‘Document management is not the job of admin but of experts’

-says H Sivaramakrishnan, director-marketing, Pitney Bowes India in an informal conversation with SK Khurana, editor of Print & Publishing.

It is unfortunate that so far the management of documents has been handled by so called ‘administrative’ staff posted in small, middle and large establishments. If one really goes into details as to how and at what cost these documents are managed apart from the excessive delay in delivering and/or finally filing in the respective stores, the results will be mind boggling. One would not like to reach those conclusions and thus leave it in between. But is this justified? Not at all! After all in today’s fast growing scenario, one cannot afford to ignore this and would like to carry on the ongoing operations in most competitive manner as best can be followed,” said Sivaramakrishnan.

Today, like any other segment, document management has to be handled by experts. Be it a creation of invoice, reminder, statement, tax receipt, insurance policy. These experts have undoubtedly a great role to play like that of doctors’ clinics for good health; architects for a solid base for real estate organizations…etc. Here comes an organization called ‘Pitney Bowes’, who with several years of standing internationally and with a strong 600+ team members in India, is serving this segment effectively. One of the global leaders in mailstream technology Pitney Bowes set up their direct Indian operation in 2004 with headquarters in Delhi and branch offices in all the major metros in India, offering complete range of hardware solutions for franking, automated folding and inserting of letters to envelopes and document security solutions along with software tools for document composition, print stream management, address quality management, lobby tracking and locational intelligence. “In a few years of our operation in India, we have significantly expanded our installation base across the country at various corporate and government establishments,” added Sivaramakrishnan, mentioning, “Presently, automation versus manual process in mailing has been the point of discussion in India, but people now are willing to pay for automation.”

Pitney Bowes’ FPS (Flexible Productivity Series) is an addition to the family of high volume inserting solutions to process transactional documents like bill statements, direct mailers, utility bills, etc with speed, flexibility and integrity. The leading edge combination of speed, flexibility and integrity is capable of handling millions of documents offering quality assurance and total automated job reconciliation. FPS which is all in one high-powered, productive platform ideally suits organizations such as banking, financial services, insurance, telecom and others. Service bureaus are able to grow revenues, cut costs and strengthen customer loyalty.

“FPS machines are the highest selling post printing solution for Pitney Bowes across the world,” conveyed Sivaramakrishnan, adding, “FPS is a part of the new ‘Mailstream Evolution’ launched by Pitney Bowes. The new Mailstream Evolution is the next generation of FPS split driving inserting system. It was successfully launched globally to demonstrate its amazing changeover capabilities, from cut sheet fed letters to continuous fed flat in one minute and 56 seconds.”

Mentioning how FPS adds value to the document processing, Sivaramakrishnan stated, “FPS can add a whole lot of value in the document processing and can make big difference in not only cutting the cost but increasing a great amount of efficiency in the system. Some of these include: avoiding manual processing like folding, inserting, sealing, matching of lead documents without manual intervention; processing mail with a speed of 14000 envelopes per hour and can work 24×7; ensuring complete integrity of documents, enabling that the right documents goes into the right envelope; targeted communication by selecting the inserts depending on the segments of audience; and generating a whole lot of MIS report including the time, name, date of the each and every mail processed.

On querying about the key benefits to introduce such a system in the category of high volume mailers, he said, “Most of the high volume mails like bill statements, card statements or bank statements need to be sent within specific time frame once it gets printed. Manual folding, inserting and matching the documents are extremely impossible in huge volumes and timeline is short. FPS enables to process the documents without manual intervention and also provides the monitoring and tracking capability.”

The FPS Split Drive inserting system is the ‘workhorse’ for the industry. The technology yields superior productivity and throughput. It is a combination of speed and flexibility to provide high-volume mailers with different types of applications. The system allows the inserter to separate document collation-assembly and the envelope insertion function processes, each operating independently to dramatically reduce the system downtime. The new FPS Split Drive handles all mail requirements increasing productivity and maximizing output. “Through this, one can process mails on single system: run DL envelopes at up to 14,000 mail pieces per hour, C5 envelopes at up to 12,000 mail pieces per hour and flats mail up to 9,000 mail pieces per hour,” stated Sivaramakrishnan pointing out the benefits of FPS Split Drive.

On asking where do they see the market growing for FPS in India, he said, “FPS got introduced in India about four years back, recognising a great opportunity for this kind of solutions. The need for document processing has gained lot of importance with the growth in insurance, telecom and banking industry. Speed and accuracy has become the buzzword for processing such documents and FPS from Pitney Bowes fully meets the same. Currently, four installations of FPS are functional in India with few more in the pipeline. One of the biggest telecom service providers in the country is effectively processing their bill statements through Pitney Bowes’ FPS series.”

“For ensuring effective after sales service, Pitney Bowes has a direct presence in India with qualified engineers trained in US who are capable and competent. Besides, we have onsite parts storage to address any eventuality in case of a breakdown,” he concluded.