The company has also launched a completely redesigned website at www.anacomp.com The site is designed for the company’s more than 5,000 customers, as well as prospects, partners, analysts, media and employees to quickly locate information pertinent to them.

“When I came on board a year ago, I quickly recognized that Anacomp had an incredibly rich base of assets in its technology, infrastructure, legacy and clients. I saw the opportunity for us to rationalize and leverage these assets to deliver new, higher value-added services and solutions to the market,” said Howard Dratler, Anacomp’s CEO. “Our new, One Anacomp branding strengthens our already-solid market position, supports our aggressive growth plans, and unifies our assets, which include our 40 years of information processing experience for Global 2000 customers across the US and Europe, many of whom have been with us decades. We also boast docHarbor, one of the largest, most robust multi-tenant online repositories in the world, which currently hosts more than 20 billion pages of our customers’ mission-critical data.”

“Our new branding is not a reinvention of Anacomp, but more an illumination of our strategy, solutions and direction,” said Wayne Ford, Anacomp’s Senior Vice President of Marketing, Channels and Strategic Alliances. “While we are building on our legacy and continuing to deliver on our core services, going forward, we are going to create more value to our customers and move higher up in the value chain by bringing more complete solutions that help accelerate document-intensive business processes.”

“We’re delivering solutions for the litigation, human resource, accounts payable and federal government realms, as these areas give us the opportunity to leverage our assets of document capture on the front end and a strong archive on the back end. In addition, we are scaling our docHarbor on-demand infrastructure in order to deliver these solutions either as software as a service (SaaS) or implemented within our clients’ own datacenters,” added Dratler. “Finally, we are building our professional services organization to help us better architect and design specific customer implementations of our technology. By developing a world-class professional services team, we’ll be able to custom deliver our solutions as needed by our clients, and act as a systems integrator for those who desire to keep their documents in-house.”

Back to Top

Anacomp Garners 'Best Solutions Award' by Government Technology

Company Recognized for Helping Streamline Customer Operations for the City of Houston Public Works and Engineering

Anacomp was recently selected as a "Best Solutions Award" recipient by Government Technology magazine for its work with the City of Houston Public Works and Engineering department.

Anacomp's document conversion and management services for the department have served as an integral part of automating the agency's customer adjustments and new services processing. Anacomp's services include document scanning, indexing and importing into its docHarbor Online document management Web repository for easy access by city employees. Anacomp's services have helped improve business processes within the department by providing secure, on-demand access to documents, enabling built-in disaster recovery and eliminating upfront capital investment costs.

The city of Houston Public Works and Engineering's Utility Customer Service department provides customer information, billings, credit, collections, and all meter-associated services to approximately 500,000 water and wastewater utility customer accounts. The department's goal is to consistently meet the expectations of its customers by offering outstanding customer service, increased flexibility, greater value, and improved operational efficiency. The emphasis on quality customer service has meant adding more payment options and making it easier for customers to access services. As a part of this continued drive to improve services and process technology, the department automated its customer adjustments and services processing through Anacomp's business process solutions as a service.

"Utilizing Anacomp's docHarbor Online, we've been able to reduce the amount of manual handling of documents and share information more easily across departments," said Robert Stigers, IS Manager, Houston Public Works and Engineering Department. "Anacomp's solutions as a service have helped our Utility Customer Service department greatly accelerate our processes, reduce costs, and improve our ability to quickly respond to the needs of our customers."

"We're pleased to accept this award in recognition of the benefits the City of Houston have enjoyed with our solutions," said Wayne Ford, Anacomp's Senior Vice President of Marketing, Channels and Strategic Alliances. "This agency's success with our services serves as another proof point of the value we deliver to enterprise and government customers throughout the country and around the world."

Back to Top

Anacomp Introduces InvoiceLogistix for Accelerated On-Demand Invoice Processing

New Service Allows Users to Automate Invoice Processing With Minimal Initial Investment and IT Involvement

Anacomp recently announced the availability of InvoiceLogistix™, a new, hosted invoice processing service offering users accurate, accelerated invoice processing. The service is targeted to accounts payable (A/P) professionals who desire a reliable and cost-effective method of streamlining operations, expediting payments, and improving financial information quality.

Designed for rapid deployment and production, InvoiceLogistix dramatically reduces the amount of manual labor typically required to process invoices. The service leverages Anacomp’s robust docHarbor business platform, including high-volume document capture, scalable online document repository and flexible business process management (BPM) software-as-a-service (SaaS). InvoiceLogistix transforms incoming paper invoices into digital images from which invoice data is automatically extracted, validated, delivered into the A/P workflow for approval and payment, made available for easy access online and, ultimately, archived.

By accelerating invoice processing through automation, users can decrease data-entry errors, better manage cash flow, eliminate late payment penalties and take advantage of or negotiate for early payment discounts. Furthermore, by utilizing automated invoice processing on an outsourced, on-demand basis, users can accelerate such benefits with minimal initial investment and involvement of their own IT resources.

“Competitive companies today are willing to outsource certain finance functions that are not core to their business competencies, and as such they desire solutions that are easy to use, scalable and flexible enough to meet their specific needs,” said John Turner, Anacomp’s Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. "InvoiceLogistix meets such requirements by leveraging a proven, on-demand platform and outsourced SaaS that helps users reduce the costs, IT involvement and risks that come with implementing and adopting new technology."

Numerous industry studies illustrate the increasing costs of manually processing invoices. A recent IAPP survey placed the average cost to process an invoice at nearly $8.00, and concluded that as much as 70% of these costs were tied to manual document handling and data entry processes. According to the Institute of Management and Administration (IOMA), invoice processing costs have risen 37% over the past few years while A/P staffs have shrunk by 34%.

“AP departments are being tasked with increasing workloads in an environment where paper invoices remain the dominant medium and the volumes of which continue to rise. Meanwhile, the challenge remains to accurately extract the needed information from those invoices, even down to the line item detail,” added Turner. “We have many customers already scanning their invoices as part of their payment process, and InvoiceLogistix allows users to take the next step to automate and streamline the entire process for rapid, accurate payment.”

Key InvoiceLogistix functions offered include:

• Invoice reception, opening, sorting and preparation
• Imaging and data extraction
• Data matching and validation
• Content management, approval workflow and export
• Document storage – 7.5 years included with the service
• Reporting and analysis
• Professional service, support and training

More information about InvoiceLogistix can be found here.

Back to Top

Anacomp Introduces Hosted CaseLogistix for Secure, Scalable On-Demand Litigation Review

docHarbor-Enabled Version Reduces Complexities, Capital Investments and Resource Requirements

Anacomp recently announced that CaseLogistix, the company's flagship litigation support solution, is now available on-demand for the first time via Anacomp's robust, hosted docHarbor information platform. The new version offers users the proven benefits of CaseLogistix while concurrently reducing organization complexities, capital and infrastructure investments and the internal resources required to prepare data for litigation review.

Anacomp's robust docHarbor information infrastructure is built on years of technical innovation and practical experience ingesting and managing large volumes of data, complex data sets and a variety of file types. The platform offers flexibility, reliability, limitless scalability, as well as renowned security features that ensure sensitive, critical data is protected from threats that could cause unauthorized information loss, disclosure or modification.

CaseLogistix is the most powerful and versatile litigation review and integration solution available today, providing a complete system for streamlined electronic document organization, annotation, discovery management and production. Offering a hosted version of CaseLogistix utilizing docHarbor saves users from having to scale and staff litigation projects for peak utilization and provides users a range of expanded capabilities. For example, users can easily move a case that is in early assessment and located on a single desktop to a much broader web-based audience, including additional litigators and outside parties such as expert witnesses.

"No other litigation support solution offers the robust capabilities of CaseLogistix combined with the scalability, security and accessibility of docHarbor. Offering CaseLogistix as a hosted solution greatly reduces upfront capital expenditures, ownership issues and processing complexities," said Wayne Ford, Anacomp's Senior Vice President of Marketing, Channels and Strategic Alliances. "Managing high volumes of sensitive, mission-critical data, securely and in real-time with complex business rules is built into Anacomp's DNA. We have demonstrated security and up-time figures to which others in the industry can only aspire. Our 40 years of experience combined with our renowned technical talent and dedication to customer success make offering CaseLogistix on-demand via docHarbor a natural extension of the solution's value proposition."

A Different Approach
While the litigation support market has seen a proliferation of smaller hosting environments, Anacomp's approach to offering CaseLogistix on-demand differs from those of other vendors. Rather than merely turning a desktop application into a hosted one, Anacomp leads with its depth of knowledge and experience in hosted, outsourced services for enterprise and government customers. Owners of one of the world's largest document repositories, Anacomp currently hosts more than 20 billion pages of mission-critical data for leading Fortune 1000 companies. The company' global infrastructure includes robust data processing centers and experienced people, as well as the availability of hundreds of terabytes of data storage, full disaster recovery and a process-driven workflow - one trusted and approved by various classified federal government agencies.

Unlike other hosted litigation review solutions, Anacomp's environment is built and configured uniquely and specifically for each individual client, providing abundant processing power and accessibility for speed and efficiency, as well flexibility for real-time configuration and customization. Rigorous security measures include:

• User authentication, ensuring that only authorized users gain access to the application
• Document access control, making certain that authenticated users only access documents they're allowed to see
• State-of-the-art firewall and switch network security
• Physical computer security, with data center access rigorously controlled through multiple secure access layers, round-the-clock human surveillance and security cameras
• Personnel security, in which extensive background checks are conducted for all employees who have access to sensitive data

CaseLogistix allows legal teams to quickly review and produce any amount of digital evidence using an interface similar to that of Microsoft Outlook. The system is fully Unicode compliant and has been deemed European Union (EU) Safe Harbor compliant as well. Such compliance offers strong differentiation over other litigation support solutions on the market, and is highly desirable among larger, multi-national law firms and general counsel departments. CaseLogistix has also been designed for native file review, and users can view over 150 file types without the need of third party file conversions or applications. By utilizing native file review processing, users can cut processing fees in half by eliminating the need to TIFF and produce associated text files.

Back to Top

Conseco enjoys first year ROI of $410,000 utilizing docHarbor Online

The four billion dollar insurance provider cuts costs and streamlines business operations with docHarbor.


Conseco, Inc. is a Fortune 500 provider of supplemental health insurance, life insurance and annuities for almost five million customers. Conseco markets and sells its insurance products through multiple subsidiaries like Conseco Insurance Group (via independent insurance agents), Bankers Life and Casualty (through Bankers' career insurance agents) and Colonial Penn Life (in the form of television, Internet and direct mail promotion and sales channels).

The situation: The need to eliminate paper and microfiche-based processes
According to Kenneth Cygan, PMP, Assistant Vice President, Enterprise Output Services, Conseco needed to save money by eliminating paper and microfiche-based capture, storage, distribution and retrieval of various types of mostly internal reports. Most of Conseco's operational processes for these businesses depended on data output from mainframes to high-speed printers. Payroll, marketing, commission and other paper reports were archived in file cabinets, or converted to CD-ROM or microfiche, then archived. However, these processes had evolved ad hoc over time and involved redundant activities and needless labor that drove up costs.

For instance, employees had to manually separate many paper reports after printing so they could be mailed to different home office locations and hundreds of Bankers Life and Casualty field offices. When reports were converted to microfilm, they were even harder to distribute - a department's film archivist had to make a paper copy of the film report and mail it out. It was difficult to centrally manage archives distributed throughout the enterprise on disparate media.

The solution: Anacomp's DocHarbor Online
Cygan's first priority was finding a solution to reduce print, mail, and distribution expenses. With docHarbor from Anacomp, he got that and much more.

To install a digital capture/storage/retrieval solution, he'd have to invest in infrastructure for capture (high-speed scanners and capture software), storage (microfilm, optical jukeboxes, tape arrays and storage area networks) and retrieval (wide area networks and storage and retrieval software). Of course, he'd incur additional personnel costs for the staff required to install and manage these systems. Also, because the legacy mainframe systems output print streams in over 50 data formats, he would have to hire a mainframe programmer to integrate those systems with a common digital archive and store and retrieve data in its native format or translate those formats into a common archive format.

By leasing docHarbor's hosted solution, he avoided all these complications and dramatically cut costs. docHarbor eliminated the scanning phase of the process altogether. It imports mainframe print streams in their native formats such as Metacode, Xerox Line Condition Data Streams and IBM AFP without any internal programming changes to the company's legacy systems and converts them into a common archive format. In Conseco's case, this was PDF. When users retrieve reports online, they view them in their original form just as they would paper reports, but they cannot change them.

Cygan says at regular "release meetings," staff from the department releasing a batch of data tells the Output Group and docHarbor its indexing, distribution and retention requirements. Cygan says "docHarbor can index off of any variable on a report - policy number, field office number, agent number. We just highlight what output on the report we would like to be able to access, and docHarbor takes it from there."

To distribute reports, docHarbor uses multiple variables to automatically separate reports into different runs. For instance, Cygan explains that docHarbor can index commission statements by agent number and sales region and distribute them electronically to both the agent and his regional headquarters or, alternatively, to all regional headquarters if a policy covered a family living in different states.

docHarbor uses indexing variables in a similar way to set retention schedules. By indexing a quarterly financial report by date, for instance, Cygan says "that date variable on the actual report can be used in retention management to make sure we don't keep anything longer than that legal retention date." Quarterly financial reports would accordingly be purged annually after they are consolidated into an annual report to save on storage, but those annual reports would be retained for seven years then purged to meet retention regulations governing the financial industry.

docHarbor can also perform custom searches and holds. For instance, commission statements are indexed by both agent number and date. So if, for example, for litigation over disparities in commission reports during a certain period, Cygan says he could prepare for court by searching all statements using those variables for dates occurring during that period for that agent and pull them into an untamperable PDF on-the-fly.

docHarbor also readily integrates with various enterprise portal environments to give users access to data from a customizable browser-based interface but allow administrators to establish access rights during the index phase. For Conseco, docHarbor programmers quickly integrated with the existing Bankers Life and Casualty web portal using docHarbor's Application Program Interface (API) Toolkit and used Secure Socket Layer (SSL) for security. "Access to data was restricted by different index settings," explains Cygan.

Users can only view documents they are granted access to via the portal, so they can't access, modify and re-enter a document in the archive. "One of docHarbor's main selling features," says Cygan, "is that once you send it the data it will not only be secure but also not be altered in any way," which is another key requirement for financial records.

The results: ROI of $410,000 in year one
Cygan estimates Conseco netted an ROI of $410,000 in year one. Not only did it dramatically downsize its Chicago Print Center operation by printing 17 million fewer pages but it also radically cut mailing and distribution costs. Conseco's internal business operations are also more efficient. For instance, using the web portal to access data in the docHarbor archive, over 4,000 Conseco Bankers Life and Casualty salespeople retrieve commission statements online up to four days faster than in the past.

Back to Top

Hitachi Data Systems Selects Anacomp for Global Data Storage Product Maintenance

Anacomp to Initiate On-Site Maintenance and Services of Hitachi Data Systems Customers in More Than 500 Cities Throughout the US and Canada

Anacomp recently announced that it has signed a three year global field service maintenance agreement with Hitachi Data Systems, a leading provider of services-oriented storage solutions. Under the terms of the agreement, Anacomp will provide on-site maintenance and services for Hitachi Data Systems customers, starting in more than 500 cities in the US and Canada, followed by additional locations throughout Europe and Asia in the future.

Per the agreement, Anacomp will provide a variety of services including 24X7 hardware replacement, installation, configuration and eventually microcode updates for Hitachi high-end and mid-range storage solutions. Leveraging Anacomp’s abilities through this independent service provider model will allow Hitachi Data Systems to utilize Anacomp’s proven, world-class services expertise, expand its existing partnership with the company and concentrate on its core business competencies.

“We’re pleased to continue our relationship with Anacomp through this latest agreement, which will allow us to continue focusing on the development of our innovative storage solutions while concurrently providing superior services to our customers,” said Hicham Abdessamad, Senior Vice President, Global Services, Hitachi Data Systems. “We have worked with Anacomp for a few years now, and have been extremely satisfied with their quick responsiveness and quality service, which ensures our customers the highest levels of satisfaction with our storage solutions.”

“We look forward to working with Hitachi Data Systems on this latest agreement. Their selection of Anacomp for this major services contract further verifies our strong market presence, extensive expertise and skilled field personnel, and allows us to further expand our services infrastructure,” said Art DiScipio, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Anacomp’s Multi-Vendor Services Global Operations.” Hitachi Data Systems’ selection of Anacomp for this major contract is not only a testament to their satisfaction with our performance, but also that outsourcing such services to us is a model that makes sense for storage solution providers of all sizes.”

Back to Top