By Karl Chapman, CEO, Kim Technologies.
The essence of democratization? Universal, so you can participate. Accessible with no barriers to your participation.
We have reached a significant change point in the document automation market. Today, in the next hour, now, you can automate almost any of your organization’s documents.
Whatever your role. Whatever your experience. You can take your existing Word documents (letters, forms, checklists, contracts, compliance records …), and automate them. That NDA, client engagement letter, support request form, security questionnaire, compliance form, declaration … live and available, in minutes, for self-service, information capture, or document generation.
You may choose not to do the automation yourself. You may be the document owner, the subject matter expert, and a colleague or admin support does the automation. But you, or they, or anyone, can do it. Universal.
Wouldn’t it be great if a solution was accessible via your browser or MS Teams. With no training required. At a price, all can afford irrespective of whether you are part of a small, medium, or large team, function, or organization.
Accessible and affordable. No barriers to your participation. Democratization.
Too good to be true?
The ‘As Is’ – Current State
I am always amazed when customers tell me how much time and money they have and are spending on automating documents. With varying degrees of success.
Project team. Template review. New software and (often!) new hardware. An additional tool for Users to learn. The time and training this entails.
It is not just the initial investment. It is also the ongoing cost of ownership. Super Users to update documents and amend automations, license fees, infrastructure, third-party support, and so the list goes on.
Fortunes have been built helping organizations, corporate legal departments, law firms, and compliance functions do this. Some of the wise business owners who saw democratization coming sold their businesses.
The Democratization Breakthrough
The insight by our founder and CTO, Richard Yawn, was so simple that every time I reflect on it, I marvel at its genius. It starts with your existing MS Word documents (of course you can create new ones as well!).
Think about the content in these letters, forms, checklists, contracts, compliance records … etc. Think about the value of the content and data in these documents and what you could do with them if these elements were enabled and activated, quickly and easily.
Well, here is the breakthrough. Your existing MS Word documents are the requirements. Reflect on this for a moment.
Your existing MS Word documents are your requirements.
The variable fields in a document (e.g. counterparty name, renewal date, response to a compliance question …) are your requirements. This is the information that you need to do the work, generate the document and move the process forward. These documents are the way you do business today.
And because these are your existing documents there is no template project or transformation program required. You can forget lengthy ‘requirements gathering’ projects that focus on requirements rather than on what business problem you are trying to solve. Just use the documents you already have!
What if you can take your MS Word document, tag the variable fields, and, via a wizard, turn the tags into a web application (a web form) that, when completed, generates the document, whatever letter, form, checklist, contract compliance record it is (this process is the core of Kim’s patent).
What if a tool also enables collaboration, creates the data model and the data points, and allows full data analysis through enterprise search, bulk download, or API integration?
What if the same tool takes, with only a few exceptions, your existing formatting and layout of your documents and automatically replicates it. Same with your brand guidelines and layout. With very few exceptions, the integrity of the document styles and format remains intact.
All this is possible with Kim Document. MS Word is universal. The browser is universal. MS Teams is universal. Combine these with Kim’s patent and ‘no-regrets’ pricing and the era of the ‘Democratization of document automation’ has arrived.
The Benefits
Automation helps keep things simple. Who doesn’t like a simple process that gets the job done better, faster, and in a more cost-effective manner:
- The speed with which documents can be generated and information gathered
- The version control of all documents
- The removal of manual, error prone, rekeying
- A better client and colleague User experience
- No need to do a template project – your documents are your requirements
An apology
I should make an apology.
We could (and should!) have done this before. We applied for our patent in 2013, it was granted in 2020, so we have always had the insight and the technology to democratize document automation.
In our defence, we have been working with our Fortune 500 companies to help them achieve their objectives. The good news is that what I describe in this article has been proven in the toughest environment – with users and customers globally.
Using your browser, Kim turns your existing MS Word documents into web applications. In the words of our CTO – It’s like a top restaurant being able to sell its cuisine at fast food prices!
It’s here and available from Kim Document.
Join our webinar titled ‘The era of the Democratization of document automation has arrived’ on 6th October 2022 at 4pm BST | 11am ET | 8am PT to discover more.
[ Artificial Lawyer is proud to bring you this sponsored thought leadership article by Kim Technologies. ]