Community College Enables Agility, Innovation and Security

Hudson County Community College automates and accelerates business processes while enabling access for students and staff to information from anywhere.

Transcript

Hudson County Community College is located in Jersey City, New Jersey, right across the water from New York City. Serves about 8000 students a year with about 600 staff and family members. They have an award winning library and a nationally ranked culinary program with amazing kitchens set up for students and the chefs. The school experience with Laserfiche has been a breath of fresh air.

Currently, Hudson’s using it on a few different areas. The biggest area is financially because students submit a lot of documents for financial aid. So the financial aid office, we really focused on getting up and running right away. And then we branch branched out to COVID vaccination tracking for employees and staff. Hudson wanted to track employees and staff that and received the COVID vaccination and reached out to Trisha for ways to be able to track that and attach it to records to make it easier for everyone, not just submitting it, but having to track it.

And Laserfiche was the first response, one for security purposes and confidentiality for those submitting it, and then ease of use So reached out and we had that up and running in a week and a half and we rolled it out to users, adding the participants emailed them and it went into the repository and got access. And so far it’s been a pretty seamless process with them being able to connect it to people’s records.

Enter the information in colleague and information system and then look up if there are any issues. So it’s been a great resource having that ability for them to submit the vaccination forms and see it in college for human resources. The turnaround on this vaccination form was just incredibly fast from its perspective. I want you to be able to access what you need to from anywhere, and that’s totally possible with Laserfiche

So some of the challenges that Hudson has faced was obviously with the pandemic, the shift to remote workforce and the general use of paper and getting people away from that sort of area and being able to get people to understand how easy it is to use a paperless process so that as everyone returns to campus, we maintain that paperless process and keep moving forward.

Laserfiche is making the school more productive and more efficient, which helps in any departments, so we really appreciate that

Bank of China Eliminated 90% of Paper Usage and Simplified Compliance Processes

The Bank of China uses Laserfiche to automate workflows, meet compliance requirements and take a modern approach to banking operations.

Transcript

The Bank of China as a group was founded in 1912 and is the second oldest bank that is still in existence. The bank is the fifth largest bank by capital in the world as of this year. And we are proud to be the most globally oriented. We have over 500 employees and our assets is over $50 billion. The bank started using Laserfiche over 10 years ago and at first, Laserfiche was used as solely a storage for old bank document files as a sort of a hard drive — it’s been over 10 years.

And when I first joined the bank about four years ago, I started looking more into the other services offered by Laserfiche and stumbled into Laserfiche’s offerings that were a lot more than just a repository for documentation management — more process management, workflow management. So that’s where I submitted the idea of paperless to the bank. We got rid of 90% of paper and also helped improve 30% of the manual work and more importantly, Laserfiche also help us meet a lot of regulatory compliance requirements.

My favorite part of Laserfiche I think is the people. Laserfiche helped the bank catch up about 15 years that we were lagging behind, especially when we are talking about paperless, you know, automating manual work. I’m Frank Chen and I’m using Laserfiche to empower Bank of China.

Explore additional insights on the Laserfiche banking solutions page: https://www.laserfiche.com/solutions/financial-services/banks-and-credit-unions/

Public Records and Process Automation Power the County of Newell’s Digital Business Strategy

Located in Alberta, Canada, the County of Newell is known for its central location and dynamic and diverse economy. Recent years have brought growth to the region, including Amazon’s first renewable energy investment in the country — a 80MW solar project expected to produce enough energy to power more than 18,000 Canadian homes for a year. The Newell County government is committed to the area’s progress, continuously improving processes with an eye toward its vision statement: “to encourage and support sustainable growth and quality of life.”

This commitment recently drove a number of transformative efforts at the county, including the digitization and automation of business processes that employees and residents use on a daily basis. The county, a Laserfiche customer since 2004, has been going through processes strategically, optimizing steps using a lean project management methodology.

“We strategically approach everything that we do,” said Roberta Fernell, director of information technology at the County of Newell. “Every process or system we introduce, we want to understand how it fits, and where we may need to adjust to make some improvements. That’s why we did an organization-wide implementation of Laserfiche.”

Reimagining Records Management

Working with Laserfiche solution provider Inspiris, the County of Newell achieved a strategic priority by digitizing and centralizing information in Laserfiche. The Laserfiche platform became the foundation on which departments could build automated processes and integrate with other systems to streamline information flow throughout the organization.

“Digital transformation is a journey, an evolution in how our organization works, operates and moves forward to better serve the public,” said Joanne Wells, records management technician at the county. Departments that now use Laserfiche include:
  • Administration
  • Agricultural Services
  • Corporate Safety
  • Enforcement
  • Engineering Services
  • Finance
  • Fire Services
  • Fleet Services
  • Human Resources
  • Information Technology
  • Municipal Services
  • Planning and Development

The centralization and digitization of records has also supported the county’s commitment to open government, and compliance with Alberta’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIP), as well as the federal Access to Information Act and Privacy Act. The county website’s public portal removes the burden from county staff who previously had to manually pull records, which could cause delays.

“I receive a lot of internal requests for information,” said Ariana Nielsen, executive assistant at the county. “And the search capabilities of Laserfiche allow the public to find information on their own without having to wait for a response.”

Plus, Fernell added, the visibility into what documents are being downloaded enable county staff to gage what the public is interested in: “This information gives us insights into the hot topics — we might find, for instance, that we should do an educational campaign on social media because we see high interest on something particular. We’re leveraging our information in a connected way that can inform other areas of the organization.”

Reclaiming Time in Accounts Payable

As the county assessed the potential for further improvements, accounts payable came up as one process that touched multiple departments but heavily relied on manual tasks. The county re-engineered the AP process, capturing invoices digitally in the Laserfiche repository and using a Laserfiche workflow to automate the routing of information to various departments for reviews and approvals.

This transformation increased visibility of invoices across the organization, enabling the county to accelerate payments and more accurately determine cash flow. Laserfiche integrates with the county’s financial management software, Diamond, as well as its CentralSquare asset management system to create a seamless experience for employees who interact with the AP process.

“The AP process in Laserfiche is efficient and great time saver,” said Emerson Pankratz, the county’s accounting clerk. “It is very easy to enter new invoices into the system and get them to the appropriate person for coding and approvals quickly. Also, Laserfiche’s ability to recognize duplicate invoices helps stop duplicate payments and duplication of efforts.”

“We not only reduced our inaccuracy and our opportunity time — or the time that should be reduced to improve process performance — but we increased our value-added time, or the tasks we do that actually add value to the process, by 27%.”

— Roberta Fernell, director of information technology at the County of Newell

Simplifying the COR Audit Process and Enhancing Employee Experience

As the county’s success with digitization and automation projects spread, the county’s IT team began leveraging a lean methodology to prioritize projects that would have the highest impact.

The organization undergoes a Certificate of Recognition (COR) audit each year to maintain its recognition for developing health and safety programs that meet the standards established by the Alberta government. A previously arduous audit process led the county to reassess its health and safety training documentation, a critical process for the county, which requires all employees to be educated on occupational hazards, preventative measures and best practices.

“For the COR audit, we have to be able to deliver on-demand what they need,” Fernell said. “They need to know that people have received the training required to be competent in their roles, and that we as a county government are keeping them safe by providing that training.”

The IT team built a Laserfiche Form and set up document templates that enable employees to get certificates into the Laserfiche records repository with minimal data entry. The transformation resulted in a reduction of information inaccuracy — from a 58% inaccuracy rate down to below 10%. The county also built notifications into the workflow so that HR employees had visibility into the process — and Laserfiche reporting tools enable managers to view the time it takes to complete the progress, opening up further opportunity for optimization.

While the county used to see about 100 documents related to health and safety training recorded in Laserfiche per year, it now sees about 100 per quarter, thanks to the team’s optimization efforts. The end-to-end process time was also reduced from 135 days to 5.2.

“Staff members want to be recognized for the training they’ve taken,” Fernell said. “And managers need to know what training their staff has taken, or what training they need to take — to help support health and safety in the workplace, and to resource plan.”

County-wide Digital Transformation Continues

The County of Newell continues to strategically optimize processes and integrate systems with Laserfiche with the aim of providing the best possible employee and citizen experience. Major business processes that have already been automated include:
  • Accounts payable approvals
  • Corporate safety
  • Training documentation
  • County of Newell Water Project registration
  • Pre/post trip process
  • Performance reviews
  • IT change requests
  • Gravel haul cards
  • Inspections
  • Fire permits

The IT team also has significant Laserfiche projects on the horizon, including HR onboarding and offboarding, equipment rentals, expense claims and development permits.

“What impresses the County of Newell is the versatility of Laserfiche. Not only does it effectively manage county documents, applying records management, but it also offers efficiencies in the processing of documents, ways to transfer/share data between systems and methods to electronically capture data to be used for reporting and analytics.”

—Roberta Fernell, director of information technology at the County of Newell

“Laserfiche has totally changed how we operate, and how we think about operating,” said Matt Fenske, chief administrative officer at the county.

To learn more about how Laserfiche drives public sector digital transformation, schedule a demo today.

FCA Packaging Strengthens Employee and Vendor Experience through Business Processes Automation

FCA Packaging designs and manufactures highly customized packaging products and solutions for major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Following two recent acquisitions, the organization sought a solution to rebuild key business processes throughout departments. The company sought to address needs in engineering and human resources, as well as industry-specific requirements such as inventory management. Additionally, the FCA Packaging team wanted to process invoice and customer documentation with more efficiency and transparency to support company growth.

“Not only has Laserfiche helped to improve customer and vendor satisfaction, but our staff have also been able to focus more on higher-value processes,” said Sandra Lund, payroll manager at FCA Packaging. “It’s changed the way we function here and just made us so much more efficient working together as a team.”

Using Laserfiche, FCA Packaging transformed the accounts payable process — from a manual, paper driven activity to a streamlined, digital process that has accelerated response and payment times. FCA has since expanded its use of Laserfiche to manage a wide range of both internal and external processes, increasing productivity and accuracy across departments. In addition to automating business-critical processes, employees have been able to reclaim time and increase capacity, enabling the company to optimize costs while providing a high standard of service and products to an expanding client base of manufacturers around the world. “Implementing Laserfiche aligned with our core values of growth and empowerment,” said Steve Everett Jr., a president with FCA Packaging. “Our team members have been able to develop and deploy a solution that scales with us as we continue to grow organically and through acquisition.”

“Implementing Laserfiche aligned with our core values of growth and empowerment. Our team members have been able to develop and deploy a solution that scales with us as we continue to grow organically and through acquisition.”

— Steve Everett Jr, president at FCA Packaging

Buying Into Accounts Payable Transformation

Working with a long list of vendors and with over 1,000 employees across 35 locations, the FCA Packaging accounts payable team saw an opportunity to improve invoice management, which was previously a manual process using a legacy ECM system that was approaching end-of-life. Looking to improve compliance for audits, the team needed a solution that would support granular control access for accounting and financial documents, balancing both accuracy and ease of use. With the support of Laserfiche solution provider Momentum ECM, FCA found a solution in Laserfiche.

Before implementing Laserfiche, two staff members were assigned to reviewing financial statements and payment documentation manually and submitting completed invoices to stakeholders for approval. The manual process could take up to four days to complete. The updated invoice approval process now takes just five hours:
  • Vendors upload credit card receipts to Laserfiche for the AP team to review.
  • Laserfiche automatically extracts key information.
  • Laserfiche uploads the information, organizing it in specific file locations with granular access rights.

The streamlined process also provides an enhanced employee experience with increased accountability, while at the same time accelerating the payment cycle, improving FCA’s reputation among vendors.

“By enabling us to leverage automation and access rights for individuals, we have been able to finalize invoices more efficiently,” said Lund. “Now that we have greater visibility on our AP processes, we can respond to vendor needs more quickly with more accountability.

“In the beginning, some team members were concerned that automation would make certain roles redundant,” added Lund. “But after experiencing how the solution would free up their schedules, many employees were able to accelerate their own personal growth by taking on new projects in other departments. Laserfiche has done more than transform our operations, it has transformed the way we work as a team.”

Additionally, as a result of the Laserfiche initiative, the AP team can now quickly find invoices and other financial documents for review, simplifying the auditing process. The system has been used in a similar capacity for internal audits, as well as streamlining the overall audit process to support industry-specific OSHA documentation and ISO standards. This has further improved industry-specific safety and manufacturing management processes, allowing users to identify additional processes to manage through the digital platform. Laserfiche has provided FCA with more control over financial documents, giving specific members of the company access to the documents needed for internal and external audits to optimize the collection of this high-value data and improve turnaround and compliance.

A Full-Package Solution

After the initial success in the accounts payable department, other departments sought to automate and improve core company processes. Across 35 branches nationwide, Laserfiche has been implemented in almost every department. Laserfiche Forms help to manage processes in HR, accounts receivable, IT, staff safety and beyond. Serving more than 1,000 employees company-wide, the payroll department utilized Laserfiche to manage processes such as vacation requests and salary increases for full-time employees, helping FCA achieve substantial savings in time and resources. For example, compiling and processing sales and tax information for tax returns could take up to three days. Now, the process can be completed in four hours.

In addition to increased efficiency, Laserfiche has helped to increase accountability and for users, enabling staff to take ownership of their respective roles. Employees across all branches can manage invoices and other business-critical content, having access at any time of the day with insights on the progress of each open task. Users can use this information to identify obstacles and bottlenecks at any point of the workflow in order to streamline approval or turnaround a task overall. In an increasingly digital business environment, FCA Packaging has been able to boost efficiency and transparency company wide.

“Laserfiche has helped us to grow within our roles, take on additional projects and have a greater sense of ownership over the work we do,” Lund said. “For departments such as accounts payable, accounts receivable and payroll, our long-term goal will be to use Laserfiche as close to 100% as possible.”

To learn more about how Laserfiche can empower your organization with solutions to help you scale growth and improve the employee and vendor experience, schedule a demo today.

Cloud Document Management Is the Future — Here’s Why

Today’s organizations have been using some form of document management for years, whether it be on paper, on a computer or online. While we at Laserfiche have encouraged customers to digitize documents for decades, many organizations are just starting to move their document management systems to the cloud. Read on to see why cloud-based document management systems are becoming so popular that they’re the norm rather than the exception.

What is a cloud-based document management system?

According to the Association for Intelligent Information Management (AIIM), document management is “the software that controls and organizes documents throughout an organization.” According to Merriam-Webster, cloud computing is “the practice of storing regularly used computer data on multiple servers that can be accessed through the Internet.”

In summary, cloud-based document management system is a platform that controls and organizes documents stored on multiple servers and accessed through the internet.

Why is cloud the future of document management?

Cloud is the future for document management because it is the easiest, most efficient way to access and organize your documents – no matter where your work takes you. In fact, the software as a service (SaaS) industry is expected to expand to a value of over $400 billion by 2025. Why is this the case?

The workplace is becoming remote. Like it or not, remote work is here to stay. According to the AP, Amazon, one of the world’s largest employers, announced in 2021 that it would allow many of its employees to work from home indefinitely. This new world of work means that employees need to access work-related content via the internet, and that’s where cloud document management becomes a necessity.

Cybersecurity is getting more complicated. Even the most robust IT teams face challenges creating in-house enterprise solutions for any and all cyberthreats. These threats are growing in number and complexity, which can strain IT teams that are also deploying solutions and answering helpdesk tickets. Cloud allows internal teams to offload security overhead to the vendor (or a firm dedicated to protecting cloud assets), enabling businesses to stay up-to-date with their security while distributing IT resources effectively.

The digital ecosystem is evolving. Changing trends are informing how we do our everyday work. Largely gone are the days where every line of business was managed within the same application or family of applications. Today’s modern enterprise links different platforms together with content services platforms and others like it. This concept of bringing applications together to form a unique experience, called composition, is essential as modern applications are becoming more specialized and connected.

What are the benefits of cloud-based document management?

Managing documents and content in the cloud offers a variety of benefits, including:

Robust backups of your data — Unlike an in-house solution, cloud content is backed up dozens or even thousands of times, ensuring that you don’t lose key information. This information can help you make informed decisions and keep business moving. Many cloud providers host backups in multiple data centers, which can support business continuity and help you recover from disaster quickly — if one of these facilities is down, your data and services generally aren’t.

Protect sensitive information — In addition to providing backups and multiple availability zones for your data, cloud services also often come with automatic updates and patches, and likely have more staff dedicated to securing information that is stored or moved to and from the cloud. Some cloud vendors may even offer specialized solutions based on the needs of heavily regulated industries, such as finance, that are either built into, or can be added onto, your existing cloud solution – with minimal setup on your organization’s end. This is great for organizations that can’t, or don’t want to, dedicate extensive staff or technological resources to cybersecurity.

Anywhere access — In the era of remote work, many professionals are moving out of established industry hubs and setting up home offices elsewhere. Cloud services make it easier for both remote and in-person teams to collaborate and communicate, making your organization more flexible in how it acquires and supports talent. In addition, anywhere access can simply help business processes move faster. Let’s say there’s a disruption to a time-sensitive process that needs a specific employee or role to get moving again — if this process is on the cloud, that employee or someone in that role can do what they need to do, even if they aren’t able to get to the office in a timely fashion. An ability to address these situations makes your business more efficient while giving it the ability to respond quickly to market forces and changes.

Low maintenance — A cloud solution often implies low to no hardware costs, as well as automatic updates that keep systems current for everyone. With your IT team free to offload some of these items, as well as security and data backups to another vendor or service, they can focus on new projects, procurements or respond to tickets faster. An agile IT team means a sturdier business, especially when it comes to business continuity.

How do I choose the right cloud document management system?

Ultimately, even when the decision to move to cloud is clear, it becomes even clearer that not all cloud document management systems are created equal. Although there are no hard and fast rules, here are some factors you may want to consider when shopping solutions:

Flexibility — in both capability and pricing, flexibility can be important dependent on your needs. Industries can change in an instant, so it’s important for your organization to be able to adapt as quickly as possible to disruptions and shifts in the market.

Robust capability — whether your cloud document management system can handle a task on its own, or integrate with a platform that does, you want to make sure it can handle your organization’s current needs, and potential future initiatives.

Compatibility — although these systems can be revolutionary, you want to have a new system to deploy seamlessly within most or all of the digital ecosystems you have already developed. Siloed systems should be avoided as much as possible in the age of content services, where different lines of business exchange information frequently.

The journey to find the right cloud document management system can be a daunting one — download our guide to learn more about why organizations need document management, and how you can procure the right solution for your organization.

A Seamless Shift to Remote Work

During the COVID-19 pandemic, companies in nearly every industry rely on Laserfiche Cloud to keep work moving no matter where employees were working.

Secure File Sharing Enables Streamlined Processes

By simplifying its processes and making better, data-driven decisions, the group of insurance carriers elevates the experience it provides for employees and customers alike.

The Isle of Man Moves to Digital-First Government Services

In recent years, the Isle of Man has undertaken modernisation efforts to the benefit of citizens, bringing more services online and increasing efficiency using Laserfiche for digital records management, electronic forms and workflow automation. The Laserfiche initiatives have created a foundation upon which to build a digital-first government, enhancing the experience for anyone seeking services, whether they are private citizens or businesses.

The Isle of Man Central Registry’s digital transformation efforts unexpectedly became a key factor in its ability to keep business moving during the COVID-19 pandemic.  “Having Laserfiche installed, and integrated with government’s online service, was a godsend for the Land and Deeds Registries and all of our customers as it enabled us to continue to provide a full service throughout the lockdown period,” said Registrar General Ed Clague. “In conjunction with government online services, we operated successfully throughout the lockdowns.”

Building a Foundation with Digital Records Management

The Isle of Man sits at the heart of the British Isles with a population of 86,000. As a self-governing British Crown Dependency, the Isle of Man’s parliament is the world’s oldest, dating back more than 1,000 years. The Island’s Central Registry is responsible for maintaining and administering services related to a family of registries including the Civil Registry, Companies Registry, Deeds Registry, Land Registry, and Public Record Office.

Prior to implementing Laserfiche, the land and deeds registries had a mixed way of managing records, which comprised manual search and retrieval, and a bespoke legacy system that was not internet-enabled and approaching end-of-life.

“The biggest motivation for us to move to Laserfiche was its off-the-shelf capabilities, which reduces the risk of having to retire another legacy system in the future, and provides us with a demonstrable upgrade path,” Clague said. “Most importantly, Laserfiche gives us a platform for further digital services. It’s a perfect system for our requirements.”

By transitioning from the registry’s legacy records system to Laserfiche digital records management, the organisation safeguards and centralizes historic records and ultimately provides better customer service via improved efficiency and easier access to information by the people who need it. The ability to provide documents to people who have requested them online and on-demand also reinforces the Isle of Man’s commitment to open government; the organisation aims to make more of its records available online within the coming years.

The digitalisation initiative also supports the Isle of Man’s compliance practices, which have become increasingly important with the introduction of GDPR in 2018. The Isle of Man aims to maintain its reputation for meeting high international standards in its compliance practices, making sure that data is as accurate, reliable and up to date as possible.

“We want to be early adopters of international guidelines; we want to make sure that IT systems can keep up as well,” Clague said. “Our goal is to enable the organisation to evolve with international standards, and we want our practices to be demonstrable, while keeping compliance overhead low.”

While the registry’s initial phase of Laserfiche implementation included digitalisation and data migration, the organisation began seeing even more benefit when Laserfiche was integrated with the Isle of Man’s GIS platform based on Esri’s ArcGIS, as well as the government’s payment gateway in order to streamline land and deeds processes and to create a public search portal for land and deeds. The registry has worked with Laserfiche Solution Provider Manx Business Solutions for implementation, selecting the company for its expertise and experience after evaluating a number of partners.

“People make the project. We have worked with MBS and they have been a fantastic team to work with: a solution-orientated team which listens carefully to our needs and suggesting options,” Clague explained. “MBS is knowledgeable, personable, professional, and flexible at all times. To varying degrees, almost my entire team has worked with MBS at some point of the project — and I’m pleased to say this view is universally shared. I take this opportunity to thank the MBS team, for the work it has done and work it continues to provide — keep up the good work.”

The Isle of Man’s public portal now allows people to access a Laserfiche online 24/7 to purchase deeds. Through the Laserfiche integration with ESRI, the Land Registry also enables customers to search an online map for properties, and view all available documents related to those properties.

“The Isle of Man’s new Land Registry solution based on our ArcGIS technology required a document management element,” said Nart Tamash, solution architect at ESRI UK. “This is where the team at MBS and Laserfiche came into play which enabled us to deliver an end-to-end solution to the Isle of Man’s Central Registry by integrating our off-the-shelf web-based products. The most exciting thing is that this pattern is repeatable, and customisable thanks to our APIs, across many organisations and use cases that require a world class mapping and document management system.”

Quinn Legal, a leading law firm on the Isle of Man, has saved significant time utilising the Laserfiche driven Land and Deeds Registry process. Historically, the firm’s staff would have had to visit the registry on a daily basis whereas now, most of their business can be undertaken online.

“This came into its own when COVID struck, with the Island of Man going into lockdown,” said Neil Quilliam, senior conveyancer at Quinn Legal. “Quinn Legal staff were able to seamlessly continue with their daily interaction with the Land and Deeds Registry online.”

Continuous Innovation to Enhance the Employee and Citizen Experience

When lockdowns took effect, the Central Registry had to close its office to visitors in person, however, it was able to provide a digital alternative for all its services.

“Our implementation of Laserfiche was very timely,” Clague said. “This is the new normal now — we still have customers who visit the office — they may not be able to access digital forms at home for various reasons — but for the most part people now prefer to access our services online. The number of people visiting the office has dropped by 90% if not more. It’s been a massive benefit.”

Along with the rest of the world during COVID-19 surges and mandates, the Central Registry has experienced a growing demand for access to information in real-time online and digital services. By providing those digital services, the Isle of Man has been able to reduce physical foot traffic and simultaneously increase efficiency in its processes, reclaiming time that staff has used to improve the experience for both government employees and the people they serve.

“Governments can get caught in a vicious cycle when trying to do more with less, but we’ve created a virtuous circle. We’ve freed up time by digitalising, and the more that we digitalise, the more we can serve our customers. It’s allowed us to maintain and improve our services at no additional cost, even during lockdowns.”

—Ed Clague, Registrar General, Isle of Man Central Registry

“We are not resting on our laurels,” Clague added. “We want the ability to innovate and move forward. We will be using Laserfiche as a fundamental component in transforming our business. We will be moving more of our services online. We will be protecting our critical business records. And we will be improving our working environment and improving our efficiency.”

Learn more about how to prepare your organization for any unexpected circumstances with a solid business continuity plan. Download The Ultimate Guide to Business Continuity Planning now.

Glasgow Credit Union Digitally Transforms the Member Experience and Supports Business Resilience

Glasgow Credit Union is one of the largest credit unions in Europe, serving the greater Glasgow area with a service scope focusing on savings and loans. Experiencing steady growth, the organization used Laserfiche to power a number of digital transformation initiatives aimed at reducing reliance on manual processes and ensuring that the organization could scale while maintaining the high-quality customer experience for which the credit union is known.

The organization initially implemented Laserfiche in 2016 as a document management platform, integrating it with Glasgow’s CRM system to improve access to information for customers and employees. Since then, Laserfiche has helped achieve business process automation to digitize and streamline loan processing. With a completely automated lending platform, clients are offered more competitive lending services, enabling customers to complete loan approvals in under an hour.

“Laserfiche is quite central to all we do,” said Paul McFarlane, chief technology officer at Glasgow Credit Union.

Additionally, Glasgow Credit Union’s digital initiatives have supported business continuity during the COVID-19 pandemic, enabling the organization to rapidly pivot to more digitally focused services. This aligns with expansion and scalability needs: Since implementing Laserfiche, membership has expanded to around 55,000 customers, representing nearly GBP 200 million (US$277 million*) in assets.

A Customer-Focused, Streamlined Lending Process

Founded in 1989, Glasgow Credit Union has grown substantially over the past four decades but its aim has remained the same: helping members and ensuring they have access to friendly, professional financial services that meet their needs. As member expectations have evolved, the credit union has prioritized digital transformation to provide the best possible member experience.

“It’s not just us, but in our sector, we didn’t have a lot of scalability in a lot of our processes,” McFarlane said. “So our application journey, specifically to onboard a member and apply for a loan, was quite a cumbersome process because it was paper-heavy and there was a lot of manual tasks. … There was no automation. Initially there were no web services as well.”

Using Laserfiche, the organization created an automated lending platform which digitized and centralized loan applications, increasing accessibility of information for staff; and ultimately accelerated loan processing for clients. With the understanding that an easy and fast new member onboarding is fundamental to a member’s experience, the credit union also digitized and streamlined the member onboarding process by integrating Laserfiche with its existing financial management application, Curtains, along with DocuSign. New members can now join the credit union and apply for funds within 15 minutes — a process that used to take up to three days.

With an eye toward enhancing the full client experience, Glasgow Credit Union also launched an initiative to streamline the borrowing process. This required as fast a turnaround as possible for customer loans to be issued once their loan applications were accepted. Previously handling around 24,000 loan agreements each year, the company manually processed and archived 120,000 sheets of paper. Customers were manually notified by staff at each stage of the loan journey, resulting in 10,000 resource hours each year.

“The feedback from members was phenomenal — the speed, the efficiency, the fact that we didn’t have to wait for the post to deliver the paper, and how easy it was to do business with us after we had improved those processes,” said McFarlane.

The Glasgow Credit Union team re-engineered and automated the loan agreement process so that loans could be completed in under an hour rather than several days. Approximately 80% of applications were completed digitally prior to the pandemic. COVID-19 increased reliance on digital processes, however, and today, nearly all loan applications are now submitted and processed in a digital manner, benefiting both clients and staff in terms of efficiency and turnaround.

“Our work with Laserfiche wasn’t about preparing for something like COVID — I don’t think anybody was preparing for something like COVID,” McFarlane explained. “Our decision to digitalize was all about efficiency; it was about speed and providing a better, slicker service to our members. But if we hadn’t done that, it would have been a different conversation that we’re having today.”

Improving the Customer Journey

Digitization has also benefited Glasgow Credit Union members by providing the ability to initiate joining and borrowing processes even after office business hours. An automated self-serve channel allows the processes to be kicked off without staff supervision. After initiating an application process, Laserfiche integrations with third party applications — DocuSign, Curtains, and a bespoke front-end platform — seamlessly drive the loan application process through a workflow from the initial application stage to final pay out.

Documents are delivered back to customers for signing, bringing them to the next application stage. The automated process saves more than 150 employee hours each week. Employees have reclaimed this time to focus on other parts of the business, expanding operational capacity.

“We’ve got Laserfiche integrated with our core technologies, so users can view documents through our front-end that are pulled from the Laserfiche platform, without having to open up separate applications,” said McFarlane. “Employees find it quite easy that they’re not having to work across multiple platforms.”

Underlying Glasgow Credit Union’s integration and process automation initiatives, the organization has robust records management practices — a critical element to success in the financial services industry. Laserfiche has supported the organization’s information governance, enabling the credit union to manage the full life cycle of documents and supporting compliance with European data protection regulations.

During the first year after deploying Laserfiche, Glasgow Credit Union experienced an income growth exceeding GBP 1 million (US$1.31 million*), as well as a GBP 40 million (US$52.44 million*) increase in loan volumes from 2017 to 2018. Followed by this business growth, the credit union’s team now feels they have an infinite operational capacity for loan processing. After four years, Glasgow Credit Union has achieved ROI equating to their original investment in the Laserfiche platform. Factoring in resource savings and improved customer journey times, the credit union has a scalable model that has resulted in significant growth in business.

As a central, business-critical software solution, Laserfiche has helped Glasgow Credit Union with existing scalability and project prioritization goals, as well as helped to respond to customer needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Beyond member onboarding and loan applications, the organization is looking to implement Laserfiche in a similar capacity in mortgage applications and other business units.

“I’m amazed at the simplicity of integrating Laserfiche with our existing processes and other pieces of business-critical technology,” said McFarlane. “Our vision is to be the lender of choice within our marketplace in Glasgow – Laserfiche has helped us achieve that.”

*USD conversion subject to current exchange rate.

Find out more about how Laserfiche helps to transform credit unions here.

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Hitachi Capital FSI Improves Risk Management and Automates Key Processes

Winner of the Laserfiche Run Smarter® Award for its outstanding demonstration of enterprise-wide change management.

“In the modern business landscape, keeping pace with workplace trends and rapidly evolving technology gives organizations a competitive edge,” said Chris Wacker, CEO of Laserfiche. “With its Laserfiche initiative, Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions gives its employees the tools and knowledge they need to play larger role in their company’s success.”

As a division of Hitachi Capital (UK) PLC, Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions has been funding cars and commercial vehicles in the UK for more than 30 years. The organization used Laserfiche to automate many internal functions, including lease/proposal processing and records management. The cross-departmental initiative improved risk management while eliminating many manual tasks for staff, reducing the time to complete key processes, such as purchasing, from over a week to just minutes.

“Clear goals, strategic vision and the right technology enabled our organization to increase efficiency by an estimated 2,600 percent,” said Eamon O’Brien, Information Systems Configuration Manager at Hitachi Capital (UK) PLC. “We’re honored to be recognized for the initiative that’s had a huge impact on our business’s success and positions us to meet our growth targets.”