From the digitisation of business processes, to analytics, the Cloud and security, the growth of information management is redrawing the boundaries between paper and digital, private and public, tailor-made and automated.

1. Transforming Business
‘The digital
transformation
challenge’
2015 Insight Report

2. •
Introduction
From the digitisation of
business processes, to
analytics, the Cloud and
security, the growth of
information management is
redrawing the boundaries
between paper and digital,
private and public, tailor-made
and automated.
Yet while the world may value
information and the opportunities it
unlocks, it requires organisation and
integration to make that information
valuable. Being able to optimise the
way information is handled in today’s
organisations can transform processes
at fundamental level, which in turn is
the path toward digital operational
excellence.
THEGROWTHOFINFORMATIONMANAGEMENT
DIGITISATION
OF BUSINESS
PROCESSES
THE CLOUD
SECURITY
ANALYTICS
1 2015 Insight Report 2

3. •
Megatrends
We have identified four interconnected
megatrends that we believe will
fundamentally change the way
documents and information are
handled in organisations.
The Copenhagen Institute
for Future Studies defines
megatrends as “the force
that define our present and
future worlds, and emphasise
that the interaction between
them is as important as
each individual megatrend1
”
Social and economic factors
can affect these trends but
ultimately they are driving
change and transformation in
the way we do things.
Next we outline how these
four megatrends affect the
way organisations address
the role of information.
We discuss their influence
on company transformation
programmes that are
designed to change the
way they communicate and
process data today and in
the future. In each section
we also address the effect
these megatrends have on
both company and customer.
We also aim to provide
an overview of practical
considerations needed to
develop and successfully
implement a digital process
strategy. We hope this will
help you take advantage of
the opportunities ahead in
the next 2-3 years.
•
Drivers
for change
As the world becomes ever more reliant on its digital
footprint, individuals are increasingly demanding
deep levels of intuitive and ‘smart’ interfaces for
rapid communication between each other and the
companies they transact with.
Organisations are reacting by
creating digital infrastructures
to streamline these customer
interfaces. By connecting these
new technologies to the customer
experience they are changing
everything: from how people can
purchase from them to how they
might customise their products
and services to suit their specific
individual requirements.
This push into personalisation via
digitisation is now stretching into
all industries as more and more
organisations strive to tailor the
way their customers interact with
them. This requires the evaluation
of information related to their
consumer’s habits and preferences.
Organisations are therefore looking
to digitisation to improve the
efficiency of their core business
processes: capturing documents (via
imaging) or data (via e-forms) at the
point of origin or receipt gets the
information into the process faster.
Through automated workflows they
are also enabling process workers to
access this information much sooner.
Ultimately this results in operational
excellence through faster processing
plus improved customer satisfaction
and retention. This can also lead to
potentially faster revenue recognition
through improved business agility.
1
‘Why megatrends matter’ Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies
http://www.cifs.dk/scripts/artikel.asp?id=1469
HOW CUSTOMERS
CAN PURCHASE
INTERFACES
HOW OFFERINGS
CAN BE CUSTOMISED
TO SUIT SPECIFIC
REQUIREMENTS
CUSTOMEREXPERIENCE
CHANGING
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3 2015 Insight Report 4
“the forces that define our
present and future worlds,
and emphasise that the
interaction between them
is as important as each
individual megatrend1
”

4. Automation
Organisations today are looking for new
ways to increase the operational efficiency
and effectiveness of their document-
intensive business processes.
As traditional paper-based processing is becoming
increasingly digitised, there is an accompanying need for
automation to deal with the increased volume of digital
data and information.
IDC Estimates that by 2020 business transactions on the
internet, business-to-business and business-to-consumer,
will reach 450 billion per day2
. So it’s not surprising that the
automation of inbound data and information processing
(like forms and invoice processing) is one of the fastest
growing trends in business today.
The automation challenge
The challenge for organisations is
how to optimise the connection
between people, process and
technology - balancing desired
outcomes with increased efficiencies
and cost savings.
Today they are looking to do this
via a lighter weight, lower risk
investment and ultimately an
agile project. This puts the focus
on the vendor market to quickly
and effectively deliver process
automation.
The automation of inbound
processing has certainly started
but the ongoing development of
automation is rapidly stretching
into all parts of the organisation.
Traditional barriers between
information and automation are
beginning to disappear. Meanwhile
technologies and services that
address, mobile devices and field-
based collaborative working will
become the norm in the near future.
Digitisation
The digital age brings new opportunities to
companies who want to gain efficiencies in
back office processing whilst transforming
their approach toward managing customer
interactions.
The way that companies receive inbound information
from their customers, and how they need to process that
information, has changed significantly in recent years.
Today the convergence of many diverse information
workflows into a streamlined business process is typically
driven by the digitisation of processes.
However these processes are often systematically
inefficient and take longer to complete, which
impacts negatively on organisational productivity and
communication cycles both internally and externally. This
ultimately effects customer satisfaction, retention and
operational effectiveness.
The digitisation challenge
There are many functions within
an enterprise that are required to
handle specific documents and
information in a regular workflow
or process. A good example is how
the accounts payable process is
transforming in today’s organisations.
In particular the handling of invoices,
both in paper and digital form, for
inbound processing and subsequent
outbound communication is a
common process for almost all
organisations in any industry.
How these kind of processes are
handled today is fundamental to
optimising and building toward
operational excellence. It requires
placing the right content with the
right people in a timely manner
and in a format that is both easy to
access and process.
Customers are also demanding
a radical overhaul of business
processes from companies in many
industries. Intuitive interfaces,
around-the-clock availability,
real-time fulfilment, personalized
treatment, global consistency, and
zero errors – this is the world to
which customers have become
increasingly accustomed.
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PERSONALISED TREATMENT
GLOBAL CONSISTENCY
ZERO ERRORS
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DEMANDS
INFORMATION
WORKFLOWS
STREAMLINED
PROCESS
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CEO
CMO
CFO
CIO
CCO
5 2015 Insight Report 6
2
http://wikibon.org/blog/unstructured-data/
Optimise and Transform
Another example is how the digital management of
incoming claims via mail (for instance in the Insurance
sector) addresses typical paper-related problems: lost
documents, slow and costly processes, low level of
customer responsiveness.
The digitisation of incoming claims allows you to extract
and capture the key data from the documents and make
it easily accessible to authorized users with mobile
online access to the digitised information - dramatically
improving productivity and business agility.
CAPTURE THE KEY DATA
ACCESSIBLE TO
AUTHORISED USERS
TRADITIONAL
PAPER-BASED
PROCESSING
OPTIMISING
THE
CONNECTION
BETWEEN
PEOPLE,
PROCESS
AND
TECHNOLOGY
INCREASED
EFFICIENCIES
AND
COST SAVINGS
Business Process owners
will be the key drivers
and stakeholders behind
any change agendas.

5. COMMUNICATION
PROGRAMME
CO-ORDINATED
INTERNAL
STAKEHOLDERS
MULTIPLE CHANNEL
CUSTOMER DIALOGUE
Multi-channel
integration
3
Internet live stats http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/
4
Ovum, 2015 ‘Trends to Watch: Customer Engagement - Businesses are
building sophisticated new processes for customer communications’
Security
Compliance
Businesses have to understand the
interaction between documents,
information and their related processes
in highly regulated industries.
The cost of compliancy can be high, with up-front
investments in process, technology infrastructures
and organisational alignment. However the costs
attributed to non-compliance are even higher, and
therefore strong governance of document and
information handling is an essential requirement.
As data, information and images become increasingly
accessible across multiple platforms it is even more
important that organisations ensure the security,
confidentiality, integrity, consistency and availability of
that content.
By having complete compliancy to various
internationally recognised standards (ISO 9001, ISO
27001, ISO 22301) at an operational level, organisations
have the power to demonstrate to their customers
that their data is being handled securely.
Implementation of, and compliancy with these best
practice frameworks also supports Risk Management
and ensures the effective deployment of Business
Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plans in crisis
situations.
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With over 3 billion internet users (and
counting) globally3
, the penetration of the
web, adoption of smartphone and tablets
and social media usage are changing the way
organisations take care of their daily business.
The multi-channel
integration challenge
To create a seamless customer
dialogue across multiple channels,
organisations need to successfully
build an integrated in-bound
and outbound communication
programme, which requires a huge
amount of process mapping and
planning in order to optimise each
channel collaboratively.
Internal stakeholders within an
organisation also have to be co-
ordinated to account for multiple
operating models, system blueprints,
and roadmaps.
The challenge for organisations
today is therefore to developing
a model for managing inbound
information connects both physical
paper and digital information across
entire end-to-end processes.
The security and
compliance challenge
Ensuring full compliancy requires
the integration of Business
Continuity, Information Security and
Risk Management as opposed to
standalone mechanisms for each.
The importance of maintaining the
security of data across all hosting
platforms means that as the quantity
of digital information and the
number of channels increase, so
too does the inbound processing
challenge.
Customer tolerance for ‘maximum
disruption time’ is decreasing and
putting more pressure on effective
crisis management processes.
The increase in touch-points or
interdependencies within business
processes means the sphere of
impact following a crisis is expanding
to more areas within organisations
today in the future.
However addressing these changes through the creation
of an integrated channel strategy varies widely. This
variance is often due to different levels of maturity
in customer demographics, regulations placed on a
particular industry and the general adoption of web,
smartphone and social media in the context of consumer
requirements.
Research house, Ovum, state that “the first generation of
advanced, multi-channel customer communications has
been largely deployed, now organisations have to create
business processes to best leverage those technologies4
”.
This multi-channel approach provides new opportunities
for organisations in terms of segmenting and targeting
their target audience. Companies are targeting changing
customer behaviours more than ever and the need to
map their digital footprint across multiple channels is
critical to the success of their customer acquisition,
retention and growth strategies in 2015 and beyond.
FULL COMPLIANCY
INTEGRATION
INTEGRIT
Y
AV
A
ILABILITY
CONSIS
TENCY
DATA INFO IMAGES
SECURITY
RISKMANAGEMENT
BUSINESSCONTINUITY
CONFIDE
N
TIALITY
DISASTER RECOVERY PLANS
7 2015 Insight Report 8
“the first generation of
advanced, multi-channel
customer communications
has been largely deployed,
now organisations have to
create business processes
to best leverage those
technologies4
”.
Customer tolerance for
‘maximum disruption
time’ is decreasing and
putting more pressure
on effective crisis
management processes.

6. Organisations need to
deliver multi-channel
inbound and outbound
communication services
on a platform that maps
the patterns of their
target customer’s channel
preferences.
74%stated
Multi-channel
communications
•
Key facts
and figures
We wanted to really understand what is shaping
this shift to digital transformation, and how it was
affecting the relationship between company and
customer. So last year we surveyed * 150 business
leaders in the European Financial Services sector
– a highly regulated industry that typifies the need
to securely process and communicate customer
information – to find out their top information
challenges when creating customer-centric
transformation programmes.
We spoke with C-suite and Directors
of Finance (20%), IT (28%),
Marketing (26%) and Heads of
Customer Care centres (26%) from
organisations in the UK, France
and Germany. We identified their
challenges and changes in their
current and future priorities, building
up a picture of their strategies when
implementing and future-proofing
their inbound processing and
outbound programmes with
this single survey.
Our analysis of the changing trends
showed the importance of optimising
inbound workflows and improving
targeted communication. It was also
clear that success in these areas isn’t
guaranteed. We also feel the themes
coming from our research, have
broad implications that are common
across all industries.
*Conducted by Coleman Parkes on
behalf of Canon for the insight report
“Putting Customers First” published
in June 2014
We also asked CIOs and infrastructure
professionals which of the following
activities took up the most resources when
implementing these kinds of digital process
transformation programmes. We can see that
the top two areas to resource are information
security and workflow management, in large
part due to the strict regulations governing
organisations. IT departments also have the
challenging task of connecting multiple legacy
systems together, including input and output
channels, in order to create true operational
efficiencies.
Information
Security
29%
Workflow
Management
27%
Information
Follow-up
16%
Disaster
Recovery/
Business
Continuity
15%
ERP
System
Integration
13%
9
Transforming Business ‘The digital transformation challenge’
2015 Insight Report 10
Main influencing party:
Chief Information Officers
with
83%of the vote
Main influencing party:
Chief Information Officers
with
50%of the vote
Main influencing party:
Customer Care Officers
with
56%of the vote
Main influencing party:
Customer Care Officers
with
81%of the vote
As operations are not
only looking to transform
analogue processes
to digital, but often
to outsource locally
and internationally,
the requirement to
standardise practices
between organisational
functions, offices and
international boarders is
more critical than ever
before. operational teams
need to perform consistent
activities across end-to-
end processes, both locally
and in selected shared
service centres.
As the volume of in-bound
data increases, the need
to capture this and make
sense of it also increases.
Management information
needs to be tailored to
clarify and make sense of
incoming transactions as
well as the information
being processed and
ultimatley communicated
via multiple channels
back out to their target
customers.
In a digital processing
environment it is essential
to demonstrate that data
is being handled securely
with complete operational
compliancy to various
internationally recognised
standards (ISO 9001, ISO
27001, ISO 22301).
With an increase in digital
inbound and outbound
channels comes and
increase in complexity.
Therefore there is now a
growing requirement on
organisations to find a
flexible service provider
who can deliver services
providing automation of
document and straight
through processing to
improve cost efficiency
and productivity. Success
here will eliminate manual
inefficiencies, reducing the
overall process cycle time.
56%stated
Providing a standard
services across
multiple division
74%stated
Providing analytics
on customer data
59%stated
Information
Security
51%stated
Automation / straight
through processing
Main influencing party:
Customer Care Officers
with
64%of the vote
Here we take a look at the top
challenges facing organisations
today when embarking on customer-
centric transformation programmes.
The challenges of
information-centric
transformation
How will CIOs resource this transformation?

7. CMO
Chief Marketing Officer
CFO
Chief Financial Officer
CIO
Chief Information Officer
CCO
Customer Care Officer
•
Information
management
priorities
The survey results below show
how organisations see their
digital capture, processing and
communication priorities changing
over the next few years.
11 2015 Insight Report 12
As you can see priorities are
shifting. In 2014 the main drivers
were around the optimisation of
workflows supported by the CFO
who is looking to capitalise on the
rise in digital processing. Meanwhile
the outlook for 2017 is about
addressing the growing need to
process more digitally and in a more
automated manner. It is likely that
the management of transactional
processing, increases in areas such
as invoice processing and e-invoicing
will realise the biggest leap in
optimisation as a result of this focus.
With the introduction of process
automation making it into the top
5 priorities in 2017, it appears that
overall, participants in our survey
are focused on getting a digital
inbound and workflow processing
platforms in place today. This will be
with a view that automation of such
processes is ongoing to realise the
full return on their investment.
Assuming this plan pays off, the
ability to create a dialogue with the
customer will be a major factor in the
next two years. CIOs are a catalyst
for change today and over the next
three years they will be moving
their focus into a position to ensure
execution of these core business
processes.
Leveraging customer
information
Multi-channel
integration
Gaining synergies
through standardisation
Optimising
workflows
More targeted
communication
Optimising
workflows
More targeted
communication
Multi-channel
integration
Automation
Gaining synergies
through standardisation
2014TOP5PRIORITIES
2017TOP5PRIORITIES
88%
74%
69%
74%
77%
1
4
5
3
2
60%
67%
73%
77%1
4
5
3
2
87%
CCOCCO
CFOCIO
CIOCFO
CFOCMO
CMOCiO

8. •
Conclusion
Areas of focus for the next year
We can see digital capture, processing
and communication strategies are
changing over the next three years.
Understanding how your organisation is planning to
take the next step towards hybrid digital processing
and multi-channel communication is going to be
essential to achieving operational excellence in many
areas of your business.
How to efficiently process
and manage in-bound
and out-bound customer
communications
Automating workflows to
deliver information to the right
people at the right time over
multiple-channels
Operating in a compliant
manner against industry
regulations and
ever-changing information
security requirements
Key areas
to focus on
for mid term
success:
13 2015 Insight Report 14

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© Canon Europa N.V., 2015