| | June 20158CIOReviewopinionin myBuilding a Digital Enterprise By Howard Bruck, CIO, Hudson Valley BankWe can envision the"Digital Enterprise" where the latest technology has been thoughtfully applied to an organization's business processes. Standard activities are automated, tasks are routed through the company by a rules based engine, and the human interface is optimized so that people are performing the most creative and valuable work. The entire process is tracked, providing us with accurate costs, cycle times, and performance metrics which are analyzed to elicit new insight about our products, customers, and employees.Vision for the organizations This is a vision that CIO's want to present to the executive committee. The business benefits are easily recognizable. Clearly there are cost efficiencies to be achieved with reduced labor requirements, faster throughput, and increased quality. The operating environment becomes more flexible as changes can be effected though reprogramming. The good news is that the technology needed to achieve this goal is readily available including ERP systems, workflow automation, analog-digital interfaces, and to a growing extent advanced document management systems, also known as Enterprise Content Management (ECM).Challenges in realizing the objectivesOf course there are investments in the underlying technology, which can be quite significant. Executive sponsorship and strong leadership are also needed as the transformation to a Digital Enterprise is a major change management exercise. Not to be overlooked is the expertise required to execute this type of program. An organization can attempt to achieve this goal with a very large high-profile project; a risky approach that, if not successful on the first attempt, could derail any future efforts to re-engage. Journey towards a paperless organizationHudson Valley Bank, is a New York Metro based, mid-tier financial institution focused on providing high-touch, specialized customer service to small and mid-sized businesses. As CIO of the bank, the executive team and I decided to take an evolutionary path towards the Digital Enterprise that would move at a pace acceptable to the business with increased spending as we realized more-and-more positive results. The key technology for us was a high-end document management system.We began our journey in 2007 with, what now seems like, the simplistic objective of transitioning paper files into electronic documents. At that time, we owned Docuware, a mid-level document management system, but were using it on a very limited basis. As no-one in the bank had related prior experience, we hired consultants to design and manage the one time imaging effort. Although Howard Bruck
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