A perspective on this issue from the other side of the fence - or oceans for that matter ! And certainly not intended to solicit business !!!!!!

We are a Service Bureau in India and have been providing Imaging, Indexing and Archival services for clients abroad for over 8 years. Over 95% of our work is with physical paper and the balance is key-from-image, QC of images, redaction and other other related activities.

Our clients are almost entirely from the UK, who send us document boxes by the container loads, and we do large volume scanning, indexing and all the associated activities. I'm probably the company which Mr. Cunningham referred to in his mail - though I may be wrong !!!

There are two main aspects to this issue - one being the benefit and the other the risk.  Feasibility is not really an issue - that is determined only by the time available.

As regards benefit - the main one is costs and savings.  

The bulk of our work is back-file conversion and here the rationale is fairly simple. The boxes we get are usually being held by our clients in off-site storage and is not "current" data. This generally means large volumes. Where such volumes are concerned it's usually a no-brainer for our clients to make the decision. When this involves millions of images a cent here and there translates into thousands of dollars. We have often come across several clients who often could not afford to image documents in these volumes at the local bureau rates in the UK but who have found it to be more than affordable when outsourced off-shore. 

Scanning, per se, is the lowest cost component in the entire chain. It's the least labour intensive activity and we use the same production scanners that are used elsewhere. Sure the scanner operators are paid less in dollar terms but that is no big deal on a cost per image analysis. The other activities such as doc-prep, indexing, QC etc are labour intensive and that's where the cost reductions kick in.

Also we tend to make things easier for the client in as much that other service bureaus, at least in the UK, charge separately for each activity, such as Doc Prep, scanning, indexing, migration of data to media, the cost of media itself etc. We give our clients an all-in per image charge which includes everything. So the client knows up front what they are letting themselves in for at the start and don't have to guess how many hours of Doc-prep is required or whatever. Most of the indexing the clients want is at file level and not document level so that makes things a lot simpler for them too. 

Documents once processed never go back. They are stored here till required and the clients find our storage rates better than what they were paying in the UK. We provide the storage services and we provide them secure destruction once required. Once they have the images and indexes - physical retrievals are rarely, if ever, required. In the past seven years - we have never received a retrieval request for an entire box and have maybe sent back one or two physical files at most. We do get occasional retrieval requests for what is in-process, which is processed out-of-turn and sent back in digital form.  

Different clients have different requirements. For example - A prospective client we're talking to wants to move their entire storage here. And they want the entire contents catalogued (indexed) as their records of what's in storage is not entirely accurate. But they dont want everything imaged and want imaging "On-Demand". That is - once they have the accurate indexes - and if they should need something back, it is to be processed immediately and returned in digital form. So it's not a one-size-fits-all solution. 



The Risk element - IMHO - is largely hype and an entirely unfounded concern - as radical as that may sound. Especially in this particular activity and in software development etc. I would go so far as to say that off-shoring this activity provides a greater degree of security rather than reduce it.

The first barrier in this is time and not ability. For example, we do a lot of processing of corporate financial, audit and tax related files. Sure there is information in those files that POSSIBLY could be mis-used by someone intending to do so. But the PROBABILITY is virtually non-existent. The people handling these documents here are busy processing the documents and simply do not have the time to examine the documents in great detail to ferret out the information they could use for some illegal personal gain. It would take a trained accountant several hours or may be days to ascertain that. The processors simply do not have that expertise or time.

Secondly, even assuming that someone actually got hold of some information he could do damage with, He can do no damage with it here - as he could there. He does not have the delivery mechanism. He has no access to the internet at his place of work, and even to take a phone call he has to go out of the processing area to do so. He does not have a phone at his seat at work - it just is not required. Even if he got access to some US residents social security number what would he do with it. Even I would not not know what do do with - it's of little use to anyone here who does not have access to the mis-use infrastructure !!!! 

Sure, there is fraud here - just as it is anywhere else in the world. You do get an occasional fraud here and there - primarily in call centers and the like,  where people are continuously connected to the outside world in real time and dealing with peoples credit card and bank account information and once in a while you get an unscrupulous employee who will find a way to by-pass the checks, balances and controls and maybe siphon off some money or make a unauthorised purchase on some unsuspecting persons credit card - and eventually get caught and end up in the slammer. And it's getting tougher all the time for such people. Occurrences of US specific crimes such as identity theft or insurance crime is virtually unheard of here - thus far ! 

BUT - I'm willing to bet my bottom dollar that the proportion of such petty fraud to the total volume of work processed here in India is probably the lowest in the world - and most definitely lower than this ratio in the US. You're not ever likely to to get anything close to the scale or sophistication of Kenneth Lay / Enron or Andersons and others In the US that eventually resulted in SOX !!!

Years ago when our first client sent us the first container, we used to get several concerned calls every day asking whether the documents were secure and in control. Today the same client sometimes ships a container and simply omits to inform us of the shipment and we learn about it when we receive a cargo arrival notice from the shipping company. I guess their experience has proved that their documents are as secure as they require and concerns are not as high as they were initially. 

The "Risk" is all in the perception - certainly not in the assessment !!

I'll probably drop by Dick's in San Antonio and gatecrash the Listserve party - and knock back a few with those of you who are there.

Regards,

Jaspal Dugal

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