November VAR of the Month Arguz Document Imaging and Storage Services has the distinction of installing Latin America’s very first Rio system, to the Instituto Nacional de Migracion (INAMI), Mexico’s Immigration Department.

Since Arguz became a Laserfiche reseller in 2001, the mark of its success has been servicing enterprise-scale government solutions across Mexico.

Besides the Immigration Department, Arguz’s client list includes Pemex Exploracion y Produccion (Mexicos’ state-owned petroleum company and tenth largest revenue-producing gasoline producer in the world), as well as Gobierno del Estado de Durango, Guanajuato, Nuevo Leon, Yucatan (the state of Durangos, Guanajuatos, Nuevo Leon and Yucatan among others).

The Mexico City-based Arguz was actually founded in 1991 but didn’t become a Laserfiche VAR until 2001. “We decided to focus on a niche that wasn’t being explored at that time, and that was document imaging (DI),” explains Sergio Galvez, Director General. “Organizations didn’t really know anything about DI.”

Thanks to Galvez and Arguz, a growing number of them do. The Arguz brand was built on providing services for digitization, development and implementation, including sales, support, training and maintenance of everything related to digitization. In addition to Laserfiche, Arguz also offers co-branded solutions from its brand product line from Kodak, ReadSoft, Iris, Hitachi and HP.

Galvez says Arguz’s real equity is in its deep partnership with its clients as evidenced by its comprehensive analysis, implementation and support services.

“We don’t sell boxes¬ – we sell solutions,” he explains. “When we implement a system, we help the client with the entire process, planning, design, on-site digitalization, as well as any ad hoc software integration with Laserfiche. We explain to the customer all the processes involved in document imaging.” He adds that Arguz is also ISO9001-certified for record keeping and process management.

“I think a lot of the success we’ve had [with installations] is because we were able to analyze early on just what exactly the person actually using the system will need to use it for,” says Galvez.

INAMI, for instance, initially acquired its Laserfiche system in 2003 to archive its historical records. Soon the scope of its information management needs grew, and the department looked to transition into active records management solution. Galvez had been made aware of the then as-yet-unreleased Rio ECM system by Laserfiche Regional Manager Sandra Vila. Says Galvez, “We agreed right away Rio was a perfect fit, both for the licensing model it uses and how a level of security can be maintained through Active Directory, which is key in federal installations.”

He credits the pioneering sale—which took almost a year—with Arguz’s already-strong relationship with the department. “It was easy,” he says, “because INAMI trusts in Laserfiche because the system works.”

Of course, with the promise of going enterprise-wide comes the responsibility of making that promise a reality. “It’s an ongoing challenge,” Galvez says of INAMI’s Rio upgrade.

“We’ll start working with Laserfiche Workflow towards the middle of 2009,” he says confidently. “We’re going to spend the first quarter of the year sitting down and analyzing the way they work, and in middle 2009 we will start running the first workflow rules for the day-to-day operations.”

Galvez is confident Arguz could find its niche as Mexico’s go-to VAR for Rio ECM. “Rio’s just more cost-effective than Laserfiche Classic,” he says.

Next, he’s looking forward to the Laserfiche International Conference in January—and Arguz’s place among the top-performing VARs of the Winner’s Circle 2009.

As for parting words, Galvez offers this sage advice: “Know the functionality of the products, so you can thoroughly present it to your clients.”

Posted on Saturday, November 1st, 2008 at 9:39 am under VAR of the Month. You can comment on this post.