Did you know on average an organisation has over 500 forms? I have researched this, and believe me in large companies this figure is much higher. These vary from simple paper-based request forms to complex multi-paged forms. These forms travel around the company at various speeds, based on who receives the forms, their workload, and their inclination to move this task to the top of their priority list.
Forms are a way of life for most of us. In some instances they are seen as a means to an end (getting a holiday request signed off); in others they are onerous processes that don't seem to have a valid business reason to exist.
A form is commonly defined as “a document with blank spaces for information to be inserted”. As many of us know forms can be very efficient as data capture mechanisms, but what if forms actually delivered a business benefit? What if they allowed people to make better decisions and helped the organisation improve customer satisfaction, or lighten the administrative load?
I meet people every day who use forms. I challenge you to count every time you use one, it is a good exercise to do – I am on over fifty already this week!
At FlowCentric Technologies forms are a key part of what we do, but we believe that forms are just one part of a solution that delivers efficiency, visibility and control to any organisation. Forms that just capture data (particularly if they are paper based) are inefficient and rarely provide a return on investment.
However, by adding for instance:
- user and process workflow;
- integration to corporate solutions;
- reporting and KPI’s;
- and mobile capability,
You take a form from data capture drudgery to an interactive business tool- a SUPER FORM if you like.
We often start our journey with a client by asking them how many forms they have in their organisation, we have had some interesting findings – the longest journey a paper based form has taken so far is 48 steps with 40 people receiving it and either entering data in another form or moving the paper on to the next person in the chain.
If you are a serial form user we would love to talk to you and hopefully take your forms from ordinary to SUPER FORMS.
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