What Happens Once It’s Printed?
DocuLynx President & CEO Terry Wieczorek Talks About the Importance of Archiving
By: Cary Sherburne
July 9th, 2008 -- The ability to archive and quickly retrieve documents has gained increasing importance in recent years, due to both a desire on the part of organizations for a more productive and streamlined workflow as well as increasingly stringent regulatory requirements. What opportunity does this offer for printing firms as they work to expand their portfolios of value-added services? We asked DocuLynx President & CEO this question when we spoke to him recently.
WTT: Terry, congratulations on your recent appointment to the additional role of CEO at DocuLynx. Can you tell us a little about your background and how DocuLynx came about?
TW: I have been in the industry for more than 20 years, starting with National Business Systems in Minneapolis back in the microfiche/microfilm days. In those days, that was the true definition of archiving—if it wasn’t on film, it might not be around. That has changed significantly today, of course. I began my personal transition to the digital age when Anacomp bought NBS in 1999 and we became embroiled in Y2K issues. In 2002, I joined IMR to launch a new high volume transaction output (HVTO) software solution as part of that initiative, we created a software package called Mercury that was used in high volume output environments, and we stored files in PDF, rather than TIFF, which was the norm at the time. Our first Mercury customer was First Data Resources in Omaha, and now the package is widely used, including at companies such as RR Donnelley.
In 2004, we ultimately became part of Captaris, spinning the Mercury division out in late 2004 as a separate business, including a document processing facility located in Pismo Beach, CA. There are a number of high volume print/mail service bureaus that use our product to archive on CD and DVD, and we have now moved into a browser-based solution that allows secure access to information via the web.
WTT: What type of companies in the printing industry should be looking at this type of solution, and what is the strategic value it offers?
TW: Since the solution is very scalable, it is not limited to large print/mail operations. For example, we have a Southern California client who services credit unions and produces about 200,000 pages per month. First Data, on the other end of the spectrum, processes 1.25 million AFP statements and 500 million report pages every month. We can process over 1.5 million PDF pages an hour, indexed. Many companies have pieced together an archive solution with duct tape and baling wire and are now looking for a total solution that can bring all the elements together. These companies generally have specific Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in place with their clients and need to ensure they continue to meet those. Speed is everything, and security is very important as well. Especially with a web interface, there is a higher security risk and companies are looking for partners that can securely host these types of applications to mitigate that risk.
WTT: So what is the business model that DocuLynx has in place to address those concerns?
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TW: It is very flexible. Print/mail providers can host the solution themselves, or their customer can run the server behind their own firewall. In the credit union case, the print/mail provider produces and mails the statements. At the same time, they process the files through Mercury to create a disk that includes the Mercury viewer, basically a zero-footprint archive copy. That disk goes to the credit union customer. They can also provide the credit union with secure web access to the data. In some cases, the credit unions prefer to host all the data behind their own firewall. Alternatively, we can host the application on their behalf. We are building a 5,000 square foot data center in Omaha, which mirrors our Pismo Beach operation, with full physical security in place, including the requisite cameras and badge readers, foot-thick walls and ceilings, server farm, etc.
WTT: I understand that pricing would vary wildly depending on many factors, but can you tell us what the entry point cost would be? Many of our readers are small firms.
TW: You could get into an in-house software solution for around $50,000 with a 20% annual maintenance fee. If you choose to have us host it, it is literally pennies per page. We also offer the flexibility to start out with a hosted model that can easily be migrated to an in-house operation when volumes and budgets allow.
WTT: Transpromotional, or TransPromo, communications are a hot topic in the industry today, where relevant color messaging is printed right on the bill. How does an archiving solution fit into this model?
TW: It becomes even more important. Let’s say you offered a customer a special HBO promotion on their cable bill in June, with free HBO for 90 days. When the customer is billed in September for the first month and calls customer service to insist that the promotion was for six months, the original statement is easily accessible, including the promotions, and can even be faxed to the customer to clear up the misunderstanding. These types of statements also typically include more pages, and that is good for us and good for the print service provider in terms of business growth.
WTT: What about regulatory compliance? What should print service providers be thinking about in that regard?
TW: If the document that goes out in the mail is a First Class piece of mail, basically anything with a stamp, there are regulatory compliance issues around that piece of mail. The amount of time copies need to be maintained varies from industry to industry. In the insurance industry, for example, you have to maintain a copy of the life insurance policy for the lifetime of the person plus five years. IRS documents have a life of three to five years; in other industries, like cable TV, it might be seven years. When you start talking about multi-page color documents, that is a huge amount of storage. You certainly don’t want to be keeping that on paper. But you do have to have absolute, true fidelity. We can maintain documents in native form and/or PDF/A so that they are readily available in case of an audit or other need to access the document. But we also can compress these documents by a factor of up to 100 so that they don’t take up a lot of space, even if they contain color. Uncompressed, it is a 100% compliant document. The PDF format ensures that documents will be readable in the future, even if the native format in which they were originally created is no longer supported.
WTT: Terry, thanks for sharing this information with us. It helps shed light on a business critical application that also may offer new revenue opportunities for our readers as they continue to expand the services they offer.
Cary Sherburne is available for speaking engagements and consulting projects. To get more information contact us here.
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Cary Sherburne is a well-known author, journalist and marketing consultant whose practice is focused on marketing communications strategies for the printing and publishing industries. She was recognized as a 2009 Woman of Distinction by Output Links and was awarded the 2009 Thomas McMillan Award for excellence in journalism. Sherburne has written six books, including Digital Paths to Profit, published by NAPL; and most recently, No-Nonsense Innovation: Practical Strategies for Success, written with Bill Lowe, the Father of the IBM PC and available on Amazon. In addition her role as Senior Editor at WhatTheyThink.com, the leading online news and analysis resource for the printing and publishing industry, Sherburne writes regularly for Printing Impressions and Printing News, as well as creating by-lined editorial for private clients.
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