share and secure paper documents and to provide anywhere, anytime, any device access to those documents. Focus on mobile-friendly cloud-based services and intelligent capture to speed the input of high volumes.

Contextualize collaboration. Too many organizations toss collaboration and document-sharing tools into the workforce and expect employees to adapt them to their work styles, tasks and activities. Instead, contextualize these tools by integrating them into the supply chain. Make sure employees can readily use these tools from home or other remote locations.

Get your brightest leaders working on “disruptive” change management.

For years, adaptive change management has been embraced by leaders during uncertain times—although now replaced by disruptive. Aligning leadership vision and managerial competence to guide the workforce through massive disruptions is crucial for the new “normal.”

Consider using machine learning/AI. Though the popular press positions AI as a big, scary thing, in the real world most enterprise AI is small, low-cost and easy to deploy. Look for pre-packaged products that can (for example) automatically read documents with remarkable accuracy and extract information and data. (“AI/ML in Digital Process Automation: It’s Complicated,” Deep Analysis)

 Take another look at the IoT. In reality, IoT sensors that can track light, humidity, location, barometric pressure and movement within the same device are a commodity. Some of the most advanced sensors cost under $10 a piece, includes RFID, and can deliver extremely deep, accurate and relevant information.  Don’t rip and replace. Never immediately overhaul by ripping and replacing existing systems and procedures.

The results can be disastrous. Look for incremental fixes to existing supply chain activities, experiment locally and see what works and what doesn’t. Think big, create a longer-term strategy for automation and optimization, and work step-by-step toward achieving that goal.

CALL TO ACTION Many SCM systems still rely on paperbased processes, making it extremely difficult to respond quickly during crises. Ironically, the enterprises are unencumbered by complex legacy applications and workflows, making them ideal candidates for transformation. View today’s challenges and disruptions as opportunities to improve, update and digitize using technologies that fill the gaps. O

CONNIE MOORE is a widely recognized and respected analyst throughout the world for her groundbreaking research in business process management and information management. Her research encompasses business transformation, process management, customer experience management, information management, and organizational change management. Previously, she led the business process and content/collaboration research teams at Forrester for over 20 years. She also received the highly coveted Marvin L. Manheim Award from the Workflow and Reengineering Association (WARIA).

APPLICATION ARTICLE

How to Build A Digital Communication Hub for Print Suppression What Is A Digital Communication Hub?

How to Orchestrate?

Preference management system: Integrating with a preference management system (that often already exists in your organization) is essential for digital transformation. We update each communication in the index with the preferences expressed by consumers.

Print suppression: After adding preference of each consumer, group, sort, or split can and applied to each group of communications to split them into print and digital. This is print suppression: suppressing the print output and replacing it with digital.

A digital communication hub handles the processing of both print and digital communications in a coordinated way across all distribution channels at the same time.

Print communications are here to stay, but at the same time, there is an increasing push for digital communications. The answer is to build a digital communication hub that converts some of your production that is currently all print into digital, using print suppression methods.

There are 4 key elements required to build a digital communication hub.

1. Normalize inputs, irrespective of format.

2. Orchestrate all activities to replace silos 3. Centralize processes in a single platform 4. Access to the system for all stakeholders How to Normalize Inputs?

The first step is to normalize the inputs to separate the input and output formats from the communication. Sefas Designer helps you do that by presenting all communications as VPF (Virtual Page Format) irrespective of whether the input was initially raw data that was composed or print stream in AFP, PDF etc. Any format output can be generated using VPF. We also store the metadata of the communication in an index, allowing us to assign a communication to any distribution channel.

Digital notification: We make the digital communications available on a portal or e-presentment application and notify consumers that their communication is ready.

Communication delivery: Using Sefas Designer, the output is rendered in a suitable format.

We orchestrate assignment of different outputs to different delivery channels. Finally, these outputs are distributed to the various channels like postal mail, SMS, email etc.

Tracking: We track communications individually, in addition to job tracking, throughout the process.

A strong digital communication hub is now ready that can suppress print and create digital communications.

contactus@sefas.com 781.425.5060 www.sefas.com

By Pat McGrew

THE FUTURE OF

OMNICHANNEL: What will CCM look like in 10 3 years?!

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C

ustomer communication management (CCM) is a part of every enterprise strategy, but not everyone approaches communication channels in the same way. Some companies are still looking at multi-channel strategies that manage each channel individually, often without any attempt to integrate the messaging or experiences. Others use cross-channel strategies that recognize the interaction of two or more channels, but they often lack a view of opportunities outside a tightly selected set of options. But those who adopt omnichannel approach their customer communication with a deeper level of sophistication. The goal of omnichannel communication is to ensure that a customer experience is consistent regardless of the channel that attracts their attention.

Even omnichannel is evolving, though. The days of CCM strategies that had to manage only print and email communications are long past, but so are the days of managing the extended cross channels. Pushing customer communication to SMS/MMS and to apps expanded the challenge of creating consistent customer experiences. There is enough experience in the market to understand customer expectations in each channel. That is all about to change.

The original idea for this article was to look forward to 2030. If you think back to 2010 and how you were working, the big challenges in customer communications revolved around the technologies required to execute multi-channel strategies. We asked ourselves if people expected email versions of their personal financial communications to look the same as what

they received in the mail. We were starting the conversation about the need for design that expanded and contracted with the available screen size of a desktop monitor, laptop screen, tablet or phone. The brave new world was defined by the emergence of phone and tablet apps as the communication bridge between communicators and their constituents. Looking forward 10 years began to look a bit brave considering the pace of technology change we see today, so let’s dial it back to three years. How will omnichannel communications look in 2023 and 2024?

What Stays the Same?

The table stakes in CCM is the ability to execute an omnichannel strategy that meets the needs of all constituents.

From banking to manufacturing, financial services to insurance, and beyond, enterprises know that there are multiple

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Multichannel

Cross-channel

Omnichannel $

$

$

generations in play, and they all have customer experience preferences. What stays the same is the need to serve information to each type of customer in the manner that works best for them and giving them the ability to change channels to fit their needs. Snowbirds have different needs from business travelers. Different age cohorts have preferences, but not always tied to their age. It becomes important to build omnichannel CCM systems that are agnostic to age and lifestyle assumptions. Instead, omnichannel solutions should be built to support the channels available.

Does that mean delivering secure information over TikTok or Instagram?

Does that mean accepting Venmo payments? Does that mean customer support over Twitter or Facebook? Today those would all be valid avenues to investigate. But don’t stop there.

Technology is an avalanche coming down a hill. No matter what systems you put in place to meet today’s needs, keep thinking about tomorrow.

What’s Coming?

There are four channels that your strategy should be watching: Voice, Video, Touch and Interactivity. Each has interface and security challenges, but each is a part of our lives today. The expectation that they will be expected to integrate with CCM platforms is based on watching

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the evolution of apps from games and distractions to essential elements of our personal financial lives for many.

You may already be supporting voice interaction by supporting Alexa Skills, Apple Siri, Samsung Bixby or Google.

You may have added voice interaction via your apps or on your website with vocal chatbots. The requirement is to go beyond basic support but to ensure that all interaction is captured, analyzed and used to update customer database records so that change requests aren’t missed, and inquiries are correctly routed. How well is voice integrated into your omnichannel CCM ecosystem?

Video has become popular for marketing. Personalized video is not new, but the technology evolves regularly.

Today it is possible to create highly personalized video using applications similar to VDP composition solutions. If you had to implement video as part of your omnichannel strategy today, would you be able to truly integrate it so that you could as easily send video messages to your constituents as you send mailed communication or a text message? That is the coming requirement.

Touch is more interesting. Some of it is addressed with accessibility as a required part of any omnichannel strategy, but it isn’t the only place touch could participate. Touch becomes part of interactivity, and that means that any screen-based

communication should be built with an eye toward customers touching their screens to approve, request, or even sign secure communications.

That brings us to interactivity. Think about the apps on your phone today.

Many allow you to interact with chatbots. Some let you talk to an agent.

Others accept voice commands. That requirement for interactivity on phone apps is expanding to incorporate nonphone platforms, like smart TVs and other home automation platforms. Is your CCM platform ready to take on delivery of secure communication to whatever platform your customer has?

The guidance is to lay the groundwork today for the platforms that are emerging and evolving to support customer communication tomorrow. Do your homework. Watch the market.

Survey your customers. Stay ahead of their needs to keep them loyal! O

PAT MCGREW helps companies perform better in the print hardware, software and printing services industries. Her experience spans all customer communication channels (CCM, ECM, ECP, EMM) and segments including transaction print, data-driven and static marketing, packaging and label print, textiles, and production commercial print using offset, inkjet, and toner.

APPLICATION ARTICLE

Using collaborative communications to drive better customer experience Let’s face it, the new Coron-a-conomy is reshaping customer behaviour. Customers have dramatically changed the way they shop, dine and purchase. Given this, and the already rising customer expectations of a modern digital buyer, you need to focus even more on ways to create extraordinary customer experiences.

Today, the companies that quickly adapt their customer engagement strategy to meet the new needs of their customers in their preferred channels will have the competitive advantage.

This could mean more frequent empathetic communications or new ones like letting customers know what your company is doing to help them navigate the new normal safely. What is clear is that there’s been a dramatic change in the way we communicate with our customers and that customer communications are more critical than ever.

To keep up, companies need to rethink their customer engagement strategies and learn how collaborative communications can help create meaningful customer connections that can last a lifetime.

Why a collaborative approach to communications is the future?

Most organizations have a siloed approach in the way they communicate with customers. Companies with multiple brands often find that each siloed brand has a different “connection” with that one customer.

Additionally, when looking at the internal process perspective, employees who communicate with customers across a variety of delivery channels are especially challenged because communications are often disjointed — different tones, branding, overall look and feel — and there is a lack of information sharing in the same organization. Understanding the consistency of the customers’ experience with the multiple brands is important to understand as well.

So, the question to ask here is, are disconnected communications hurting your business currently with delays and inefficiencies, and preventing you from delivering seamless omnichannel experiences?

An IDC study found that 93% of buyers say customer experience (CX) will influence a purchase decision. As a result, it’s not surprising that 52% of companies are placing CX in their high to top initiatives for 2020-2021.1

1

So, by leveraging a single customer communication management platform, and developing a collaborative culture with collaborative tools, organizations can break down internal barriers and increase operational efficiency and transparency.

Employees need an environment to access communication tools remotely while working with other content authors, designers, marketers, and sales associates to not only gain insight and knowledge from across multiple teams and streamline workflows but also to help drive better customer experiences.

Ways to reinvent a remote workforce to create content that connects experiences Companies are looking for a customer communications platform that is scalable and accessible via the cloud and supports a collaborative working environment. There is a need for remote workers to work together successfully to collaborate on communications, leveraging standardized content but still having flexibility and agility for personalization.

When looking at the learnings of the last few months, new types of information have emerged, and organizations responded quickly and with more frequency to meet new customer expectations on demand. The ability to create new communication templates on the fly is key. So, using a collaborative design-based tool to create new communications that reflect the current state are critical for delivering the next level of communications.

Conclusion To embrace a more digital enterprise you need to establish a collaborative culture to communicate with customers more effectively. As you rethink your customer engagement strategy, consider new factors like frequency of communications, ways to bridge brand consistency and information sources across the organization, and building trusted relationships with empathetic communications.

Learn more about how to drive better customer experiences with collaborative communications. You’re invited to watch an OpenText™ on-demand webinar at https://resources.opentext. com/drive-better-cx.

www.opentext.com/exstream 800.499.6544

Source: COVID-19 IMPACT ON IT SPENDING Survey (Survey conducted during 20th July to 31st July period), IDC, July, 2020

THE WORKPLACE CHALLENGE:

THE COVID-19 HYPER-PERSONALIZED AFTERMATH COMMUNICATIONS SMART BUSINESS LEADERS ARE EXPLORING WILL IT BE AND ABANDONED, OR WILL THE ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES OF ADDRESSING A FEW ISSUES SPUR MAINTAINING A REMOTE WORKFORCEGROWTH? OF SOME SCALE, LONG INTO THE FUTURE

BY ROSS KITTLETY

BY BOB LARRIVEE

C

OVID-19 has forced many businesses to change their operations and business processes to accommodate remote working.

The question is, will this be temporary or a permanent change post COVID-19?

At the time I am writing this, new reports have been released that the number of cases and deaths reported as a result of the pandemic are steadily increasing. Hospitals are at or near full capacity in many areas, and while there are hopes that one or more vaccines will soon be available, there is still much uncertainty about when this will come to an end or at least become controlled.

What is certain, is that many businesses have had to pivot their business

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and operations models in order to remain in business. This means supporting a newly formed and rapidly growing remote workforce, increased online commerce capabilities, and providing remote access to vital information for both internal and external clients.

Overcoming this challenge has been nothing short of monumental from both a technical and cultural perspective. Some businesses have embraced the new way-of-working and are now offering it as a more permanent option. According to an article in flexjobs, 27 well-known companies are moving in this direction. These include Aetna, Amazon, Capital One, Facebook, Gartner and Microsoft to name a few.

Meeting the Challenge On the technology side, businesses must extend their information ecosystems beyond corporate walls, into the homes and workplaces of their remote workforces, and provide interactive access capabilities with their business partners and clients.

As this transformation progresses, there are also opportunities to further investigate and incorporate process automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA), to enhance operations and remove repetitive tasks currently requiring human interaction to be processed. Additionally, security and information ecosystem monitoring must be increased to manage potential risk of data breaches and data loss.

From a cultural perspective, which is perhaps the more difficult to address, the human factor must overcome the reluctance to trust in the technology and the remote workforce. Measures can be put in place to monitor job performance remotely using dashboards tied to workflow applications monitoring the processes, task lists and more.

The key is to utilize all of the monitoring tools available not only for employee monitoring but also to identify areas of opportunity for further improvement.

In My View COVID-19 has been a definitive driver for businesses to rapidly adapt and deploy new tools and approaches in support of a remote workforce that keeps them functioning and able to transact business. Given the uncertainty of when this pandemic will pass, and what will be the next chaotic event, now is the time to look at their operations with a more strategic view, assessing where their operational modifications have

been successful, and areas of opportunity to improve.

It is obvious that companies, especially large corporations, are embracing the use of a remote workforce with plans to continue this direction even in the post-pandemic era. Benefits for the workforce cited include less stress, a better work/home life balance and lowered costs related to commuting.

Businesses are finding they can lower their physical plant costs by downsizing their space requirements, lower employee salary costs by readjusting salaries to align with geographic compensation models as employees move to various locations rather than near a physical office location and lower travel costs using online meeting and collaboration tools.

While not every job is suitable for remote work status, smart business leaders are exploring the advantages and disadvantages of maintaining a remote workforce of some scale, long into the future. Using the current

business landscape, pivotal changes made to business operations that address the new requirements as a result of the pandemic and challenges met to enable a remote workforce are good places to learn from and begin mapping a strategy that will not only sustain the new way-of-working but enable businesses to plan and grow as a result. O

Inducted into the AIIM Company of Fellows in 2019, BOB LARRIVEE is a recognized expert in the application of advanced technologies and process improvement to solve business problems and enhance business operations. In his career, Bob is a contributing writer for Document Strategy, has led many projects and authored hundreds of eBooks, industry reports, blogs, article, and infographics. In addition, he has served as host and guest subject matter expert on a wide variety of webinars, podcasts, virtual event, and lectured at in-person universities, seminars and conferences around the globe.

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By Kemal Carr

EVOLVING CCM PROCESSES ARE CREATING

NEW OPTIONS W

As CCM has become more sophisticated, so have the demands made upon it

e saw the inception of customer communications management (CCM) systems about 20 years ago when what was then known as document composition software evolved to include significant personalization capabilities. Fast forward to today and CCM also has become the foundation for the newer and broader concept of customer experience management (CXM). Over the years, as CCM has become more sophisticated, so have the demands made upon it, such as expectations of conducting personalized query-and-response interactions between an organization and its customers in something close to real time. As CCM becomes more complex, its care and feeding does, too. While the final objective is CXM, CCM still remains technology that requires knowledgeable

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operation and maintenance to achieve the desired results.

Today, several CCM operational solutions are available. Deciding what fits best with your company’s needs may depend on several things: the size of your organization, what kind of CCM infrastructure you have already, if any, and what kind of resources you’re willing and able to commit to it.

In one scenario, you can acquire a CCM system with the capability to draw upon a variety of internal data sources, including legacy and departmental systems, to aggregate customer data and content. In this case, the IT department usually builds and operates the system, including designing the templates that may or may not allow for adding variable messaging to items like invoices or statements. Modifications to the templates, like changing or updating compliance

language, must be done by IT, so this can take time and expensive labor hours, as well as generating hundreds or even thousands of unique templates. Many of the enterprises that run their own CCM systems also do their own printing and mailing and electronic delivery; and they are usually very large organizations that can justify the expense of such a multifaceted operation.

Hosted systems offer an alternative to software as a service (SaaS) models, in that an outside vendor owns and operates the software and your staff accesses the applications as needed by connecting to them in the cloud. Using a hosted system still requires using your own IT staff to extract and deliver data to the hosted system, but template development, standardized content and other information are hosted and also stored in the cloud. Depending

on which vendor you choose, print and mail services and electronic delivery may be available or you may do it yourself or use another service provider.

The drawbacks to using a SaaS system are that you still need in-house IT staff and, for many companies, data security is a consideration. Though hosted systems can save money compared to investing in your own infrastructure, these services usually are provided on a subscription basis and, once you’ve partnered with one vendor, moving to another means going through an extensive setup process all over again.

Hosted managed services (HMS) are similar to the SaaS model in that you’re hiring an outside vendor, but often they take on the tasks of aggregating your data, developing templates and setting up document delivery channels. By outsourcing customer communications to an HMS, you don’t have to make the capital investment in technology and salaried staff to build and maintain the infrastructure required to generate and deliver customer communications.

A significant benefit is that the pricing models offered by HMS providers are flexible and most often based on usage.

Which way will CCM go in the future?

Perhaps every way. With the COVID-19 pandemic, many employees, including programmers, are working remotely, so SaaS and/or hosted managed services may become especially appealing. If your organization can move the programmers out of the office, they might also consider moving the printing and mailing operations outside to an outside print service provider (PSP).

Additionally, because PSPs already do some data manipulation, formatting and print and electronic output, they might consider taking on a larger share of the CCM operation in terms of collecting data and developing document design and generation capabilities.

How to decide which option works best for your organization should start with an assessment of how much you’re spending on customer communications now and exactly where you want to go in the future. In itself, this can be a complex

task and should involve all the departments in your company that generate documents for whatever purpose. Here are two initial questions to ask: Will changing your existing CCM operations, no matter how manual or automated, trigger internal resistance or objections? Can you get a buy-in from all stakeholders and the necessary funding? Both these questions need answers to get the most effective and efficient results and reach your final destination of CXM. O

KEMAL CARR is President of Madison Advisors.

Under his direction, Madison Advisors has established a market niche as an independent analyst & market research firm that addresses the needs of the electronic and print customer communications management (CCM) marketplace. Kemal is regularly sought out by some of the leading output technology publications to write about or comment on the industry’s key issues and topics, including articles on the impact of eDelivery and multi-channel delivery, advancement in communication technologies and electronic document presentment.

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2021: WHAT’S NEXT? To help us answer that question, we went straight to the experts.

Pat

Mc

Gre

w

Connie Moo re

Pau

do l Ab

ol

Bob Larrivee

Here we are, exiting the challenging year 2020 and entering the unknown year 2021. We know what the past was like and are preparing for the uncertainty of the future. I believe that Alexander Graham Bell put it best when he said, “Before anything else preparation is the key to success.”

Bob Larrivee Throughout 2020, many businesses had to change their operational processes, enhance their information ecosystems and support a growing remote workforce as a result of viral disruption due to COVID-19. This was not planned; it was a reactionary response driven by the need to keep businesses running, maintain revenue streams and retain the customer base.

Let’s look ahead at 2021. At the time of this writing, it is uncertain whether the challenges of 2020 have fully passed,

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In this article, DOCUMENT Strategy Advisory Board Members have shared their views and opinions of what 2021 will bring.

In this way, we hope our insights will provide some perspectives and awareness that you can use in your preparation for 2021 and the beginning of what we all hope will be a successful year.

but a few things are clear, businesses and employees have come to realize that supporting a remote workforce is doable, technology is available to enhance the information ecosystem in areas of automation and extended workflows, and the remote workforce is a reality that not only opens the door to reduced operating costs, but also has potential to increase productivity when implemented properly.

So, in 2021, what do I think is next?

others according to a report by FlexJobs, cited by Travel and Leisure, are moving in this direction. An article in the World Economic Forum cites that Microsoft will allow many of its employees to remain as remote workers and that Facebook is predicting up to 50% of its staff will work remote. One caveat is that if an employee chooses to move to a different location, compensation will be readjusted to match the geographic norm.

Remote Workforce Remains We are already seeing signs that the remote workforce will remain in some sectors and for some roles. For example, Microsoft, Facebook and at least 25

Rise of the Robot Worker We have seen an increase in the use of robotic process automation (RPA) where software robots are used to automate business activities within a digital

business process, but what of the use of physical robots? I see a rise in the use of autonomous robots for use in manufacturing, warehousing, and logistics to move material goods within the facility and to loading areas. I believe there will be an increase in the use of drones to conduct plant inspections, geographic surveys and search and rescue efforts. This will be just the beginning as we see enhancements to autonomous vehicles for product and passenger use. Tesla is already ahead of the curve with its self-driving capabilities available today.

In My View 2021 will be a year of recovery and redesign for many businesses. The drive to retain and support remote workers means businesses must extend their information ecosystems through extended business processes, process automation to reduce redundancy and improve efficiency, and implement higher levels of security and access control over their information assets. Information professionals will be required to work closer with IT to ensure business requirements are met, regulatory and legal compliance is maintained, and the information ecosystem is designed to support remote workers, process automation improves business operations, and the customer experience is outstanding.

Regarding robots, I see an increase in the use of RPA in support of what I outlined previously, with a focus on end-to-end process automation eliminating redundancy, improving efficiency and standardizing tasks and processes across the enterprise. The use of physical robots will become a focal point in not only movement of materials, but also data collection across many business sectors whether it be geographical surveying, plant inspections, law enforcement monitoring or autonomous delivery. Information professionals must begin to identify current robot use, potential for future use, and approaches to the collection, management and distribution of the data collection.

Pat McGrew Definitions of customer communication management vary wildly depending on factors as diverse as business segment and geography. They all share elements designed to capture how the business communicates with its clients and how those clients respond. The important trends are the ones that focus on evolving your closed-loop, responsive communication environment. Start with a quick assessment of where you are, and then consider these trends.

Outbound Communication Trends 1. Open More Channels. As new generations engage with your products and services, they will be more comfortable with the platforms that have formed their communication experience. If you have not added SMS/MMS, social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn), live chat, home automation or APP-based communication to your CCM implementation, this is the time to do it.

2. Make It Easy to Set Preferences.

There are few things more frustrating than receiving communication in channels you do not monitor or having to click through five, 10 or 20 screens to set a preference that isn’t honored in the next round of communication.

Imagine having to call the customer service line to change a preference. It happens every day, and when customers get frustrated enough, they will look for another provider, no matter how loyal you think they are. Look at the steps needed to change a preference and try to cut them down.

3. Make Archives Easy to Access. Current and emerging legislation gives customers more ownership of their data and of their interactions with providers.

Can your customers access their business history with you? If not, you are on the wrong side of the equation.

Another point — charging for access is a loyalty killer.

Product Trends 1. Integrated Communication Design and Composition. While many products allow the import of Word, InDesign, PDF or other file formats, this can be limiting. The best products have options to import and create and offer libraries of templates for common communications in targeted segments.

2. Integration APIs. The days of standalone monolithic solutions that lock a customer into a single vendor solution aren’t gone, but they are waning. Especially in financial services, insurance and banking, the enterprise is experienced in writing and maintaining their own solution code. While some have moved to SAP, Oracle and Salesforce platforms for some of their infrastructure, there is the tendency to add tools to their framework. Tools that are comfortable in the world of APIs, JSON and similar integration protocols meet the emerging requirement.

3. As a Service. There are so many acronyms in this space, from Software as a Service (SaaS) to Platform as a Service (PaaS) and dozens more. From a solutions perspective, On Premise solutions alone are not a growth path.

As enterprises become more comfortable with service solutions, and the attractive financial models many uses, companies that insist on remaining On Premise may find it hard to keep existing customers and find new ones.

The key takeaway trends revolve around making customer communication management more customer-focused and easier to implement.

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Paul Abdool Recently, I participated in one of the many virtual conferences that are happening these days. That trend will continue until Q3 2021, but I digress. I thought to myself, here is another set of folks that are going to talk about this Digital Transformation (DX) thing— something that I, and many others, have spoken about for a few years, ok… maybe a decade or more now. What could be different this time? I was pleasantly surprised to hear some really good data about where organizations are on the DX maturity curve.

One of the speakers was from CMSWire and they had conducted a survey asking some very critical questions such as:  How well does your organization understand its customers’ digital behavior?  What are your organization’s top 3 digital customer experience challenges?

Six percent of companies surveyed stated that they had not even begun to

Connie Moore Throughout 2020, there’s been a steady drumbeat of RPA acquisitions by digital process automation vendors, starting with Appian buying Jidoka, IBM buying WDG, followed most recently by Hyland Software acquiring Another Monday. These small acquisitions of virtually unknown RPA technology companies cast a looming shadow over the pure-play RPA market and other technology markets, foretelling more M&A that is likely to come over the next 18 months. This shadow from digital process automation is especially real, given that several process automation vendors, (e.g. Kofax, Microsoft, Nintex, Pegasystems and SAP) acquired RPA for their platforms at least two or more years ago, making additional RPA/process automation purchases just a matter of time.

The process automation vendors view this as inevitable because task-oriented automation and digital process automation

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understand or document their customer’s digital behavior and another 27% thought their understanding was poor.

Fifty-six percent were starting to “get it” but still felt that they had a long way to go. Add that all up and it showed that 89% of companies are still struggling with this DX stuff.

The respondents cited multiple challenges like, limited budgets, siloed systems, poor cross-departmental alignment, outdated technologies and processes or simply a lack of in-house expertise.

For the record, the DX definition that I use is, “The profound transformation of business and organizational activities, processes, competencies and models to fully leverage the changes and opportunities of a mix of digital technologies and their accelerating impact across society in a strategic and prioritized way, with present and future shifts in mind.

I believe that 2021 will be a tipping point for DX. We have all been dabbling with it or chipping away at it for years, but more will get there in 2021.

Why? Simply because you must. COVID19 has forced us to put our best digital foot forward and now it is not just about doing it because the world is going that way; the world is there and you have to meet your customers and your employees where they are — in a digital, remote world.

Organizations will invest money saved on travel and in-person marketing events into tools that accelerate their customer’s digital relationship with them. Companies will evaluate their disparate systems even more to rationalize them with the intent to save money and improve their customer’s digital experience. This evaluation will come from improved cross-departmental collaboration that is forced by efficient online meetings.

Digital transformation will take hold in 2021 and it will be pulled by customer demand and accelerated by a ubiquitous virus. So if you sell, use or encourage DX-related products, strap on your helmet, it’s going to be a busy and bumpy year… but you will move forward and pass the tipping point.

are actually two sides of the same coin — with tasks functioning within business processes.

However, process automation M&A is not the only convergence path, or strategic direction ahead for RPA pureplays. Over the next 18 months, many RPA vendors will be snapped up by companies in adjacent markets, such as application software, content management, and so forth. At the same time, RPA players will not stand still; in parallel they will continue to acquire process mining, process documentation and other process-related technologies.

Partnerships and M&A on all sides will be fast and furious as the RPA vendors expand into other markets at the same that other vendors make a play for adding RPA to their platforms.

One could even make the argument that RPA will disappear as a separate market category by being incorporated into the fabric of markets that are much bigger than task automation. For example, it’s only a matter of time before

mainstream software vendors (let’s say Adobe, Amazon, Google, Oracle and Salesforce) and leading vendors in specific markets (e.g. OpenText, Workday) make their moves. Although such acquisitions will be accretive, most of the larger tech companies aren’t particularly interested in RPA for the sake of RPA but will instead seek to use RPA to leverage their overall platforms and portfolios.

All this activity begs the question: why is RPA so hot and why are so many diverse vendors interested in it? Here are just a few reasons:  RPA is an attractive technology for businesspeople. In fact, RPA vendors make money hand-over-fist by solving business problems that were never on IT’s radar screen to begin with. These manual tasks were seen by IT as too time-consuming, too unimportant, too expensive to solve, and in conflict with higher priority, fast-track digital transformation projects. Yet these unaddressed problems are very real

don’t need training to scale throughout the enterprise, they don’t get sick, they work 24x7 all year long and they don’t require payment or health benefits. No wonder business managers and executives are serious about creating a digital workforce that leverages and works alongside their human workforce.  Outsourcers, systems integrators and other partners are drawn to RPA as a way to provide robust, resilient, inexpensive ways to integrate missing links between applications (particularly ERP). Systems integrators and outsourcers have been force-multipliers in spreading the value of RPA and educating the market. This will continue for the foreseeable future.

burdens for the business — which is why businesspeople flock to RPA technology to fix their very real pain points.  RPA sales show no sign of stopping.

As companies seek to build their talent pool (post-COVID) and replace retiring baby boomers, RPA technology beckons. Why? It’s simple. Bots

For these reasons, all signs point to 2021 as a banner year for RPA vendors, whether as pure-plays, technology absorbed into adjacent markets, or products incorporated into platforms from the software juggernauts. O

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SPONSORED CONTENT

WHICH CUSTOMER COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT (CCM) SOLUTION IS RIGHT FOR YOU? As you continue to work with everyone and everything in your enterprise that is connected in developing a better customer experience, you need to make a key decision on who will help you with your communications management.

As you search you will find a number of partner options; however, knowing that there is not one solution that is right for everyone, you will have to find the one that has the features and no-how that best fits into your strategy. Any of the following companies could be the right choice for you. Please take a good look at each one, check out their websites and then email or call them.

Crawford Technologies is an awardwinning, global provider of software solutions and services that help enterprises optimize and improve the secure and accessible delivery, storage and presentment of their customer communications. But beyond that, Crawford Technologies is a company that was built from the ground up to serve their customers in any way needed.

Crawford Technologies continues to put the customer first in their approach to serving the CCM industry, and it only takes a quick look into their Net Promoter Score — an industry leading +73 — to see just how much they stand by their customer-centric business. Crawford Tech customers

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continue to speak incredible highly of their solutions and of the commitment of the staff in providing expert advice, whether that be during a strategic assessment, product implementation, migration, training or support.

Contact Crawford Technologies today to set up a personalized discussion regarding your business needs and see how quickly and easily you can begin or continue your digital transformation.

Crawfordtech.com 866.679.0864 sales@crawfordtech.com

Eclipse Corporation is a global provider of enterprise software solutions for documents, labels and forms, providing everything needed to design, generate, and deliver globally or in-house. The Eclipse team members created the leading document and label software from the 90’s to 2010 for companies like JetForm, Adobe, StreamServe, Resolutions. In 2010 we got the band back together and created DocOrigin. We applied our experience and wisdom to build the top-of-the-line solution to meet customer needs and stay ahead of current trends and technology.

As businesses compete for their current and potential clients’ attention, they need to find innovative, alternative means to reach the market. Knowing that transactional documents are an essential part of every business, why not expand their role. Our DocOrigin Business Communications Center® (BCC) turns documents into powerful marketing and messaging tools to generate revenue, improve communication, and reduce costs with omni channel delivery.

Now marketing, compliance, and legal teams can add and maintain content without negatively impacting the document template’s integrity.

Real time data-driven messaging makes communication to customers, partners, and employees more relevant and useful. Upsell products and services based on current transactions or caution recipients of hazardous materials, critical deadlines, or State to State regulations based on unique data content.

Contact Eclipse for a demonstration and learn more about how DocOrigin helps you save money, build value, and increase your investment return. eclipsecorp.us 678.408.1245 Info@EclipseCorp.US

FIS Touch-CX™ is revolutionizing and digitizing the customer experience across the banking, insurance and wealth management landscape.

As the industry’s leading CX platform with the broadest set of solutions, FIS Touch-CX provides data normalization, enrichment & analytics, centralized CCM design & content management, 1:1 and 1:Many correspondence management, omni-channel delivery services, content management & archiving backed by integrated digital payment solutions.

The pace of digital communication growth has disrupted the traditional CCM market. Many companies built their digital communications on existing print infrastructure and workflows.

While expedient, design to publish time to market is too long and the resulting CX fails to leverage the capabilities each delivery channel offers.

Those who implemented point solutions have solved this issue but lack centralization, governance and consistency in their CCM strategy.

FIS Touch-CX is a complete customer experience platform that unifies omni-channel design and publishing capabilities with enterprise data management & decisioning with open API’s for easy integration with systems of record. Deployed predominately in a SaaS model, clients benefit through the outsourcing of infrastructure management while gaining significant communication design and channel support capabilities.

Messagepoint is a SaaS-based Customer Communications Management (CCM) solution that enables organizations to enhance customer experiences with optimized communications.

Leveraging the power of MARCIE, Messagepoint’s AI-powered Content Intelligence Engine, Messagepoint provides an intelligent hub that centralizes the management of content to enable maximum efficiency, speed to market, and effectiveness of communications across all channels.

Messagepoint’s powerful content sharing capabilities dramatically simplifies content management and authoring processes while ensuring consistency and compliance across your library of communications.

Whether dealing with simple correspondence, marketing materials, or more complex regulated documents, Messagepoint uniquely enables marketers, customer experience, and servicing teams to efficiently create timely, relevant, compliant, and highly personalized customer-facing communications across print and dig-

ital channels.

Rationalizer, Messagepoint’s solution for migrating content from legacy formats into new, modern environments, leverages MARCIE to accelerate and automate content ingestion, tagging, and discovery.

While most approaches to migration merely lift and shift your content, bringing along all the old problems with it, Rationalizer enables your content experts to consolidate and optimize the content efficiently, and clean up your content inventory.

For more information on how Messagepoint can empower your business users with a centralized content hub or help you modernize your CCM environment, visit www. messagepoint.com.

414.248.3055 brian.paulson@fisglobal.com www.fisglobal.com

www.messagepoint.com/rationalizer 800.492.4103 info@messagepoint.com

Customers want to engage with your brand in a variety of channels and expect a seamless and consistent experience as they shift from one channel to the next. This increased accessibility drives the demand for delivering optimized, relevant, and frictionless data-driven experiences. OpenText™ Exstream™ is designed for omnichannel customer communication management and leverages your data and content to transform customer communications into ultra-personalized, engaging customer experiences on the customer-preferred delivery channels and formats.

With on-premises and cloud deployment options, Exstream is scalable to fit the needs of any departmental or complex enterprise environment. Exstream enables business users with AI-powered authoring and maximizes business efficiency to scale across any document-driven business process. It easily integrates with your current systems of record such as ERP and CRM and business applications, including SAP®, Salesforce®, Guidewire® and Duck Creek Technologies™.

The extended portfolio includes secure assured delivery of both digital (SMS, fax, email, FTP) and print communications. Exstream has the fastest production engine in the market and can handle on demand, interactive communications and high-volume batch environments that require millions of communications to go out in seconds and meet SLA levels.

Withmore than 5,000 customers worldwide and consistently recognized as a leader, the OpenText™ Customer Communications Management solution provides breadth of functionality to intelligently create individualized experiences for true data-driven omnichannel experiences at scale. www.opentext.com/exstream 800.499.6544

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Papyrus Software is an expert player and industry leader for more than 30 years in providing standard software solutions for the complete customer engagement cycle to the world’s largest organizations.

The Papyrus CCM Platform for documents and real-time messaging integrates INBOUND and OUTBOUND communications and provides a unified platform for batch/online/ad-hoc and interactive correspondence, eliminating the need for point solutions. The Omni-Channel experience is enhanced with a closed-loop of incoming and outgoing communications, across multiple touch-points, devices, channels and over time.

The fully integrated solution lifecycle platform is built from a single source code accepting any type, structure and sequence of data, not only XML. Smart document design for business users and IT simplifies tem-

plating, facilitates change and allows companies to achieve significant gains in efficiency and agility. Document layouts and building blocks are created only once and re-used across document applications. Our endto-end, multi-channel delivery with feedback loop leads the industry.

Central collection of various document types in the Document Pool allows for bundling, sorting and merging documents, including a table of contents and adding barcodes and OMR codes. Other key capabilities are the end-to-end automation of print and mail shop production processes with tracking, tracing and monitoring of all jobs, starting with receiving the data and completing with archiving.

With 2020 spurring digital transformation like never before, businesses need to move beyond print to digital-quickly.

Today’s customers demand personalized, relevant communications that are available in real-time and accessible on their preferred channel. Increasingly, delivering this exceptional customer experience is essential to building competitive advantage, customer loyalty and revenue. A critical component of effective customer experience management? Customer communications management — or CCM. Modern CCM technology integrates with core systems, helping companies create a nimble, unified omnichannel customer communications infrastructure that improves customer experience. Quadient's award-winning CCM solution, Inspire, helps companies around the world design, manage and deliver personalized, accurate and compliant communications across all channels, from one centralized hub.

Inspire extends the power of your existing systems to efficiently deliver an exceptional customer experience.

CCM’s power lies in enabling team members across your business to make updates to text, images, charts and data that are rapidly pushed to production. The best news? These changes are governed by a robust approvals process to ensure accuracy before being issued to the customer.

When used with Quadient’s groundbreaking Customer Journey Exploration platform, every touchpoint that matters to your customer can be improved in real time along their personal journey map. It empowers your team to leverage all available data to create seamless, engaging, personalized CX across every channel — making their experience with your business valuable and easy.

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www.isis-papyrus.com info@isis-papyrus.com 817.416.2345

www.quadient.com info@quadient.com

Spurred on by the pandemic, consumer preferences, societal changes, and new protocols have combined to accelerate the selection of a trusted partner for businesses going through a customer communications management (CCM) transformation.

Driven by the confluence of commerce and compliance, trust has become the most important value in this selection process.

Finding the right CCM service provider begins with asking three important questions: 1) Can I trust my provider to understand my changing communications needs and create an innovative solution?

2) Can I trust my provider to create a dynamic solution that is not only scalable but adaptable? 3) Can I trust that my provider will be here tomorrow?

Since most decisions are made on the basis of risk management, a CCM service provider must understand your state of customer communications (current and future), create a dynamic solution that is scalable, and show significant background and success implementing large scale and integrated solutions.

It may seem unusual in this 21st century to think in terms of trust and not immediately think in terms of technology. Many CCM service providers have the newest technology. RRD, however, has a rare combination of technology, people, experience, and process to connect your brand, your message, and your audience through tailored solutions that don’t just inform, but engage. www.rrd.com/bcs 201.280.4569 russ.d.borgman@rrd.com

What makes Sefas and our CCM solution unique?

Sefas provides an Omnichannel CCM platform that enables communication processing, control, and automation. Sefas Producer is a powerful orchestration software for tracking, auditing, and control of your production process. Sefas Designer is a highly flexible document composition and post-composition software that excels in transactional documents.

We offer a secure, digital repository to store omnichannel communications along with their metadata. Our dashboard widgets provide unified access and control of our entire suite of products to business users and end customers.

Smart CommunicationsTM is the only provider of a customer conversations management platform. More than 500 global brands rely on Smart Communications to deliver smarter conversations across the entire lifecycle — empowering them to succeed in today’s digital-focused, customer-driven world while also simplifying processes and operating more efficiently.

This is what it means to scale the conversation.

Built from the cloud up, Smart Communications helps enterprises engage customers in interactive, real-time conversations across every channel. This results in exceptional experiences that lead to deeper loyalty and increased ROI. The Smart Communications platform includes: SmartCOMMTM: Delivers personalized, interactive communications via all channels and at tremendous scale. Designed for the business user, SmartCOMM simplifies and standardizes processes, thus improving internal efficiency and increasing ROI. SmartIQTM: Transforms traditional

Our unique CCM solution is the only one in the market that you can leverage as a base to move your CCM capabilities to CXM (Customer Experience Management). This is a faster, cheaper, and more reliable process as it has no impact on legacy systems and helps maximize the ROI on your existing CCM infrastructure.

It also aligns with your goal to implement digital transformation as requested by the enterprise and end customers. www.sefas.com contactus@sefas.com 781.425.5060

forms-based processes into intelligent, conversational user experiences. SmartIQ increases customer engagement while streamlining internal systems, managing risk and reducing demand for support services — delivering more customers ready to transact.

SmartDXTM: All of the G15 investment banks and some of the world’s largest energy and commodity companies trust SmartDX to help them simplify trade and relationship documentation for all market participants, across all asset classes and product types.

Smart Communications is headquartered in the UK and serves its customers from offices located across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. www.smartcommunications.com www.linkedin.com/company/ smart-communications 800.986.6810

Featured CCM Companies Crawford Technologies Crawfordtech.com 866.679.0864 sales@crawfordtech.com Eclipse Corporation https://eclipsecorp.us 678.408.1245 Info@EclipseCorp.US FIS 414.248.3055 brian.paulson@fisglobal.com www.fisglobal.com Messagepoint www.messagepoint.com/ rationalizer 800.492.4103 info@messagepoint.com OpenText www.opentext.com/exstream 800.499.6544 Papyrus Software www.isis-papyrus.com info@isis-papyrus.com 817.416.2345 Quadient www.quadient.com info@quadient.com RRD www.rrd.com/bcs russ.d.borgman@rrd.com 201.280.4569 Sefas www.sefas.com contactus@sefas.com 781.425.5060 Smart Communications www.smartcommunications.com 800.986.6810

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Think About It / ERNIE CRAWFORD /

/ PAT MCGREW /

“EVEN AS COMPANIES OPEN THEIR OFFICES AFTER MONTHS OF CLOSURES, TELEWORKING IS BECOMING A PERMANENT FIXTURE IN THE AMERICAN WORKFORCE. UP TO 74% OF BUSINESS LEADERS PLAN TO MOVE THEIR PREVIOUSLY ON-SITE WORKFORCE TO PERMANENTLY REMOTE POSITIONS AFTER THE COVID-19 THREAT IS GONE.”

“THE TABLE STAKES IN CCM IS THE ABILITY TO EXECUTE AN OMNICHANNEL STRATEGY THAT MEETS THE NEEDS OF ALL CONSTITUENTS.”

/ PATRICK KEHOE /

“IDEALLY, AS ORGANIZATIONS DEVELOP TRANSFORMATION PLANS, THEY WILL DO SO WITH A VIEW TOWARD STREAMLINING MANAGEMENT TO DRIVE EFFICIENCIES, AS WELL AS POTENTIAL IMPROVEMENTS TO THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE.”

/ KEMAL CARR /

/ STEVE BIANCANIELLO /

“When the threat from COVID-19 subsides, many organizations may find it practical and efficient to adopt a remote business model to contain expenses, even while an organization is growing and adding employees or new customers.”

“Which way will CCM go in the future? Perhaps every way. With the COVID-19 pandemic, many employees, including programmers, are working remotely, so SaaS and/or hosted managed services may become especially appealing.” / BOB LARRIVEE /

“Some businesses have embraced the new way-of-working and are now offering it as a more permanent option. According to an article in flexjobs, 27 well-known companies are moving in this direction. These include Aetna, Amazon, Capital One, Facebook, Gartner and Microsoft to name a few.”