Author Archive: Hobey Echlin

Gold Standard

USC’s Office of the Provost inspires enterprise-wide records management campus-wide

June 11th, 2009

“We consider our faculty to be our greatest asset,” says David Haugland, Associate Vice Provost of the University of Southern California (USC). Trouble was, spread out as USC faculty were among its 17 schools and colleges, for the Office of the Provost, faculty records were increasingly the university’s greatest pain in that asset.
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Online, Not In Line

When Saco, ME, looked to Laserfiche to manage its information, it didn’t have a problem, it had a vision

June 10th, 2009

saco-logoMaine’s state motto is “The Way Life Should Be,” and the City of Saco’s could well be “The Way Laserfiche Should Be.” Thanks to a commitment to user education and establishing an in-house Laserfiche administrator, city employees in every department have embraced an ecological and economical paradigm shift in how the city does business and offers services.

So much so that in just three years, Saco has set a standard for e-government so high that its regional neighbors are beginning to look into it as well.

So why has Saco been so successful? For starters, when City Administrator Rick Michaud and Saco’s IT staff looked into document management three years ago, they didn’t have a problem, they had a plan.
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June VAR of the Month: Manx Business Solutions

Manx Business Solutions credits their success with being able to talk to the financial services industry in its own language

June 9th, 2009

mbs-logoWhen Rupert Leaton of Isle of Man-Manx Business Solutions (MBS) titled his May technology seminar simply “Cost,” 55 of his fellow Manx (the term for residents of the Isle of Man) showed up to hear more. This number is significant because the Isle of Man, situated between England and Ireland in the Irish Sea, is a relatively small island—the kind of place where when you rent a car, they don’t keep track of your fuel because you won’t drive enough to need a fill-up—but is also home to one of the world’s most sophisticated financial services industries.
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Mighty IT

Eaton County’s Prosecuting Attorney had the inspiration to go digital, but his IT Director had the vision to choose Laserfiche

May 22nd, 2009

The Eaton County, MI’s Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has long been recognized for its visionary use of Laserfiche. What began in 2003 as a means of archiving closed cases has evolved into a department-wide embrace of technology that has eliminated file cabinets, saved significant time and an exponential amount of money. Perhaps most sustainably, Laserfiche has improved the way attorneys work. Lawyers summon case information – police reports, photographs, even video and audio archives of 911 calls – right in the courtroom from a digital briefcase. Plus, minimal staff is required to stay ahead of the continuous inflow of paper generated.

Behind this success has been the foresight and follow-through of Laserfiche Luminary Dr. Robert J. Sobie, the county’s Information Systems Director. For almost 15 years, Sobie has patiently championed the efficiency of the paperless workplace, department by department, process by process, all the way to the Prosecuting Attorney’s office and beyond.
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Structure Yields Flexibility

Iberdrola Renewables thinks up new and clever uses for Laserfiche all the time

May 15th, 2009

iberdrola-renewablesIberdrola Renewables is one of North America’s leading providers of structured energy solutions for wholesale and large commercial and industrial customers. With over 9,300 megawatts of renewable energy in operation globally - and more than 2,800 megawatts of that being wind power located in the U.S. - the Portland, OR-based company is currently the world’s leading provider of wind power. Last year, Iberdrola Renewables created 15,000 jobs worldwide, while investing $2.2 billion in wind power in the US alone – up from $1.54 billion in 2007 – to become the second largest provider of wind power in the US since entering the market in 2006.

But the rapid growth of its renewable energy division in the last few years led to challenges managing its documents and records. “With each new energy project, we were increasing the number of relationships with private land owners, commercial suppliers, and government agencies,” explains Sean Malowney, a Senior Business Systems Analyst at the company. “This translated into a growing volume of invoices and contracts.”
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May VAR of the Month: Solbrekk Business Technology Solutions

Larry Phelps credits much of his success to his extensive marketing efforts.

May 9th, 2009

solbrekk-logo“Yes, people are more cautious, but there are pockets of organizations in nearly every field that are looking to spend money on document imaging technology this year and my job is to find them,” says Larry Phelps of Minnesota reseller Solbrekk.
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“What Happened Next Was Nothing Short of Amazing”

How a plan to stop using Laserfiche instead inspires city-wide adoption in Albany, OR

May 5th, 2009

albany-orTo be honest, the City of Albany, OR, hadn’t really been maximizing Laserfiche when its new Finance Director wanted to do away with using it altogether five years ago.

The city had installed Laserfiche in its Finance Department in 1998 as a virtual file cabinet. “Between 1999-2003 we were only scanning a few thousand documents a month and it was limited to just the Finance department,” admits Network Administrator and Laserfiche Luminary Allen Pilgrim. By 2004, Laserfiche storage totaled just ten volumes of 4.6GB each. A significant number, but apparently not significant enough for one new city administrator.
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April VAR of the Month: Josanti InfoImaging, Ltd.

Since its founding five years ago, Josanti InfoImaging has achieved significant success in its native Ghana, a market as economically and technologically challenging as the world has to offer.

April 13th, 2009

josanti-logoSince its founding five years ago, Josanti InfoImaging has achieved significant success in its native Ghana, a market as economically and technologically challenging as the world has to offer. Yet, Josanti’s client list reads like a consortium of West Africa’s most forward-thinking financial institutions: CAL Bank, Ecobank Ghana as well as National Investment Bank.

With the addition of two World Bank-sponsored government projects, the Ghana Immigration Service and the Ghana Land Administration Project, Josanti InfoImaging has earned its place in the Laserfiche Winners Circle for the first time this year.
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Dallas’ Northern Stars

Collin County, TX, shines a light on the power of pre-planning

April 6th, 2009

collin-county-logoSince implementing Laserfiche in 2007, Collin County, TX, home to the Dallas/Fort Worth area’s fastest-growing northeast suburbs, has enjoyed enterprise-wide success automating and integrating its business processes. But as Records Manager Margaret Anderson points out, it’s been as a direct result of equally enterprise-wide pre-planning working with the county’s myriad departments.

The County saw its population increase nearly 50%—from nearly 500,000 in 2000 to 725,000 by 2007—straining the county’s infrastructure. As Anderson puts it, “The exponential growth rate of our county is reflected in the increased demand for essential county services.” The governing body of the county, the Commissioners Court, then issued a strategic direction to improve efficiency and customer service. “This caused us to look at an enterprise solution to managing our records with emphasis on migrating to electronic records,” she explains. “We had to reduce our paper and microfilm records volume.”
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The Real Cold Case Files

Laserfiche is helping law enforcement solve more cold cases than ever before. It’s not quite “CSI: Laserfiche,” but it’s getting there.

March 10th, 2009

Two years ago, the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office in Florida was another local government agency with overflowing file cabinets and the inspiration (and budget) to do something about it. Laserfiche was at first intended to manage departmental records, but was soon adapted to catalogue domestic violence cases and help create SORT, the county’s public database of sexual predators. “Being able to scan in domestic violence case reports is important because these cases are very time-sensitive as far as victims support services go,” says Commander Doug Waller. “Time is definitely not on our side.”

The importance of time is especially crucial to homicide cases. “We only see about 10-12 homicides a year and we generally stay on top of them,” says Lieutenant Bruce Barnett. “But the longer a case stays open, the more the paperwork piles up.”
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March VAR of the Month: Nashua Ltd.

Nashua Ltd. makes massive strides selling Laserfiche by first getting its foot in the door.

March 1st, 2009

nashua-logoTo sell enterprise-wide, start with a single process.

Nashua Ltd. makes massive strides selling BPM by first getting its foot in the door.

“Simplify your sale by addressing a single process,” says Ben Sheppard, Solutions Consulting Manager. “You make the capital outlay and risk to the customer so much smaller. Find their pain first - find the financial drivers within that process causing the pain - then start your up-selling. Then constantly re-visit and show your customer and other departments more features and benefits.”
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February VAR of the Month: Unity Business Systems

Over the past two years, Unity Business Systems has focused on selling to technical support staff.

February 1st, 2009

ubs-logoHow do you become a million dollar reseller? You answer Laserfiche CEO’s Nien-Ling Wacker’s challenge to “Be IT’s sweetheart in 2009.”

That’s what Unity Business Systems (UBS) is doing – albeit with a slight twist. Over the past two years, the Virginia-based reseller has made its technical support staff the sweetheart of its sales effort: technical staff now account for 15% of sales.
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Ending the “Horror of the Heaps”

Laserfiche modernizes Uganda’s economy and the way the country looks at information

January 30th, 2009
IT Systems Analyst Gary Agira

IT Systems Analyst Gary Agira

If Gary Agira’s story were a movie, the story would include the Ugandan IT Systems Analyst navigating government bureaucracy, stubborn workers, and perhaps most dramatically, a national registry and warehouse overflowing with 34 million government documents—to bring them all into the digital world. It’d be a charmingly idiosyncratic story, but still a universal one: document management as a metaphor for progress, with Agira’s unwavering belief in the power of technology as he moves a nation and a workforce into the digital age.

But this isn’t a movie, and the real Gary Agira is the IT Systems Analyst for Uganda’s Privatization & Utility Sector Reform Project (PUSRP). The PUSRP is the department of the Ministry of Finance and Planning charged with the epic task of overhauling the way the African nation archives, stores and perhaps most profoundly of all, actually works with records to support the divestiture and reform of 42 public enterprises. It’s all part of an initiative to move Uganda’s economy forward.
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Shining Example

Laserfiche helps Charlottesville, VA, see the light at the end of the inbox

January 9th, 2009

Charlottesville, VA sealCharlottesville, VA is consistently voted one of America’s best cities to live, marked as it is by its deep history (birthplace of three U.S. presidents) and its college-town charm (home to the University of Virginia). But when it came to records management, Charlottesville’s paper history held little charm for the city staff left dealing with its outdated and overgrown filing system.

“Life before Laserfiche was full of frustration,” remembers Rosalind Collins, Deputy Commissioner of the Revenue and Laserfiche Administrator for the City of Charlottesville.
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January VAR of the Month: RB Document Management Solutions Ltd.

RB Document Solutions Ltd. has been named VAR of the Month twice in one year, increasing sales 122%, despite a global financial crisis that hit its market of financial advisers hardest.

January 3rd, 2009

rb-doc-solutions-logoRB Document Solutions Ltd. (RBDSL) has been named VAR of the Month twice in one year, increasing sales 122%, despite a global financial crisis that hit its market of financial advisers hardest.
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