The way businesses conduct their daily operations evolves with time. A few decades ago, enterprises carried out all their operations in-house. In the last decade, the trend toward outsourcing certain business functions caught on. Outsourcing repetitive tasks and non-core business functions to external service providers became the norm. Now, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is an accepted and desirable practice.
Outsourcing offers many benefits—the most prominent advantage is cost-efficiency. Companies in every industry now outsource at least one function to a service provider, bringing down office space requirements and recruitment costs to achieve higher process efficiency.
The Case for Outsourced Business Processing Services
Business processing services transfer the administrative burden of information capture and distribution to an external agency and let your teams focus on their core business objectives.
Accounts Receivables emerges clearly as one of the departments that benefits the most from this arrangement. HR, payroll, data entry, customer support, administrative IT functions, call center operations, and staffing services follow suit. Several manufacturing processes are also amenable to outsourcing.
According to a recent industry report, 37% of small businesses in North America opted for some form of outsourcing. With advances in cloud technology, organizations are adopting newer, smarter methods to maintain and protect business data assets without locking-in expensive hardware and storage space. Experienced service providers offer secure data facilities with defined SLAs (Service-Level Agreements) that companies are happy to use.
But why do companies still run a traditional mailroom?
If other functions are outsourced, why operate their mailroom using traditional, inefficient methods? Perhaps it is because the mailroom doesn’t leap to mind immediately when we think of operational efficiency. Every process and function in a business setup starts with a document—whether in paper or digital format. The management of incoming and outgoing documents in an organization is an essential cog in the wheel. And if digitization is possible in this area, why not adopt it?
Transforming a high-volume, chaotic mailroom to an outsourced digital mailroom may seem daunting at first, but it is a game-changer in terms of business process improvement.
The Digital Mailroom: Your First Step in Digital Transformation
An outsourced digital mailroom is the ideal first step to digitize your business—without the hefty investment in any scanning hardware and software that’s necessary to handle it in-house. A digital mailroom scans all incoming paper mail, and distributes it to the relevant departments or individuals. It automates manual and time-consuming mail processing tasks. It is easy to deploy and is much more affordable than you may think!
Does your organization manually process invoices, checks, and other payment-related documents? MES automates manual accounts payable tasks to improve efficiency and save printing and processing costs using digital processes. Our business process improvement services use workflow automation and document management software to deliver critical benefits to your organization.
Do you receive a heap of invoices into your mailroom every day by post, email, fax, and courier? We streamline your accounts payables process by scanning invoices and capturing the data for further digital processing. Digitization eliminates tedious manual data entry and reduces the risk of human error. The digital output files are indexed and stored in a DMS or ERP system.
Similarly, we work with organizations of all types and sizes to streamline their customer service processes using our digital mailroom. Customer service requests or queries coming into the office premises via post, fax, or courier are digitized and answered swiftly and efficiently. All customer records are accessible instantly on a secure portal. Teams resolve issues on the first call, and this keeps customers happy!
Mailroom Digitization: Business implications
Imagine losing an invoice amid the chaos of a mail sorting room. It is probably nothing more than a minor inconvenience. Now imagine losing an entire HR docket or a high-value loan application. It may amount to substantial fines to your company or harm the interests of your client.
What are the business implications of human error in manual tasks and inefficient business processes of this kind? Serious.
Data integrity
An outsourced digital mailroom manages sensitive documents and protects information, minimizing the negative implications of inefficient processes.
A paperless mailroom elevates your data security by minimizing physical loss or damage to documents and mitigating risk in case of natural disasters. When you outsource your digital mailroom, your service provider brings significant value to data integrity. Sophisticated cloud security protects valuable data assets without the hassle of physical document duplicates or manual data backups.
Flexibility for remote teams
Do your employees waste precious time waiting for a physical purchase order from the mailroom? With digitization, business mail access is instantaneous, and action is swift. There is greater flexibility for teams to work from different locations simultaneously. A service provider scans, converts, sorts, and distributes documents reliably so that your employees are able to access all the resources they require to do their job efficiently.
Are You Ready to Digitize and Outsource Your Mailroom?
Outsourcing your mailroom to an experienced service provider brings results that are visible and immediate. Secure facilities receive paper mail for scanning and conversion, email and other digital files, or a combination of paper and digital mail. Data is validated and verified, indexed to assigned categories, and ready for use immediately. Along the way, attachments and data points are extracted. Finally, digital documents are delivered to the correct destinations for retrieval.
Whether it is processing invoices more accurately, retrieving mail more efficiently, or answering customer queries faster, mailroom digitization brings substantial business benefits.
MES: Your Trusted Digital Mailroom Partner
Want to save your employees’ time by ending the process of sorting through reams of project data? Want to ensure your Accounts Receivable teams know their pending dues in real-time? Ready to free your HR teams from thick paper employee performance files?
MES supports small and large enterprises in numerous industry domains with the latest document scanning solutions. With over 40 years of experience delivering services ranging from consulting and conversion to electronic records management systems, we handhold your foray into a digital mailroom. Advanced scanning equipment, trained professionals, and a bouquet of software solutions make MES your trusted partner in business processing services.
Call us now for a free quote on an MES-powered Digital mailroom!