Excellence in Practice: Innovation and Excellence in Workflow and Imaging

The competitive playing field for workflow and imaging continues to change as visionary companies push the envelope for innovation and excellence. Companies excelling in document imaging and workflow share common characteristics that other organizations are well advised to learn. Companies competing head-to-head against such visionaries must shift their IT and business strategies to keep pace. Ways to move the competitive goalposts when implementing imaging and workflow technology include focusing on enterprise-wide solutions while also reaching the extended enterprise, and empowering users to develop, modify, and enhance flexible, workflow-enabled processes. Excellence in Practice profiles in great depth the case studies of the winners and finalists of the prestigious annual Giga Excellence Awards.

The case studies of each of the 16 winning corporations featured in Excellence in Practice go into considerable detail regarding the issues of implementation. Readers can find out more about: Their system application, what the system is used for, who are the users and what the job entails What were their key motivations Their system configuration (number, and type of software, servers, scanners, printers, storage devices, etc., including the identities of the vendors and integrators involved) The number of users currently on the system and number of users planned.

How the company has been impacted by their new system; cost savings, ROI and increased productivity improvements, competitive advantage gained, and how they managed to move the goal posts for their industry. Their implementation process and methodology, the project team, and the change management and business process reengineering issues they addressed. How these companies managed both their overall technological and business innovations. To add depth and meaning to the case studies, four leading industry analysts and experts were invited to contribute chapters from their respective perspectives: Study: State of the Workflow Industry. Priscilla Emery, Sr. Vice President, Association for Information and Image Management International AIIM The Roles of Value-Added Resellers (VARs) and Systems Integrators. Ric Rhodes, President, Document Imaging VAR Association (DIVA) Pitfalls in the Strategic Deployment of Process Improvement and Management. Geary A. Rummler and Gordon Sellers, the Rummler-Brache Group. Endnote Chapter: The Seven Traits of the Smart Company. Excerpted from the forthcoming book, Smart Companies-Smart Tools, by Thomas M. Koulopoulos 1997. Van Nostrand Reinhold New York

Layna Fischer is editor of the best-selling series New Tools for New Times: The Workflow Paradigm and New Tools for New Times: Electronic Commerce. She is also chair of WARIA, the Workflow and Reengineering International Association and co-director of the annual Giga Business Process and Workflow Conferences and Director of the Giga Excellence Awards in the USA and Europe.

Ms. Fischer was a senior editor of a leading computer publication for four years and has been involved in international computer journalism and publishing for over 14 years. email: layna@waria.com