Innodata Isogen History and Types of Business Processes - Research Paper Example

Operation Analysis of Innodata Isogen I. Executive Summary - Introduction Innodata Isogen Inc. , (NASDAQ: INOD) have always been at the forefront of content processing in its 22 years of history have diversified its service offering to include several products or services that will make it a one stop shop for back-office business outsourcing for its existing and future client. The main value proposition of Innodata-Isogen to its customer is that the cost of its outsourcing services will and shall always be lower than doing a job order in-house. Another significant value proposition is the turn-around time which will still be faster than when a project is done in-house. Still another important value proposition is the quality by which outputs are delivered. It is therefore imperative that Innodata-Isogen maintain these advantages while ensuring that the bottom-line remain lean. Studying Innodata-Isogen’s operation processes for each of its service offering this paper shall define, characterize and classify dominant operational processes to determine critical key result areas per products. This paper shall also endeavour to provide a recommendation on how Innodata Isogen can improve its processes that will positively impact its: Effectiveness, Efficiency, Internal Control and Statutory compliance since it is a NASDAQ listed company. II. Table of Contents I Executive Summary 2 II Table of Contents 3 III Innodata Isogen History 4 IV Types of Business Processes 8 V Four Major Process Improvement Areas 10 VI Operation Strategy Models 14 VII Innodata Isogen 16 VIII Analysis and Discussion 17 IX Recommendation 19 X References 21 III. Innodata Isogen Inc. – a. History Innodata In 1988, Innodata Corporation was founded in New York City and its main line of business is the digitization of documents. Innodata has established itself as a company committed to quality and has been considered as a company that set the benchmark for audit processes (Innodata Isogen Inc, 1997). By 1992, confident of its value proposition to its increasing client base, Innodata went public as it expanded its operation in Asia to support its North American and European Operations. At the forefront in the use of emerging telecommunication and information technology, the company used this as a foundation to support its talent pool to provide not only quality service but also an effective and efficient service (Innodata Isogen Inc, 1997). In 1998, Innodata attracted more blue chip publishing companies that relied heavily on its 24 hour turn-around-time due to its use of optical character recognition technologies. As it expanded its client base, it also expanded its operation in Asia that would see the roll-out of large facilities in the Philippines, Sri Lanka and India (Innodata Isogen Inc, 1997). In 2001, both Business Week and Fortune magazines named Innodata as one of the top performing public companies for its achievement in tripling its revenue base in three years. Innodata also invested heavily to upgrade its infrastructure and streamline its processes (Innodata Isogen Inc, 1997). Not resting on its laurels in setting the benchmark for its superb industry setting-quality assurance processes (Innodata Isogen Inc, 1997). Innodata started the process of having its quality processes ISO certified thus committing the company to a cycle of continuing improvements in the quality of its output. Isogen In 1990, Dallas spawned a company that dedicated itself in improving and streamlining document and information management processes using open content-encoding standards that include Standard Generalized Mark-up Language. This strategy liberated clients from expensive and unstable proprietary solutions enabling Isogen to attract more clients looking for stable but cost effective solutions (Innodata Isogen Inc, 1997). By 1993, Isogen leveraging on its expertise and experience was able to corner several large manufacturers that is heavily dependent on its knowledge base. The vendor neutral solution provided by Isogen and its high client satisfaction further intensified its popularity of delivering process improvements on time and within budget (Innodata Isogen Inc, 1997). By 1999, Isogen, with the industry’s insatiable demand for knowledge base solutions grew even more popular when it discovered the value of open, public and non-proprietary mark-up languages that makes content interchangeable among applications. Isogen’s pioneering work in open solutions earned for itself the leadership role in the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) working groups. W3C and mainly in part Isogen is responsible for defining XML 1.0 (Extensible Mark-up Language). The innovative solutions of Isogen further increased its niche in the knowledge base industry (Innodata Isogen Inc, 1997). By 2001, Isogen International has earned for itself the distinction of being the leading XML systems and training company in the world. The firms products and services include systems integration, information analysis, design and modelling, consulting, tools selection, process improvement, custom application development, and all levels of XML training and education. The year 2001 also marked the courting period of the marriage of two content professional services providers (Innodata Isogen Inc, 1997). Innodata Isogen Inc. In 2001, Innodata Corporation acquires Isogen International in December 2001. The two category leaders begin to integrate their expertise in content management and publishing technologies, structured information standards and outsourcing. The resulting organization is recognized as the premier provider of content supply chain solutions (Innodata Isogen Inc, 1997). By 2002, Innodata Isogen’s combined talent pool began to integrate its product and service offering to its client. In the knowledge base industry the end-to-end content supply chain process offered by Innodata Isogen further provided additional value proposition to its existing and potential client. The one stop end-to-end solution offered by Innodata Isogen in building a client’s knowledge base became more refined when it introduced its knowledge base optimization solutions (Innodata Isogen Inc, 1997). By 2009, Innodata Isogen’s list of accomplishment further expanded when it attained the GSA (General Services Administration) standing. This would allow Innodata Isogen to provide professional services to government agencies in the United States (Innodata Isogen Inc, 1997). b. Products – Innodata Isogen range of services are categorize into four: The first product/service is the Editorial Services that includes Abstracting and Indexing; Authoring Services; Content Origination; Design Service; Editorial Services; eLearning; Research & Analysis and Technical Writing. The Second product/service is the Production Services that covers eBook Services; Composition Services; Data Capture & Data Entry; Data Conversion; Data Modelling; Digitization & Imaging; Knowledge Discovery & Data Mining and XML Services. The third product/service is the Technology Services that consist of Application Maintenance; Content Management; Knowledge Management; Search Technologies; Software Engineering; Systems Engineering; XML Training and; XML-Based Solutions. And lastly is the Consulting Services that involves Business & Technology Consulting and Program Management c. Business Process Flow – Most of the engagements of Innodata Isogen are negotiated contracts. However it stil follow this process: Requirements definition > Delivery Schedule > Capacity Planning > Pricing > Quality Control Definition > Production > Delivery. d. Management Process – Includes Corporate Governance and Strategic Management. As a listed US company Innodata Isogen needs to comply with the requirement of the Sorbanes Oxley Act. e. Support Process – Includes but is not limited to IT services, Accounting services and Human Resource Services. f. Operation Process Flow – Each of the products and services as described above have their own process flow however for purposes of this paper we shall tackle the Data Conversion under Production Services. That follows this process: Source Material delivery > Source Material Inventory > Source Material OCR Scanning > Tagging > Compiling > Delivery. IV. Types of Business Processes a. Management Processes - In general concerns itself with how decisions are made at the top level of the company for the benefit of the company and the stake holders. It concerns itself with corporate governance to ensure that its operation or how it conducts its business complies with the requirement of the law. It also ensures that the business process remains relevant to its core competency. Business process according to Jahansson, it is “a set of linked activities that take an input and transform it to create an output. Ideally, the transformation that occurs in the process should add value to the input and create an output that is more useful and effective to the recipient either upstream or downstream” (Henry J. Johansson, 1993). In the context of this paper the processes defined in III.d. b. Operational Processes – are the different processes that create the products or the process that enables the company to provide service to its clients. Each process is – ”a structured and measured set of activities designed to produce a specific output for a particular customer or market. It implies a strong emphasis on how work is done within an organization, in contrast to a product focus’s emphasis on what. A process is thus a specific ordering of work activities across time and space, with a beginning and an end, and clearly defined inputs and outputs: a structure for action. ... Taking a process approach implies adopting the customer’s point of view. Processes are the structure by which an organization does what is necessary to produce value for its customers” (Davenport, 1993). In the context of this paper, operational process includes those mentioned in III.b and III.f. Operational processes or business process are the core competency of the company. c. Supporting Processes – Considered as the pillars that supports the core business and the Management Processes. However depending on the type of business that the company is engaged in the Supporting Process is normally the enabler of the company. To illustrate: In an IT based company the IT department enables the core business and provide the necessary resources for the company to complete and perform its core competency. In a company that provide janitorial services or even temporary jobs the Human Resource department enables the company to perform its core competency which is to provide warm bodies to a client. In a company that provide accounting service to clients, the accounting department is the enabler of the company. Thus, depending on the services offered, the relevant competency should be the core or primary concern of the company. There are some companies where the support department have developed unique expertise in the industry that they are sometimes consulted or engaged to provide technical expertise to other companies. Instead of being cost-centres, these departments become revenue generating centres as well that can provide another revenue streams for the company. As the department matures, spinning off their operation becomes more and more likely to ensure that the mother company remain faithful to its core competency. The spun-off company is then operated by the highly specialized and skilled technical people while the administrative functions of the spun-off company are still performed by the mother company. This will not only allow the company to leverage on common resources it will also enable the company to capitalized on the added revenue stream provided by the spun-off company. While in some mature companies, the departments are provided with even rates that would enable them to evaluate the value of the department in a company. V. Four Major Process Improvement Areas a. Effectiveness – Is the efficacy of the process to respond to the ultimate goal of the process (Statz, 2005). To illustrate in the context that this improvement area will be used in this paper: The Conversion Process, should in the end be able to convert documents in to their electronic format with the proper tagging for each part of the book. The end results are the scanned pages of the book with all the words in it indexed and tagged. The Table of contents, the Title page, acknowledgements are all identified. In terms of IT infrastructure management process: The IT process should be geared towards providing support services to the whole company that has a reliability of 99.999% or in a year the system will only be unavailable for 5 minutes (Rausand & Hoyland, 2005). In terms of the Finance Process: The process should be able to provide an accurate financial report with every item in the report auditable and verifiable (Garcia & Shumpert, 2008). In terms of the Management Process: The process should be effective in addressing and responding to market forces to steer the company to more profit or for the company to continue doing business even under adverse condition (Johnson & Thompson, 2007). b. Efficiency – is to produce an output using the least amount of resource while complying with all the requirements of a quality output at the shortest possible time. Efficiency is an improvement area because it affects the bottom- line of the company that would ultimately affect the profitability of the company (Simons, 1994). To illustrate in the context of this improvement area will be used in this paper: The conversion process should be able to deliver quality products at the least amount of time possible that would enable delivery even before the required time (Innodata Isogen Inc, 1997). In terms of IT Infrastructure management process: The efficiency of the process will be defined by the service level numbers of the IT infrastructure. Efficiency is also to provide the required capacity to respond to new projects or to spike demands from the customer (Clark & Wright, 2009). In terms of Finance Processes: The efficiency of the process is measured in terms of the accuracy and timeliness of the financial report delivered while adhering to the mandated internal control requirements (Rasmussen, Eichorn, Barak, & Prince, 2003). In terms of Management Process: the efficiency of the process is measured in terms of the timeliness of the decisions provided by management. A key area in any management process is not how accurate the decision is but how to determine the exact time a decision is required. In management good managers do not make bad decision if they are well-informed or kept abreast with the developments, therefore, there is no such thing as bad decision only bad timing and bad information (Ramachandran, 2004). c. Internal Control – Is an improvement area that will enable companies to prevent inaccuracies, errors and quality lapses. It is also a means to detect and foresee impending disaster if the thresholds are configured in such a way that it will provide warning signs for those monitoring production (Simons, Levers of Organization Design: How Mangers Use Accountability Systems for Greater Performance and Commitment, 2005). To illustrate in the context of this improvement area will be used in this paper: The conversion process should have quality checks at every end of the task with the proper threshold markers. This will prevent not only wastage but also repeat orders or repeat process that will cost more time. A streamlined and perfected operation will avert any disaster or repetition of work thus conserving valuable resources as well as a contented workforce. In terms of IT Infrastructure management process: The IT infrastructure management process the system should be able to warn if threshold are being breached to ensure that corrective measures are undertaken to resolve the breach (International Organization for Standards, 2005). In terms of Financial Processes: Controls are not only a company mandated imposition to ensure a smooth and accurate flow of information it is a statutory requirement through the operation of the Sorbanes Oxley Act (Addison-Hewitt Associates, 2002). In terms of Management Process: Noteworthy is the ability of internal controls to prevent and detect corporate fraud committed by employees of the company either consciously or unconsciously. With the advent of responsible corporate governance as mandated by law, employees not only have a fiduciary relationship with the company. It is mandated by law that they perform their task within the bounds of the minimum internal control but companies are not precluded from incorporating other securities measures to ensure compliance with the by law. Internal control would also enable companies to do away with expensive litigation and onerous contracts (KPMG, 1999). d. Statutory and Policy Compliance – Pertains to how the company comply with all the existing laws that cover its existence, operation and governance. The company’s compliance is not limited to where the company maintains its principal business office but it also includes the conduct of their business and corporate governance in countries where they have a presence. Compliance monitoring is one of the key elements of responsible corporate governance. Internal policy should augment if not support regulatory statutes and in this aspect is internal monitoring is feasible. Policy compliance monitoring should form part of the function of the company’s management. It is their responsibility to comply with all the regulatory governance requirements. Should they renege on their obligation to do so would result to civil and criminal liability against the responsible officers or personnel. To illustrate: Innodata Isogen is involved in the conversion of printed books into its electronic format. Copyright laws prohibit that any reproduction of these books not authorized by the publisher or the author to be circulated should not be circulated. Therefore a policy within the company should exist that will prohibit and discourage under pain of administrative and criminal prosecution the unauthorized reproduction, copying distribution of these books (World Intellectual Property Organization, 1967). In the context of IT infrastructure management: using the same example as above, it is the fiduciary duty of the IT infrastructure management hierarchy to make sure that any attempts and actual copying of books are automatically monitored, discouraged and prevented by the system (Danchev, 2003). In the context of Financial Process: As mention in the internal control process improvement Innodata Isogen is a listed company therefore it is required by law to comply with the requirements of the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 1992 (Addison-Hewitt Associates, 2002). In the context of Management Process: There should be a process supported by a policy that will provide for a speedy disposition of cases involving violations of the law while adhering to the tenets of due process, both substantive and procedural due process. These requirements are not only mandatory to comply with and not be trifled with as the requirement of due process is the basic tenet of society’s very existence. VI. Operation Strategy Models “Operations strategy is the collective concrete actions chosen, mandated, or stimulated by corporate strategy. It is, of course, implemented within the operations function. This operations strategy binds the various operations decisions and actions into a cohesive consistent response to competitive forces by linking firm policies, programs, systems, and actions into a systematic response to the competitive priorities chosen and communicated by the corporate or business strategy. In simpler terms, the operations strategy specifies how the firm will employ its operations capabilities to support the business strategy” (Inman, 2010). a. Quality David Garvin lists eight dimension of quality but for our purpose we shall only list what is essential for Innodata Isogen: As a predicate, Innodata Isogen provides services its product therefore are services and not tangible products. Therefore, we shall relate the applicable Garvin’s eight dimensions of quality with the service that Innodata Isogen provides. Aesthetics refers to the physical appearance of a product. Since there are no tangible product to speak off this will not be relevant. Durability - refers to the durability of a tangible product which is not applicable for the purpose of this paper. Features – are the unique attributes of the product that separate it from the rest of its competitors. Serviceability – refers to the availability and affordability of parts and services when a product fails (Garvin, 1987). Performance – A service company like Innodata Isogen’s performance is its unique asset and it is what set itself apart from the rest of its competitors. Therefore, the performance of Innodata Isogen should not only be exemplary but it should exceed the expectation of the customer (Garvin, 1987). Conformance – to standard processes includes using common language in the performance of its obligation when engaged in a contract. Innodata Isogen should be able to understand and speak the same standard language in the industry (Garvin, 1987). Reliability of Service – Delivering its committed submission date of its deliverables within the prescribed and expected format or quality (Garvin, 1987). Perceived Quality – are guided by the perception of the customer of the company performing the service. Innodata Isogen has already established itself in the industry as one of the best or the best in a particular service practice that perception will remain at the back of the mind of the customer (Garvin, 1987). b. Cost – In order to stay competitive a company has to control every aspect of its business and operational cost. A company that knows the cost of every aspect of its operation that would include the cost contribution of a clerk and a specific asset in producing a product is a company who knows its business (Carter, Usry, & Hammer, 2005). The value of knowing the actual cost and the collective cost of producing a product would enable a company to be flexible in its pricing. Controlling the bottom line would be easier. c. Ambidexterity – is the ability of an organization to adapt to market forces even if the market forces are in the extreme condition. The ability to change its operation and re-tool at short notice is a trait not common to companies. If this is built-in into a company from the beginning that company will not only be durable the company will also be able to withstand extreme market forces (Birkinshaw & Gibson, 2004). VII. Innodata Isogen Operations For the purpose of this paper, we shall only tackle the two basic operations of Innodata Isogen: the Data Conversion process under the Production service and the IT infrastructure operation which is of the Support processes. These two processes are symbiotic with each other due to the nature of the business the other cannot survive without the other. a. Data Conversion Process – The operation as described above has the following Key Result Area: Quality, Turn-around-time and Cost. The Key Performance Indicator – for Quality are: the quality of the scanned pages that will be determined by process called XML conversion. If the program generated too few or no XML tags, then it means that the scanned images are unreadable. Key Performance Indicator for Turn-around time: The delivered volume and delivery time which is in turn dependent on two factors head count and IT infrastructure. Head count: is dictated by the volume of jobs to be processed in one production cycle. The IT infrastructure resource is also dependent on the volume. However, for some companies that is not the case. Upgrading IT infrastructure takes a lot of planning and down time and it cannot be done in a year. Thus, volume is driven by the availability of IT infrastructure resource. However, to maximize output and avert any waste of resources during down time, back-up plans and other infrastructure strategies should be integrated during the organizational planning . Key Performance Indicator for Cost: Operating cost that would include head count and IT infrastructure cost. b. IT infrastructure Operation – It operation is responsible for the infrastructure that support the data conversion process. It has the following Key Result Area: Capacity Planning, Service Level Commitment. Key Performance indicator for Capacity Planning is when a project is able to deliver quality work at the contracted volume at the desired time. Key Performance indicator for Service Level Commitment is when a project experiences down time in any of the IT infrastructure resource it is utilizing but is able implement back up plans to minimize losses and offer solutions on the problems immediately. VIII. Analysis and Discussions a. Define, Classify and Characterize the Dominant Operational Transformation Process of Innodata Isogen. The dominant operational transformation process of Innodata Isogen is its Data Conversion operation that accounts for majority of its earnings. It also accounts for a large chunk of its manpower and collective operational manhours of the company. Capital Investment used for Data Conversion projects account for majority of its acquisition in a year (Innodata Isogen Inc., 1997). The Data Conversion Process of Innodata Isogen to have a positive impact to its bottom line should have a manageable cost structure that would enable it to react to market forces. The cost structure of the Data Conversion Process includes the following: Software licenses, Hardware Infrastructure, Seat cost and Manpower compensation cost that would include overtime. b. Devise, Justify and Prioritize Operational Objectives for Innodata Isogen The primordial objective to lower the cost is to lower the following items: Lower the cost of manpower and maximize the seat rental. By minimizing the engagement period of the people assigned to the project the manpower cost will be lowered. It should be noted that the seat rental having been alloted to a project cannot be used anymore to any other project as the configuration of the workstation is already fixed from the commencement of the work. To illustrate: A project that would convert 20 Million pages would require 5 Terrabytes of disk space which will be utilized in the following manner: 1 Terrabyte (one Million pages) for scanned books and its temporary files; 1 Terrabytes will be needed to join scanned pages; 1 Terrabyte for the XML tagging; 1 Terrabyte for Transmission standby; 1 Terrabyte for standby files ready for transmission. If the resources were provided to the project a total of 120 seats is needed. The project would then last only 20 Million. c. The inclusion of the IT Infrastructure Processes The IT infrastructure can present solutions that will lower down the cost of the Data Conversion. By providing the required Disk Space that would enable the process owner to increase its head count and utilize the seat for 24 hours. The Data Conversion Process will be able to shorten the project duration thereby limiting the engagement period of the labour resource. By maintaining the service level, at its optimum level, will make the entire project staff utilize the tools provided thereat to ensure that these tools are available all the time. IX. Recommendations The following consideration was considered in developing the recommendations. The Industry where Innodata-Isogen is a major player will achieve its saturation point at the same rate technology becomes a common fixture in any company. Thus, the company need to diversify its product and service offering to ensure its survival. By reviewing the cost structure for each of the page in the Data Conversion Process, management can leverage the price as a value proposition for the prospective client. To illustrate: during negotiations when the discussion turns to the schedule of payment, delivery of output and turn-around time of the books from the clients warehouse. A well informed marketing manager would be able to commit to a project dimension that would allow the company to still realize profit. The following are the means by which a company can lower its operation cost. Automate as much of the task as possible to limit the involvement of manpower. This would also result for an increase in quality output because the human factor is eliminated. Utilize the other shifts to ensure that processing is done even at the wee hours of the morning this will make the operation 24 x 7. The continuity of the process will bring about increased efficiency but lowering the cost of operating expenditure. Capital equipment that have been purchased for the project will be made available for the entire company and other projects once the project is completed. The downside of this is that the project investment cost will increase even if the components will not be permanently assigned to the project. The caveat however to the recommendation is that equipment purchased for the project may become white elephants. Thus proper balancing should be done to ensure that the company will not be overly exposed financially to a 20 day project. One solution that can be considered for the equipment that has been purchased for the project is to have it sold in an auction. Another is to rent it out. These solutions would entail conservation of precious company resources. Finally, an in-depth study of the operation is an essential undertaking that will bear fruit later. A complete control of the manpower dimension and technology dimension will enable managers to make informed decisions with regards to key elements in the process. For support departments it is also essential to know the cost for each of the page. The charge back method can be used as a means to determine the IT cost of doing business in the industry dominated by IT. References: Addison-Hewitt Associates. (2002). 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