Digital Document Delivery Comes of Age

by Scott Gerschwer
Manager of Media Relations
Pitney Bowes

The time has come.

All systems are full speed ahead for digitally delivered documents to overtake the cumbersome and costly way we do business on paper.

Digital document delivery is rapidly being embraced and addressed. It's becoming more secure, efficient and feasible every day. The technology and the methodology to ensure the security of the documents exists, and research shows that people are increasingly demanding the ease and efficiency of doing business online. There is no doubt that we are reaching a new era and we have opened the door to an exciting and very different future. Is you business ready?

The Dubai Electric Company and Water Authority, Consignia (formerly the British Post) and ProMail, a subsidiary of the Jersey Post, are among the many customer-focused businesses in Europe and the Middle East that have taken steps to provide their clients, partners and customers with the capability to deliver and receive documents on the Web and via wireless devices.

"The Post Office is committed to utilizing new technologies to improve and extend the range of services we offer," says Jim Pang, Director, Electronic Services, Consignia. "Digital Document Delivery builds on our core competencies in bill delivery and payment, and harnesses the trust in our brand. It will enable people to review, manage, and pay their bills online at a single, easy to use Website. By extending our range of bill payment services to those who prefer to pay online, we will enable our clients to develop a closer relationship with their customers and add extra value to their service offering."

"ProMail will meet the new challenges of the international communications environment by providing our offshore financial services industry with the latest technology to meet customer demands," says John Pinel, Chief Executive Officer of the Jersey Post. "Digital Document Delivery helps us tackle significant manpower issues, gives us a competitive advantage and paves the way for our continued growth. With our investment in Digital Document Delivery, we can better attract global enterprises to use Jersey as their financial base."

Both gentlemen agreed that electronic billing, along with online dispute management, bill analysis and workflow, are vital requirements for almost any organization that is serious about digitizing their business.

They searched for a company to partner with, that combined the innovative technology of a "dot.com" with the stability and track record of an old economy giant. They found their answer in Pitney Bowes.

Increasingly, organizations are building their e-business systems on robust open platforms. Digital Document Delivery by Pitney Bowes utilizes a modular Enterprise Java Bean-based design and Extensible Markup Language (XML) data repository that make it ideally suited for creating e-billing Web sites and for adding sophisticated functionality to virtually any Web-based business system. EJB keeps wide the technology gap between Pitney Bowes and the offerings of competitors that are still based on proprietary, non-scalable and monolithic architectures.

The superiority of the Digital Document Delivery (D3) architecture is exemplified in the installation of the software at Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA). One of the major issues was scalability. "We required a solution that meets an anticipated increase in volume and bill complexity over the coming years," says Abdullah Obaidullah, Assistant General Manager at DEWA. With Digital Document Delivery, DEWA will maximize its B2B and B2C billing capabilities, enabling customers to segment, analyze, and drill-down into large bills online.

Pitney Bowes' Ian Makepeace, Vice President Document Messaging Technologies and Dealer Operations - EAME (Europe, Africa and Middle East) takes great pride in the partnerships Pitney Bowes has forged with its customers. "Our relationship with each are quite strong; it is most gratifying to work with innovative people turning technology into very valuable business practices."

The time has come. Consumers demand that businesses deliver them true value.

Do you deliver?