Ensuring Technology is Enabling Continuous Improvement

As an organization becomes more mature, the policies and procedures that support the core business practices strengthen. To an external party, these can be seen as cumbersome, tedious and possibly even pointless; however, internally these procedures are developed with value, purpose and need. As these policies expand they may carry inefficiencies with them.

Enter technology.

Technology is an efficiency builder. It can be used to regain the losses in efficiency caused by policy, regulation or human interaction. It can be implemented to solve a single, small, repeatable task; or it can replace countless man hours of manual tedious, mundane labor that doesn’t contribute to the bottom line. Technology is an asset. Rather, technology is a requirement.

If it is established that technology is a requirement, what ensures our technology selection is the most optimal? Consider this example: A photocopier is used to duplicate pages of each contract that is received by an organization. What if the requirement changes to also copy the cover letter that accompanies the contract? It would be considered absurd if the photocopier couldn’t handle this simple requirement change, yet how does the enterprise software you use handle changes in requirements? This is known as Flexibility.

Flexibility in a technology solution ensures that the business requirement is solved today, but the ability to solve the problems of tomorrow exists. Rarely do requirements in business remain static. Using software that merely meets the needs of today is a short-sighted mistake. It will leave you stranded in a world of “square peg meet round hole” for far too long.

Consider the same example with the photocopier, but the requirement is to scale the copied pages down to ¼ of the size. Configurability. Consider the need to check how many copies were printed in the last month. Visibility. Lastly, consider the need for the copies to be immediately shredded (Wasteful? Yes, but it is just an example). The ability to remove all the manual processes between the output of the photocopier and the input of the shredder is called Interoperability.

These are the components that provide exponential returns on investment relative to a one-dimensional solution. When technology is able to solve the business requirements, yet allow additional improvements to be made at any point in the future, an ideal solution has been found.

BlueRelay is such a solution

Initially designed to meet the increasingly demanding requirements of tight document approval timelines in the Healthcare industry, BlueRelay provides these fundamental necessities within its enterprise document and process management platform in addition to solving the business requirements through its document routing, compare and annotation abilities.

Ultimately, the decision is yours. You can choose to be a “square peg meet round hole” decision-maker, or you can choose software that continuously gives you increased value.