SCANNING SOLUTION 2003 COMPUTERWORLD HONORS CASE STUDY IN-HOUSE SCANNING AND ONLINE MANAGEMENT OF CONTRACT DOCUMENTS REDUCES HANDLING TIMES FROM WEEKS TO HOURS, ENHANCING LAWYER PRODUCTIVITY AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION. BUSINESS & RELATED SERVICES [20034855] Patrick J. McGovern, Chairmen of the Chairmen's Committee Daniel Morrow, Executive Director Martin Taylor, Publisher Computerworld SUMMARY Cisco Systems’ legal department, like many legal departments, was inundated with and dependent upon paper documents. By bringing outsourced paper contracts in-house through a combination of digital hardware and software, Cisco now has a document management solution that cut costs, streamlined workflow processes and improved customer services. APPLICATION Paper was burying us alive in the legal department at Cisco Systems. In April 2001, we turned to Xerox to transform our massive amount of paper documents into a digital workflow process that would improve the way we work and save us money. Prior to Xerox entering the picture, paper legal contracts were sent to an outsourced service provider, who then scanned and stored images onto CDs. Once the contracts were on the CD they were uploaded to a database at Cisco headquarters in San Jose, CA. This process cost upwards of $50 to $60 per contract and resulted in a two-week delay before attorneys could access these documents. At the time, Xerox Document Centre multifunction devices resided on every floor in every building of Cisco’s San Jose main campus, but not all were networked. One afternoon, we noticed a scan button on the front panel of the Xerox Document Centre 440ST located in the legal department and a network connection on the back of the machine. We plugged it in and discovered a great and previously untapped feature of the device—an embedded Web server that allows control of the device over the Web. We immediately turned to the Xerox-Cisco support team to enable the scanning functionality. Our first order of business - cut down on the time and costs associated with scanning contracts by bringing this outsourced job in-house. We used the Document Centre 440ST to scan legal contracts and Xerox’s FlowPort image routing software to route the contracts to a group of email addresses or to our legacy contract repository. Combining the FlowPort image routing software with a Document Centre was a winning combination—one that made documents available that much faster and at a much lower cost. The next step - integrate the Document Centre/FlowPort solution with Xerox DocuShare, a Web-based document and content management solution. The legal group needed a simple, quick and inexpensive method of not only storing contracts and Non Disclosure Agreements (NDAs), but also a method that would encourage interaction and efficiencies in work process among the attorneys. The project had no IT budget, no development resources and no priority. Realizing the need and understanding the situation, our legal business services team, with the assistance of the Xerox-Cisco team, completed the integration without any programming or IT resources. Now, just a year later, we scan and store more than 2,000 NDAs in DocuShare—a database installed and maintained by a non-technical group. Once we had an understanding of the core tools, systems and processes, we were able to get creative. For instance, Sarbanes is a law that requires the documentation and retention of board meeting minute books. In an effort to comply with the Cisco company policy, all board-meeting minutes are now scanned into DocuShare. This is an easy and affordable way to allow each person to scan meeting minutes into any one of 22 different repositories (each having its own unique security requirements). Not only is this solution easy to use, it is completely secure. Users simply check what type of security requirement they want applied to their scanned document, check the box on the Document Centre and a PDF document is automatically created. We didn’t realize our dependence on the Xerox system until we took the server down for maintenance, and caused a minor uproar among all the attorneys who are now highly reliant on the scan-to-PDF and scan-to-e-mail functionalities. With a successful implementation under our belt, we presented the legal department’s solution to several other groups within Cisco. Cisco’s Work Place Resources group (WPR) was immediately interested when it learned the solution could be implemented within Cisco’s massive network infrastructure. WPR replaced all of its stand-alone machines (scanners, photocopiers, fax machines and printers) with Xerox digital multifunction devices—a task that proved not only cost-effective but much more efficient for Cisco employees. BENEFITS Before implementing a workflow solution, our legal team was swimming in a sea of paperwork. Our attorneys relied on outsourcing and stored images on CDs to keep track of contracts and NDAs. It was inefficient and expensive. We needed a solution that would enhance productivity while saving time and money—and Xerox responded. Prior to the Xerox solution, we paid a third party about 37 cents per page to scan legal documents, burn the documents onto CDs, upload the documents to NT folders and manually connect them to the contract database. The process took about 10 days from the time we received the signed contracts to the point when they were available online. With our digital process, scanned documents are available immediately. This solution has eliminated extra steps, reduced costs and enhanced customer service. And besides that, our attorneys say the solution is incredibly easy to use. We plan on expanding our use of the integrated system worldwide. In the end, we not only saved money, we discovered numerous benefits: ? Minimal training is required ? The consolidation of printers, fax machines, and scanners into multifunction devices results in tangible cost savings ? The system is supported by WPR-Cisco’s internal IT group ? Xerox technology is consistent with international standards ? Productivity increases significantly because data can be accessed at any time By bringing imaging in-house and combining hardware scanning functionality with document management software, we created a workflow system that has transformed the way Cisco’s legal team works. Attorneys share and collaborate during all phases of contract development, ensuring that contracts that share similar clauses and conditions are in sync. Work-in-progress reports and nondisclosure agreements no longer reside in a bulky file cabinet, but are scanned directly to DocuShare and can be seen and shared by everyone. At first look, it might seem like a simple concept to turn a paper document into a scanned and searchable document, but it’s a very tricky process. This solution from Xerox allowed us to move documents from our file cabinets to the Web so that anyone with permission could access them at any time and from anywhere, without leaving their desk. It has significantly improved several time-consuming, labor-intensive work processes. Every day, we are forced to rethink how we complete tasks because there is no budget for more staff. The differences outlined above have fundamentally changed the way our attorneys do business. Cisco is rapidly approaching a digital world. Paper forms are nearly obsolete and documents are accessible at any time. It is Cisco’s culture and the Xerox suite of products that make it possible. IMPORTANCE Cisco’s original initiative was to improve customer service and save money by scanning and imaging legal documents in-house. By doing this, we defined a process that works with existing workflows and can be replicated in departments throughout Cisco. We redesigned the workflow to substantially reduce the number of handling steps and to insert automation whenever possible. We wanted to reduce our cycle time, but the real benefit is that with a reduced number of handling steps, there is a much smaller possibility that there will be errors made during the process. The new process is so much simpler that users are eager to embrace it. It’s an easy sell. What is significant for us is having online access to any document 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We are a lean organization and every minute counts. It’s often difficult to quantify the return on an investment like this, but when you have an entire team that can now access contracts and files in a matter of minutes versus our former 10-day cycle, we know we’ve hit a productivity jackpot. ORIGINALITY We built a solution by integrating hardware and software already in place and paid for. In essence, we took separate parts and made them better as a whole. Although the original use for the workflow solution was scanning and collaborating, our legal team developed new applications above and beyond this need. Increased security is a major side benefit. We use FlowPort to route, convert, secure and store sensitive corporate compliance documents. What stands out for us is how we were able to make this happen in a company as large as Cisco. We knew we would have some challenges getting people bought in to our newly found solution from the beginning. After presenting the idea to other groups within Cisco, we were pleased to find the same high level of acceptance. SUCCESS Since implementation, we have projected a savings of more than $262,000, which is broken down to a per contract savings of $19.68. This is a return on investment of over 1,000 percent! The combination of hardware and software not only saved us money, but also eliminated 37 steps previously handled with each contract. In addition, DocuShare is now the online home for more than 200,000 documents at Cisco. We’ve executed on our plan to replace all stand-alone machines with Xerox’s digital multifunction devices, a task that increased productivity and reduced costs. Now there are 100 Xerox Document Centre 440STs in the San Jose office -- four machines on every floor -- each connected to the network. By June, there will be Xerox multifunction devices in England, Amsterdam, Japan and Canada. We met our original goals and even exceeded them in several areas. The solution has been deemed so successful that we plan to extend the applications so our legal departments worldwide can benefit, contribute and share documents on the DocuShare site. Because the workflow solution is highly scaleable expect to see it rolled out beyond the legal department. In fact, Cisco’s HR department is evaluating the scanning solution to manage its time-intensive hiring process, which includes receiving over 50,000 résumés each quarter. DIFFICULTY As mentioned above, our initial challenge was to demonstrate a solution that was reliable, easy-to-use and one that could save money. Once the solution worked, we had a story to tell other departments within Cisco and the documentation to back it up. It really helped that the machines were network-ready and already being used as copiers on the San Jose campus. However, there was considerable resistance from our security and infrastructure groups to plugging “non-Cisco” hardware into the network. Cisco’s WPR group and the Xerox team should be rewarded for 18 months of hard work that resulted in formal buy-off of the technology because of its ability to work within Cisco’s infrastructure. It is their dedication and flexibility that made this work. They could have easily given up or stopped the legal group’s development because it was outside of the legal group’s responsibility.