Financial service firms tap a wealth of KM features

Tracking internal documents

Employees and managers at Great Southern Bank had a hard time tracking documents from the bank’s more than 100 branches, which meant delays in processing account openings, a mountain of needless paper and lack of efficiency.

To improve the workflow, the bank started looking at products that would not only enable it to convert paper to electronic information, but also offer ways to add knowledge management information so that bankers could pinpoint where the documentation was in the process and could retrieve it at any time.

So about two years ago, the bank incorporated Microsoft SharePoint and Notable Solutions’ NSi AutoStore, centralizing scanning and adding indexing and barcoding information as soon as documents arrive. With the 20- to 30-point indexing system, bankers can pinpoint where the documentation is in the lifecycle and know when it is no longer needed.

The index/barcode information enables the bank to instantly verify customer information. For example, if a customer opens a second account, the information does not have to be re-entered, which can lead to human error. Employees also know when additional information is needed to move to the next step in the process.

Eliminating bottlenecks

“There’s a real synergy between the two products. We were able to minimize the centralized document imaging department’s Q&A [quality and assurance] work effort by 90 percent,” says Russ Weatherby, the bank’s information services manager, who added that the personnel were assigned to other backlogged duties within the bank. The SharePoint component augments the document capture and storage by adding inline workflow to move documents from point to point in the process, and prompting human intervention when necessary.

That also helps the bank recognize bottlenecks, so that they can be eliminated. “We can look at document flow and transaction data to make further decisions about changing [the business] process as needed,’’ Weatherby says. “It’s been a real success. We focused on human efficiency and meeting customer needs.”

Earlier this year, the bank added NSi Mobile capabilities for SharePoint and AutoStore, enabling employees to capture document information and to start workflow from remote locations. Great Southern is also implementing NSi’s “print anywhere” capability. Employees can use that feature to quickly print the document(s) from a queue to any printer, regardless of the location, according to Weatherby.

The bank is still incorporating the SharePoint/NSi solutions throughout the loan side of the bank, so Weatherby hopes to gain even further efficiencies in the future.