The Goal: Becoming an “Imaging Leader”

Whether in life or in business, true leaders are motivated by the pursuit (and achievement) of excellence. Leadership requires courage and a willingness to “go beyond” what most people are willing to do.

“Imaging leaders” are those financial institutions that have successfully ascended the imaging maturity curve, thereby unlocking optimal value from their ECM (enterprise content management) software. At Alogent, we’ve had the privilege of working with multiple imaging leaders over the years. Here are our observations about imaging leaders (and our tips for becoming one).

Imaging Leaders Focus on Delivering Business Value (Not Technical Issues) 

Digitization of paper almost instantly reduces risk of information loss. That’s a good thing. However, without a carefully crafted imaging strategy, it’s easy to get caught up in new challenges. Shadow files, manual reporting workflows, siloed information, and retention complexity are common examples. Such issues slow down an institution’s progression on the imaging curve, causing some to get stuck between “newbie” and “optimizer.”

By contrast, imaging leaders have solved most or all of the aforementioned challenges—freeing up resources to deliver enhanced business value through advanced capabilities like:

OCR and AI: Optical character recognition (OCR) and artificial intelligence (AI) are incredibly useful for streamlining the classification of electronic documents—especially for financial institutions with unmigrated paper backlogs.

Workflow Automation: Automated invoice routing, for example, becomes possible when your imaging system offers prebuilt and customizable workflows.

Digital Audit & Exam Preparation: Rushing around to find missing loan files becomes a thing of the past when everything is neatly organized in your ECM. That’s especially true when your system offers a fast, intuitive way to export data for auditors and examiners.

API Integrations: Core integrations are just the beginning. Connecting to your loan origination system (LOS), digital banking platform, and other systems further accelerates efficiency and elevates the account holder experience.

Ready to Lead?

Striving to make your ECM a “single source of truth” is an important step toward becoming an imaging leader. Here are a few more recommendations:

Make an honest assessment of gaps in your document imaging strategy. For example, allowing branch managers to track document exceptions in spreadsheets could inhibit the timeliness (and value) of information in your ECM.

Develop an action plan that addresses any shortcomings. In the case of document exceptions, you may need to gain buy-in from stakeholders across different branches and departments. Leadership isn’t easy!

Identify technical needs, such as assistance from your IT department or added ECM functionality. If you’re unhappy with your current system, contact our team to explore our imaging solutions for banks and credit unions.

Put your plan into motion. You may encounter naysayers along the way. That’s OK - remember, leadership takes courage! Keep your eyes on the goal and the value that you will ultimately achieve.

Explore Alogent’s ECM suite, which includes FASTdocs and AccuAccount.

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