FFF Finance is considering adopting a mobile capture platform to allow staff and customers to digitize documents using mobile devices. An in-house development was proposed but had limitations around device support, security, and integration. A commercial platform was also considered and found to have stronger security, support for multiple devices, and easier integration with existing systems. After reviewing benefits found in industry research, FFF decided to implement the commercial platform to improve customer service and gain competitive advantages.

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Mobile Capture
- taking the first step
AIIM White Paper
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1© AIIM 2013 www.aiim.org / © Kofax 2013 www.kofax.com
Introduction
FormFeed Finance (FFF) is a (fictional) loan and insurance broker employing 5,000 people. Half are located
at the head office, with the rest in branch offices or as field-sales representatives. FFF has been using
document imaging and forms processing for many years, although primarily as back-office single-process
installations for their key mortgage and insurance claims workflows. Four years ago, FFF implemented a
distributed capture system to link a central digital mailroom function with head office MFPs and local scanners
in the branch offices. A follow-on project moved some of the digital mailroom load onto an outsource provider
who has successfully integrated their operations with FFF’s distributed capture system.
As an intermediary, FFF is very conscious of the need to both reduce costs and improve the value of their
services in order to compete with the direct sales operations of the larger mortgage and insurance providers.
There are two key aspects to FFF’s offering:
• The first is their “hand-holding” service to ensure that customer loan applications and claims tick all the
boxes as regards forms content and completeness of trailing documents.
• The second is their ability to facilitate a much faster result by short-circuiting the pre-processing steps
within the providers simply by being closer to the customer.
Following a family weekend, the CEO called her operations staff together. She described how her newly
graduated daughter had purchased her first car. Armed with her smartphone, she had toured used-car
lots, checking online for valuations, outstanding loans and write-off details as she went. Of course the final
purchase was broadcast to all her friends on Facebook within minutes, but once back home, she applied for
insurance on her iPad, filling in the forms, scanning her driving license, confirming her signature, and even
including a photo of the car to validate the license plate and current condition.
“That’s the kind of service we need to be offering our customers,” said the CEO. The assembled staff could
see the benefits of providing branch employees, field representatives and, even better, customers with the
ability to capture application forms and supporting documents with a mobile phone or tablet, and immediately
have them validated and fed directly into the back office process, but there were strong doubts about capture
quality, multi-device support, and above all, security - particularly for the type of sensitive financial data they
were dealing with.
The CEO set up two teams, one from the developers in the IT department to specify how they would
interconnect between mobile devices and back office systems and how they would tackle the security and
device issues as an in-house development, and one from the Operations side to see how other businesses
were tackling these issues, and what “off-the-shelf” applications might be available.
The IT In-House Solution
The IT department was delighted to have the chance to do some app coding for mobile, and to demonstrate
their integration skills with the back-end databases. They set about drawing up a requirements specification
and planning the project. The obvious starting point was to support the iPhone and iPad and the latest
IOS version of the operating system, and then to move on to Android devices as a future enhancement.
To pre-load the process, a forms-entry front-end would be written with XML transfer to the database of the
back-office, starting with the loans processing system. Users would then scan in forms and any trailing
documents, and either scan signatures or sign them on the screen, and dispatch everything to a case folder
on the system. One of the developers quickly found a scanning and recognition code-component that could
be incorporated into the iPhone and iPad code, with API connections to the main app. Licensing and support
would be negotiated once the application was proven using the free starter kit. Security would be taken care
of using SSL encryption of the communications stream. If a 3G or WiFi connection is not available, the data
would be held on the tablet and the user would initiate a re-transmission as soon as a link is re-connected.
The loan process would be initiated automatically once all the data is in, and any errors reported back to the
user by email.
The project manager estimated the development effort at 2 man-years and a 9-12-month elapsed time to
complete and roll-out the first phase – i.e., loan applications on iPhone and iPad.

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2© AIIM 2013 www.aiim.org / © Kofax 2013 www.kofax.com
The Capture Platform Solution
Meanwhile, the Operations Manager remembered a presentation he had seen at the distributed capture
system supplier’s user conference. What had intrigued him was that rather than simply demonstrating
stand-alone document scanning and forms capture using a smartphone or tablet camera, they were also
addressing the whole end-to-end process issues. An initial enquiry to the account manager confirmed that
this mobile extension matched into their existing distributed platform, but also that it might cost double that
of an in-house development.
However, as instructed by his CEO, he explored more fully the features offered by such a platform, and
what other organizations were doing. In order to keep the whole project on track, he also drew up a
business case based on the latest AIIM research into mobile capture1
.
One immediate benefit of utilizing an extension of the current platform would be that the data interfaces
to the core systems are already in place and working, and could be simply ported across. In fact, further
than that, the connection into the process itself could be re-used, including the validation algorithms that
confirm a successful capture. As with the current agreement, the interfaces to the back-office systems are
fully supported and the vendor is responsible for ensuring compatibility with future upgrades. And although
a tablet camera is not going to produce the image quality of a scanner, at least the recognition engine
would produce the same level of performance as the current server, and the capture vendor was staking its
reputation on the success of the mobile scanning. The list of mobile devices support was not huge, but they
were prioritized and supported for future upgrades.
The Reckoning
The evaluation meeting with the CEO included the Compliance Officer, a representative from Field Sales, a
number of Operations staff and the Financial Controller.
As a starting point, the CEO asked the IT project manager to walk through the process as they proposed
it. The first objection was raised by the Field Sales rep. The IT proposal was hardly a one-touch solution,
involving more than one login process, and a number of additional steps to capture and transmit the trailer
documents. The lack of immediate confirmation of successful receipt and the somewhat hit-and-miss effect
if connection was intermittent was also of concern. At this point, the Compliance Officer asked if documents
could inadvertently be left on the device and be accessible to others if the device was lost or stolen. She
was seeking firm assurance of an end-to-end custody of any sensitive data, and a security level that could
be readily audited. Although the proposed link would be encrypted, document files stored on the device,
temporarily or otherwise, would not.
Conscious of on-going commitments beyond the original project, the financial controller asked about
support for upgrades to the iPad or IOS, and about other tablets that staff may wish to use on a BYOD
(bring your own device) basis. He was hoping that a wider adoption of tablets might lead to savings in other
staff processes such as expense claims and staff on-boarding. The CEO reminded the meeting that having
customers input their own information and documents was the ultimate aim, and so the widest range of up-
to-date devices would be needed – as well as the very simplest of process prompts.
As the consensus moved toward the lower risk, more flexible option of firstly buying into a productized
mobile platform to ensure industrial-strength security, and secondly adopting a platform that would produce
the minimum of disruption to existing process interfaces and the minimum of staff retraining, the CEO
sought re-assurance from the Operations Manager that the return on investment would meet the financial
goals, and in particular, customer service goals.

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3© AIIM 2013 www.aiim.org / © Kofax 2013 www.kofax.com
The AIIM Findings
The Operations Manager quoted the AIIM survey findings:
• 51% of users of mobile capture report a payback period of 18 months or less, with 71% seeing a return
within 2 years.
• The ability of employees to locally capture and interact with back-office processes would improve
response to customers by a factor of three times, according to 45% of respondents. The average was
3.2 times.
• 45% of respondents consider that if travelling and remote staff could input directly to back-office
processes, productivity would improve by a third. The average suggested improvement is 36%.
• 14% of respondents would consider mobile capture to be “a game changer”. Overall, 32% would find it
“very valuable.”
• 50% are already using or implementing a distributed capture system and 11% of those are now moving
on to use or implement a mobile capture system.
So as the Operations Manager said, “In summary, these are early days, but the benefits are there for all to
see. If we move quickly, we will have a distinct competitive advantage over other finance houses. In particular
we would achieve a dramatic improvement in the speed of response to our customers – an area that we
pride ourselves on. If we can cover several of our main processes with the same technology platform, roll out
for field sales staff will be faster, and if we can support multiple mobile devices from the start, we can move
quickly towards customer self-service in the branches or even at home. This will off-load effort from our back
office staff and accelerate the ROI from the investment.”
In deciding to adopt the mobile capture platform provided by the distributed capture supplier the CEO pointed
out, “The time of our IT staff can be better spent improving the connectivity of all of our information systems,
rather than creating apps that would no doubt be impressive, but which could equally likely set back our
mobile strategy by two years - and they might never provide the concrete assurances we need for our security
and compliance audits.”
Conclusion2
FFF Finance have successfully rolled out a pilot project (in 6 months) and are already seeing the kind of
benefits and ROI set out in the AIIM research. The fact that field staff can trigger process starts in minutes
rather than days not only impresses customers, but also provides on-the-spot verification of support
documentation. In many cases this can result in immediate approval of claims or loans. As field staff do not
have to return-to-base to do their paperwork, utilization for calls and visits has increased. In cases that require
approvals from senior management, they can interact with the workflow from their mobile devices whilst
travelling, and approve the next stage within the process itself whilst maintaining end-to-end compliance.
Finally, the amount of paperwork travelling backwards and forwards between branch offices, head office and
customers has reduced, cutting postage and courier costs, but also lowering the number of “lost document”
cases that are so damaging to customer service ratings.
By moving more quickly than other brokers, and the major banks and insurance houses, FFF has secured its
place as an intermediary that improves success rates for loans and claims, but does so faster and closer to
the customer than others.
References
1. “Distributed and Mobile Capture - moving the process closer to the customer” AIIM White Paper, August
2012, www.aiim.org/research/aiim-white-papers
2. Note: FormFeed Finance is a fictitious company. The benefits described are as suggested by potential
users in the AIIM survey cited above.

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4© AIIM 2013 www.aiim.org / © Kofax 2013 www.kofax.com
Underwritten in part by
About KOFAX
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and solutions for the business critical First Mile of customer interactions. These begin with an organization’s
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applications and repositories not easily adapted to more contemporary technology. Success in the First Mile
can dramatically improve an organization’s customer experience and greatly reduce operating costs, thus
driving increased competitiveness, growth and profitability.
Kofax software and solutions provide a rapid return on investment to more than 20,000 customers in banking,
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