Building a Document Center of Excellence

Organizations from all industries face increasing pressure to contain costs while finding new and more profitable ways to reach and retain customers. Meeting the challenge can be difficult however, without document strategies that are aligned with these objectives and designed to maximize efficiency, increase savings and ensure a superior customer experience. One way to do that is by establishing a Document Center of Excellence (DCOE), an enabling organizational structure and strategic approach that provides an appropriately high level of attention and alignment to documents and customer communications management.

What is a Document Center of Excellence?

Most critical functions within an enterprise have a center of excellence; legal, marketing, IT, research and development, and human resources are just a few examples. Companies are discovering that the same strategic approach via a Document Center of Excellence (DCOE) brings the right stakeholders, resources and process owners together in a forum that allows greater control and governance over documents and communications. A DCOE allows an organization to develop and implement specific projects with high ROI, while maintaining and optimizing ongoing activities that balance longer-term strategy with the realities of day-to-day operation. The charter is to ensure efficiency and cost savings in document systems, while developing advanced techniques and abilities in customer communications that will provide a superior revenue-generating customer experience.

Questions to Consider

Documents have great influence on company performance as a whole, yet the management and control behind their creation and distribution is often fragmented and isolated. Companies and corporations can no longer afford to develop, manage and deploy customer-facing documents in isolation from the bigger strategic picture. A DCOE facilitates that change in strategic approach. Consider the following questions:

• Do the various stakeholders and business units involved in the communications process work in isolation from each other?
• Do you have multiple resources, vendors and 3^rd party providers responsible for creating and issuing documents? Do they work well together?
• Do you have difficulty managing and optimizing the many legacy applications and systems that create your documents? Does a simple change take weeks/months?
• Is it difficult to respond to demands for timely communications for regulatory demands, customer needs and market competition?
• How well do your current document systems work to contain cost? Are they part of the problem, or part of the solution?
• Are document volumes growing, as are the needs for more personalized content and targeted messaging?

Steps to Move Forward

Check out our Whitepaper “Six Strategies for Building a Powerful Document Center of Excellence”