17.12.2008
Standard Life scoops innovation award
Standard Life's document services team scooped the "Innovative use of technology" award at the Scottish Financial Enterprise (SFE) Innovators Awards in November.
Every year, Standard Life receives over two million items of mail in paper format. Amounting to over 10 million separate pages, the mail is scanned into the company's workflow system and delivered to its various departments. The timely and accurate internal delivery of mail to the right person within the company is paramount in maintaining Standard Life's award-winning service to its customers.
Standard Life's document services team saw an opportunity to enhance the company's mail process, improve service and reduce costs using advanced recognition software from EMC Corporation.
EMC's Captiva InputAccel® document capture and DispatcherTM software allows the capture of key information from a document using state of the art optical character recognition. Standard Life worked with EMC in developing the technology to automatically classify any number of different documents and route them correctly. Adopting an Agile approach to project delivery ensured that a steady stream of benefits was delivered throughout.
The newly developed solution determines the document type and its routing by using a combination of techniques such as matching against templates and identifying key phrases (for example, "I want to change my bank details"). Key indexing criteria such as contract number and product type are then extracted. The innovative nature of the solution was magnified further by matching the captured data to an image of the document and directing it into one of 300 or more queues of work across16 different departments.
The result was a single, robust, scalable system that enables the document services team to extend their services globally across the Standard Life group of companies, achieving the desired improvements and generating savings of over £1million per year.
Gerry Timoney, Change Consultant at Standard Life said, "It was wonderful to receive the recognition of the SFE judges for the work that we do. The use of optical character recognition was instrumental in solving the particular business problem we faced - the prompt and accurate directing of large volumes of work. The result is an initiative that not only delivered cost savings, but it allowed us to further evolve and improve the company's service to its customers, which is at the core of everything we do."
For further information, please contact:
Lesley Davidson
PR Consultant
Direct: 0131 245 6087
Mobile: 0773 497 4190
Email: lesley_f_davidson@standardlife.com
Notes to Editors
- Standard Life Assurance Limited is recognised for the high quality of its customer service, in particular for providing a service that is consistent, reliable and responsive. Standard Life received recognition for this in 2008 when the company was voted a 5 star provider at the Financial Adviser Service Awards for the 13th year running.
- Standard Life has approximately 7 million customers worldwide and provides an extensive range of products and services, aimed at meeting the financial requirements of customers throughout their lives.