Tops in Document Management Independent Dealers Identify Their Favorite Document Management Solutions As more dealers right-size their solutions offerings, one solution that remains a go-to category is document management. It’s becoming increasingly important as more organizations look to reduce their reliance on paper and to get a better handle on the volumes of documents traveling through their business, whether it’s paper or electronic. There are dozens of document management packages on the market and any article looking to present a comprehensive overview of what’s available will likely fall short. So rather than falling short, we asked five dealers to identify their favorite document management solutions, asking them what they like about it, what their customers like about it, the quality of service and support from the vendor, and how they market that solution as well as how this document management solution compares to any of the other they offer or what their competitors are offering. Surprisingly, the solutions they identified weren’t always the ones we expected them to talk about. What you’ll find, however, are comments on five different document management solutions that represent their favorites and not necessarily the more popular document management packages on the market. Solution: DocuWare Dealer: John Shea, director of marketing, Advance – The Document Specialists, Cockeysville, MD What do you like about DocuWare from a sales perspective? Shea: It takes the point of view of an end user and what an end user would do in a previous life managing paper documents. I like the look and feel of the software itself—it makes it an easy transition for someone to move into document management without having a lot of knowledge of what that’s about. John Shea What do customers like about DocuWare? Shea: It’s easy to use and scalable; they can start out with a basic system and build from there. There are modules and licenses that allow you to grow your system with your business or branch out into different areas of your organization. What we find that customers enjoy is the fact they don’t have to bite off this big project to transform their entire company into document management. They can take a single pain point such as HR or accounting, resolve the issues there, and then move it into other areas of the company at their own pace. How do you rate DocuWare’s service and support? Shea: Their service and support is very strong. When we need them we can pick up the phone and talk to somebody whether we’re on site or trying to troubleshoot a problem from our [location]. Their staff is well trained and they spend a lot of time and effort to train their dealers not only on the support side but the sales side. We’ve been doing this for some time now and have a pretty good handle on the software. When we run into problems, those are with complicated issues and they’ve always been able to work through those with us. Are there certain verticals or customers that are a better fit for DocuWare? Shea: We’ve been able to place it with customers across the board. We’ve done everything from HR to accounting within organizations to proof of deliveries. It depends on the pain area. That’s another advantage of DocuWare, you can put it in virtually any type of organization and it’s going to work and solve the problem. How do you market it? Shea: Our approach organizationally is consultative on the hardware and the sales side. We market it separately and have a separate sales team that goes out and tries to create opportunities on their own, and truthfully both ways work. How does this compare to other document management solutions you’ve sold in the past or what your competitors may be offering? Shea: We find from a competitive approach in the space we sell—SMB—DocuWare is a perfect fit. Competitively we’ve never found a situation where we couldn’t find a solution to the customer’s problem. The big differentiator is the service and support we provide in addition to the service and support DocuWare provides us. That’s a really strong combination. There’s a huge investment on their side for us to be successful. Solution: Ademero’s Content Central Dealer: Michael Hageman, sales engineer, ASI Business Solutions, Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX What do you like about Content Central from a sales perspective? Hageman: It’s 100 percent Web-based so there is no client software to load and runs off the major browsers—Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Safari. What do customers like about Content Central? Hageman: One of the big things is the workflow engine. It’s not just an approval-type process, it has a true workflow engine built into it. Based upon preset events things can happen within the system whether that’s forwarding [documents] to someone else or [working with] the information provided, there are several ways to do that. [For example,] there can be notifications via e-mail or messages within the system. It’s just very robust. Again, some of the real high-priced systems out there have these very robust workflow engines and this has it too. It’s a great selling point. Who are the best prospects for Content Central? Hageman: We’re placing it with all types of customers. One of the things I like is that Ademero feeds me about three to four leads a week and they’re coming from just about everywhere, including law firms and the medical industry. I can make this fit in just about any corporate or law area. How do you market Content Central? Hageman: It’s on our Website for customers who [do their research online] and I work with our up-and-down-the-street sales reps, talking with customers about document management. I often do that when talking about the different aspects we sell here for middleware or document management whether it’s eCopy DigiDocFlow—solutions that integrate on our control panel to a back-end system. How do you rate Ademero’s service and support? Hageman: It’s an easy package to deal with. It’s easy to use, it’s laid out nicely, you know where the search panes are, you know what your capture area is, you can see your list of documents, and view the document without having to open it directly in the browser. As far as supporting the product, we don’t have someone on staff to provide help desk support so we rely on the manufacturer to provide that. If there’s something they can’t do and it is something that involves the back end, they’ll escalate that to us and we can help them with that. Their engineers can still Web admin with the IT staff of that company and take care of any issues that need to be addressed. They offer as an extension to us that help desk support so our folks can focus on customizations and installs. How does this compare to other document management solutions you’ve sold in the past or what your competitors may be offering? Hageman: We’re still a VAR for DocuLex although it’s not something I currently lead with primarily because of the Ademero product. It’s 100-percent Web-based. It’s just a knock out. I can use the interface and use my scanner with it. There’s no client software for a scanner that needs to be loaded. When you purchase the product you get everything. Some of my competition has a base price for their software and then they add all the different modules—OCR, scanning stations—and all those are client-based add-ons for their products. One of the big selling points is the fact that Ademero provides 24/7 help desk support. This can be done in one of three methods: telephone call, e-mail, and, better yet, built-in live chat. Whenever I’m selling to IT, one of their biggest concerns is, ‘How much am I going to have to support it?’ Ninety percent of the time when you install something like this, it’s not that it’s broken, it’s, ‘How do you do something?’ With built-in live chat the end user can go online and get a live person to assist them with how to do things without having to involve IT or place a call to us. Solution: Convergent EDM, Inc., Millennium 10 Dealer: Brian Gertler, vice president, LDI, Color Toolbox, New York, NY What do you like about Millennium 10 from a sales perspective? Gertler: Millennium 10 is feature rich and offers tremendous flexibility, seamless MFP and scanner integration, and the ability to create complex and comprehensive workflows. Its server-based architecture enables uncomplicated workstation installs and some of the problems that other applications have with workstation speed. What do customers like about Millenium? Gertler: LDI has found that Millennium 10 strict three-tiered architecture leaves very little room for operator and end-user error. The tools and templates provided are easily managed in familiar-looking screens, which facilitate document profiling for later retrieval. Brian Gertler How do you rate the vendor’s service and support? Gertler: Convergent EDM’s size and infrastructure promotes direct client interaction and easy customization of the product. As a reseller, LDI has always found sales, technical support, and professional services to be extremely accessible and pleasurable to work with, whether in a pre-sales meeting, install process, training, face-to-face with the client, teleconference or remote presentation. How do you market this solution?  Are there certain types of customers or vertical markets that this is a good fit for or can it be used by any type of customer? Gertler: LDI markets Millennium 10 as a versatile, robust DBMS (database management system) that can be customized for almost any environment. Convergent EDM’s experience in handling many vertical markets, enterprise-wide and departmental solutions has enabled LDI to be successful in some niche applications. How does this compare to other document management solutions you’ve sold in the past or what your competitors may be offering? Gertler: LDI’s offers a number of DBMS products in its portfolio. The differences that sometimes give other products a competitive edge is related to direct integration strategies with MFP platform architecture, specific templates that are pre-developed for vertical applications or an individual user or industry’s predisposition/acceptance or knowledge of an established competitive solution. Document Management Solution: Computh!nk ViewWise Dealer: John Swalwell, solutions director, Perry Corporation, Lima, OH What do you like about ViewWise from a sales perspective? Swalwell: ViewWise has several key features that allow for more flexibility than other products when marketing EDMS in our marketplace. Those features include, but are not limited to onboard Web services, document lifecycle management, workflow and routing, document encryption, MS SQL back-end DB, and a thick client that allows full functionality without segregating specialized task oriented roles into individual licensed seats. What do customers like about ViewWise? Swalwell: The ease of use with a user friendly Windows-like interface. [It’s a] very feature-rich product with flexible concurrent or named seat licensing. Who are the best prospects for ViewWise? Swalwell: We have placed this product at client locations with two to three users all the way up to county-wide implementations with hundreds of users. The flexibility and scalability of this product enables our specialists to specify and configure this product for most businesses. Consequently, we are not tied to a limited number of market verticals. How do you market this solution? Swalwell: As a traditional office equipment product reseller, we have found that having imaging specialists in place is the most effective market approach. We maintain a 1-to-12 ratio of specialists to front-line account managers. The account managers are tasked with finding appropriate opportunities for our EDMS Products and then engage the specialists. We also have a team of dedicated software engineers that assist when customized demonstrations are warranted and maintain our installed product base. How do you rate the vendor’s service and support? Swalwell: The support team from Computh!nk is excellent. They provide thorough product training as well as responsive support when required.  How does ViewWise compare to other document management solutions you’ve sold in the past or what your competitors may be offering? Swalwell: ViewWise is the most feature-rich product we market. When paired with an appropriate capture platform, its features, flexibility, and scalability are unmatched by the other products we market. Document Management Solution: Info Dynamics’ Intact Dealer: Chip Miceli, President, Des Plaines Office Equipment, Elk Grove Village, IL What do you like about Intact from a sales perspective? Miceli: It’s easy to use, has modules, and seems to be priced right. Chip Miceli What do customers like about Intact? Miceli: Besides the cost, they also like the ease of use and the fact that we can get it installed and running in half a day. How do you rate the vendor’s service and support? Miceli: My people are pretty much versed on it. One of my rules is when we take a product on we have to be able to support it. We use Intact if we’re having issues and we do have a support program with them but most of the time my people are able to handle it. How do you market this solution as part of the hardware presentation, separately, or both ways? Miceli: We seem to do it both ways. We always do our presentation with our product with Intact attached to it. Some buy the whole package, some buy the MFP now and then add it later, we’re flexible we’ll take business however they’ll give it to us. Are your sales reps well versed in Intact? Miceli: No, they bring a specialist out with them. Are there certain vertical markets or customers that Intact is a good fit for? Miceli: We have some in medical and quite a bit in manufacturing—that’s done really well for us. How does this compare to other document management solutions you’ve sold in the past? Miceli: We also carry LaserFiche which is a more robust enterprise system. We took on Intact after we had issues trying to sell the more robust system. We found it was easier to sell a program that isn’t as robust, does pretty much the same thing, but is more economical to purchase. LaserFiche starts at about $25 grand and we found people balking at that kind of dollar amount. With Intact they have modules that start at $2,000 and work their way up so we’re able to fit it into more situations. Scott Cullen has been writing about independent dealer issues and solutions for more than 20 years.