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You recently decided to go digital and end your company’s reliance on paper. You’ve already done some homework – you know the benefits, have performed some initial due diligence, and have drafted a preliminary blueprint of your digital journey. The decision is made, so let’s get started! Easy, right?
Truth is, deciding to go paperless is the simple part. Engaging the right BPO partner requires a serious investment of your time to carefully vet potential partners’ capabilities, experience, and qualifications.
There are lots of scanning companies out there: giant corporations, start-ups, “mom & pop” shops, specialized agencies, onshore, offshore. But buyer beware – not all scanning bureaus are created equally. Whether you pursue a formalized RFP process or take a more relaxed procurement approach, here are a few critical areas to consider when selecting your BPO partner.
- Experience. This one is a given. You’ll want a fully knowledgeable scanning provider with specific and hands-on experience with your industry, your back-office processes, and your document types.
- References, references, references. I can’t say that enough. References. Ask for them – then check them. And if you can, seek out the clients your potential BPO provider hasn’t told you about. Because those are the ones you’ll really want to talk to.
- Information security. Industry-recognized security certifications such as ISO, PCI-DSS, and SOC 2 Type 2 are expensive and time-consuming. BPO organizations that invest in these types of qualifications will return significant value to you in terms of data security, integrity, confidentiality, and privacy.
- Physical document safety. Scanning involves the movement of documents from your site to the provider’s site. Accountability through full chain-of-custody capabilities such as electronic tracking, audit trails, and on-demand reporting helps to ensure your documents are not lost.
- Deliverables quality. Sound business decisions are based on accurately captured data. To that end, your BPO partner should have a proven quality methodology that starts at requirements capture and extends through employee training and accuracy monitoring, tiered inspections during conversion, and SLA reporting (preferably web-based).
- Financial viability. Debt ratios? Proper cash balances? Operating expense ratios? Ensure that your chosen partner has the fiscal capabilities to provide you with ongoing, long-term support.
- A forward-thinking partner. Document conversion is just the start; storage, accessibility, and workflow automation should also be on the radar. While digitizing your paper today, a truly progressive partner will simultaneously focus on your tomorrow. To be clear, that doesn’t mean a quarterly upsell pitch on a more profitable product. It means a partner with the vision and foresight to anticipate your needs and suggest relevant, transformative solutions – your own digital-journey Sherpa!
MetaSource is a “profit improvement partner” that goes beyond standard outsourcing by leveraging technology to provide meaningful solutions for a wide variety of complex challenges. We’ve helped thousands of companies get past the paper paradigm and achieve true digital transformation.