Deliver ECM Solutions To The Financial Industry

DATANET imaging systems inc. is a Canadian ECM (enterprise content management) VAR that concentrates on adding value by providing ECM services, not custom software. “The market in Canada is changing — moving more toward ECM,” says George Sparrow, principal of DATANET. “During the next three years, ECM software and services will constitute more than 80% of our sales mix.” Many of those sales will come from the financial services vertical market.

For example, DUCA Financial Services is a credit union with assets in excess of $600 million (Can.). With more than 30,000 members, managing the paper blizzard of mortgage and loan applications was a daunting task for DUCA. In fact, the company had an entire office wall dedicated to the storage of client records in 13 large fireproof filing cabinets. “DUCA simply ran out of space and had no more room to store records,” explains Sparrow. “While it has to maintain documents for daily reference and access, it also has to legally retain documents and files for the full term of each mortgage or loan.”

DUCA began a search for a resolution to its paper challenge. With limited IT resources, DUCA did not want a product that required high maintenance. They sought a simple solution that would be easy for its employees to use at all 14 branch locations. DATANET was the incumbent check-imaging vendor for DUCA. The VAR recommended ViewWise from Computhink. ViewWise is a software application that provides document and image management. DUCA put together a bid specification for the project. “We were the incumbent imaging vendor; however, we were given no preferential treatment,” says Sparrow. “We knew the customer well, but it was a very competitive situation.”

Make Time To Learn Your Customers’ Business Challenges
DATANET was awarded the first phase of the DUCA project that amounted to approximately $38,000 (Can.). “When we win business, the success can often be attributed to how well we know the customers’ business challenges,” explains Sparrow. “Sometimes our competitors don’t take the time to learn about those challenges. That gives us a distinct advantage.” In the case of DUCA, it would have been hard for the customer to choose another VAR, since DATANET had a better understanding of the customers’ business challenges than its competition. DATANET clearly articulated DUCA’s short-term and long-term business process management goals. DUCA needed to retain documents and mortgage files for the full term of each loan (as many as 50 years). All 14 branches wanted to have access to mortgage documents online.

The first phase of the project involved installing ViewWise Small Business/Enterprise Edition from Computhink. DATANET performed the installation of ViewWise and the migration of DUCA’s 35,000 records into ViewWise. That phase of the project took approximately two weeks, including training. DUCA estimates the initial implementation saved a minimum of $52,000 (Can.) per year.

The cost savings were derived from the reduction of clerical staff required to perform paper filing. In the next phases of the project, DATANET will design and integrate DUCA’s business workflow processes into the ViewWise system, implement ViewWise into DUCA’s human resources department, and implement the capture of signature card images. The ultimate goals are to provide Web-based access to files and documents across the 14 office branches and to integrate DUCA’s entire business workflow process into the ECM product.

www.datanetcanada.ca

www.computhink.com