Laserfiche welcomed 4,000 attendees to the Long Beach Convention Center on the second day of Empower 2020. The day was full of exciting announcements and presentations, including the Education and Financial Services Industry Leadership Symposiums, inspiring keynotes and a general session spotlighting the latest and greatest developments in Laserfiche.

Inspiring Keynotes: The Art of Innovation

Our first general session at Empower 2020 featured inspiring perspectives on using technology to transform lives, the importance of centering digital transformation around our clients, customers and coworkers, and the art of innovation.

Laserfiche CEO Chris Wacker shared inspiring stories about the importance of tech as a tool to transform lives for the better, including extraordinary uses of data and analytics to re-imagine how medicine is practiced, and a Laserfiche-supported project that uses data to  uncover correlations in weather patterns that lead to climate change.

“It’s not technology alone that transforms lives. People do.​” — Chris Wacker, Laserfiche CEO

Laserfiche president Karl Chan took the stage to provide perspective on human-centered digital transformation. He noted “Investment in digital transformation is expected to reach $7.4 trillion by 2023…but 70% of initiatives fail, because they fail to see the bigger picture,” said Karl.

“Digital transformation is change management. Digital transformation is culture transformation. Digital transformation is transforming the human experience. It is about adding value to our lives.” — Karl Chan, Laserfiche president

Next, we welcomed inspiring Laserfiche power user Thomas Sowinski of Berkshire Hathaway Homestate Companies to the Empower stage to share BHHC’s experiences implementing a successful digital transformation, and how the right tech improves delivery of services to your customers and constituents.

“How can we provide our customers with more value today so they can succeed tomorrow? Focus on the outcomes, and you’ll be able to design the systems to fit the need of your customers.” — Thomas Sowinski, Berkshire Hathaway Homestate Companies AVP of business applications

As a grand finale, attendees were treated to a special keynote speaker: author, entrepreneur and tech evangelist Guy Kawasaki, who spoke on the “art of innovation.” Guy shared with attendees lessons he’s learned from his experiences as an early member of Apple, his successes in entrepreneurism and his current roles as an author, speaker, podcast producer and chief evangelist for Canva. Some lessons he shared with attendees:

• “Make meaning from your work. Figuring out how you can improve people’s lives first is the foundation for ingenious creation.”
• “Define your business by the problems you’re trying to solve, not the product you’re currently producing.”
• “Focus on merit (in your team), nothing else matters.”
• “Great innovation will polarize people. Some people will love what you do, others will hate it. The worst case is, people don’t care.”
• “Changing your mind is an act of strength, bravery and intelligence.”

Guy summarized the core sentiment of his lessons in one final moment during his speech:

“Some things need to be believed to be seen.”

Click here to watch the Laserfiche Empower 2020 video broadcast to see the keynotes live.

The Latest Laserfiche Developments

Laserfiche product experts shared the latest developments in Laserfiche technology during our general session. Justin Pava, director of product management at Laserfiche, took the stage to discuss Laserfiche Vault, a security and compliance solution package designed for broker-dealers and customizable across other industries and job roles. Laserfiche Vault enables organizations to go beyond records management, enhancing information governance and supporting information integrity and privacy. Click here to learn more about Laserfiche Vault.

Pava also revealed that direct share, Laserfiche’s secure file sharing feature, is now available to Laserfiche users! Direct share allows you to securely share content with external users, whether they are in other department or they are external vendors or customers — all while enabling users to audit, track and manage shared content. Learn more about direct share here.

Next, Tessa Adair, product manager at Laserfiche, talked about how Laserfiche is leveraging AI and machine learning to transform business processes, such as the development of intelligent capture in invoice processing. “Creating an automated process around invoices is notoriously challenging…each invoice may have a totally different format,” Tessa says. With Laserfiche’s intelligent capture functionality, this accounts payable challenge is easily tackled. Click here to learn more.

Ian McCready, senior product manager at Laserfiche, shared details about Laserfiche’s latest integration capabilities, such as our Microsoft 365 integration. As Ian put it, “The best systems are those that have a lot of smaller systems, who all know how to communicate with each other.” Learn more about our latest integration with Microsoft 365 here.

Lastly, Laserfiche product marketing manager Brandon Buccowich took the stage to share the expansive capabilities of robotic process automation, such as filling in integration gaps, and supporting processes like Laserfiche’s new smart invoice capture. “Workflow bots, powered by RPA, allow you to unlock more value out of your legacy systems and enable last mile integration efforts.” Brandon reminded us all of the underlying benefit of tools like RPA:

“Laserfiche is committed to helping your organizations go beyond what previously may not have been possible: ​Where you can continue to push boundaries and ultimately, where all of us can get more time back and focus on less robotic work.”

Click here to watch the Laserfiche Empower 2020 video broadcast for more details on the latest in Laserfiche technology.

Industry Leadership Symposiums

Day 2 of Laserfiche Empower featured our first-ever Industry Leadership Symposiums. Business and technology professionals in financial services and education attended day-long programs of sessions tailored to topics and challenges specific to their industries.

The Financial Services Leadership Symposium featured speakers and sessions highlighting the future of work in the wealth management industry, the importance of data privacy and customer experience, and the evolving tech landscape and how it can best be utilized by advisors and finance professionals. A few of the featured speakers included internationally recognized expert on applied technology for financial professionals, Joel Bruckenstein; chief operating officer for Shufro Rose, Vibhaw K. Arya; and president and founder of Nexus Strategy, Tim Welsh. These and other speakers delivered inspiring sessions such as:

• Keynote Panel: A Conversation about the Future – How AI, Blockchain, Cybersecurity and Robots Will Transform Financial Services
• Create an Outstanding Client Experience through Operational Excellence with Smart Workflows
• The Importance of the Customer Journey in Creating an Outstanding Client Experience

The Education Leadership Symposium was led by leaders at the forefront of higher education and K-12 education who are driving innovation and impact with comprehensive services that enable student success. Attendees were treated to welcoming remarks from Dr. Jane Close Conoley, president of California State University, Long Beach. The symposium consisted of series of sessions focused on driving better student service delivery, developing tech careers in education, and utilizing Laserfiche technology to improve business processes and develop a strategic digital campus. Sessions included:

• Full Circle: The Role of Public‐Private Partnerships in Driving Student Success
• Leadership Panel: The Path to CIO
• Enterprise IT Panel: Leading High‐Impact Enterprise Laserfiche Implementations
• Tech Talks: Innovative Solutions for Education

Laserfiche Empower continues throughout the week of February 11-14, 2020. Click here to watch the live broadcast of Empower 2020.