UXBRIDGE, U.K., March. 01, 2016 – Financial services companies remain cautious about digitising their business processes, with executives stating that many of their core processes will still be largely paper based in 2018.

Xerox’s “Digitisation at Work” report, which gathered feedback from 200 IT decision-makers in large financial organisations across North America and Western Europe, found that despite the fact that 45 percent of executives believe paper based processes present a security risk, the digital shift does not appear to be an imminent reality.

The report reveals that 56 percent of financial businesses still predominantly do their business by paper, with over half (57 percent) still invoicing customers in this way. Nearly one in five (17 percent) have not started to digitise any key business areas, including product development, invoicing, customer engagement, HR onboarding and contract development.

This is despite the fact that 43 percent of financial services executives believe moving to digital workflows will cut costs and 42 percent feel it will increase productivity.

Missing initial steps

Xerox’s report finds that even the initial steps toward digitisation have not yet been taken by many financial organisations. In particular, the lack of data analysis presents a major barrier to automation and digital workflows.

The report finds:

  • 44 percent of financial businesses have not yet implemented solutions for the mobile workforce
  • 52 percent have not yet added or improved cloud services
  • 50 percent have not yet incorporated or improved predictive analysis through big data

“You can’t just jump into digitising processes without a plan, you need to assess your organisation’s processes and then take some basic steps first,” said Andy Jones, vice president, Workflow Automation, Large Enterprise Operations at Xerox.

The evolution of automation

Despite its current reliance on paper, the finance industry does appear to have a focus on process automation. Over 78 percent of financial respondents believe they have identified key business functions that would benefit from automation, including accounting (42 percent), customer relationships (38 percent) and accounts payable (43 percent).

 “Once again it comes down to the data,” said Jones. “As automation efforts scale across financial firms, it will be important to spot performance trends quickly and validate data for accuracy. Digital business models allow organisations to gain a much clearer view of business processes so they can understand what departments or processes would benefit from digital transformation.”

Xerox has introduced workflow automation services as part of its managed print services offering to lead the way to greater productivity and digital transformation. The company is also developing automation tools throughout its portfolio to support its full line of business – including customer care centres, finance and accounting processes and the healthcare sector.

About the Study

In the second half of 2015, Coleman Parkes Research surveyed 600 IT decision-makers and influencers from organisations in the United States and Canada, as well as Western Europe (Benelux, France, Germany, UK). This research activity was designed to understand their attitudes, challenges and initiatives in relations to digital transformation and paper-intensive processes.

All respondents had responsibilities that included digital technology strategy, solutions and infrastructure.

Industries covered were public sector, financial services and corporate enterprise.

The full Xerox report on the study can be downloaded from here: https://www.xerox.co.uk/en-gb/services/managed-print/insights/digital-transformation

About Xerox

Xerox is helping change the way the world works. By applying our expertise in imaging, business process, analytics, automation and user-centric insights, we engineer the flow of work to provide greater productivity, efficiency and personalisation. We conduct business in 180 countries, and our more than 130,000 employees create meaningful innovations and provide business process services, printing equipment, software and solutions that make a real difference for our clients – and their customers. Learn more at www.xerox.com.

 

Media Contacts:
Sonia Panchal, Xerox
+44 (0)1895 84 2877
sonia.panchal@xerox.com

Note: To receive RSS news feeds, visit http://news.xerox.com. For open commentary, industry perspectives and views visit http://twitter.com/xeroxhttp://www.linkedin.com/company/xerox, http://simplifywork.blogs.xerox.com, http://www.facebook.com/XeroxCorp or http://www.youtube.com/XeroxCorp.

Xerox® and Xerox and Design® are trademarks of Xerox in the United States and/or other countries.