Compelling Events Driving the Adoption of Enterprise Forms Automation

By: Sally Schulte, Product Marketing Director at Smart Communications

There are a number of challenges that companies have come to expect, regardless of the industry. These challenges include how to manage and retire outdated technologies, meet increasingly high customer expectations, protect an astronomical level of highly sensitive data, and comply with industry and internal compliance standards.

Those are table stakes.

When you add the many compelling events happening around the world—particularly in heavily regulated industries such as financial services and healthcare—companies are being forced to find digital solutions fast. And, if they haven’t already started, the significance of what’s happening will soon increase the urgency. These events will force them to replace the remaining outdated, manual business processes that have been largely overlooked and adopt an enterprise forms automation solution.

Let’s look at a few examples.

Pandemic-Prompted Transformation

No company came out of the pandemic the same way they went into it. Whether it was the need to schedule vaccination appointments, collect vaccination data, administer new federally funded bank loan programs like the 'Paycheck Protection Program', or simply give customers a way to complete forms and sign documents without having to be physically present, implementing an enterprise forms automation solution like SmartIQ™ was a lifeline for healthcare providers, insurers, and financial institutions. Low-code solutions like SmartIQ made it possible for companies to quickly digitalize end-to-end forms processes and safely (and securely) offer access to critical Covid programs nearly overnight.

New Healthcare Regulations Around the Globe

In North America, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (or CMS) has issued a proposal that will require companies to digitalize prior authorization—and have a solution in place by January 2026.

CMS also changed how it assesses the Star Ratings it awards to Medicare Advantage and Medicare Prescription plans—increasing the weight of customer experience to over 50%. And this explicitly includes communications and forms.

Beyond the borders of the United States, the Australian government has issued a report which recommends increasing investments in digital health tools that can support collaboration amongst care providers.

More globally, and even more acutely in the United Kingdom, there are significant staffing issues in healthcare. A shortage of nurses and staff compounded by inflation has led to layoffs and strikes and has elevated the importance of automating and streamlining healthcare form processes.

The versatility and easy connectivity of SmartIQ make it an accessible solution to address these changes.

Regulatory Trends in Financial Services

Moving along to Financial Services, the United States Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) recently issued Section 1071 under the Dodd-Frank Act, which outlines new data collection requirements around small business loans. Lenders now need to collect - and report on - geographic and demographic details on borrowers, with the goal of encouraging lending to underserved communities and reducing discrimination.  

In Australia, there is new legislation (RG271) by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) around handling time for complaints and disputes. As a result of overwhelming feedback that complaints and dispute processes were taking far too long (and were far too painful), this legislation provides a framework for how quickly complaints must be resolved with a business.

And, at a global level in financial services, higher interest rates have caused lending providers to tighten the criteria for offering loans. This has led to an increase in servicing activities such as loan modification requests and rate lock requests. Coupled with a decrease in new originations, cost pressures are forcing lenders to find a way to automate those complex processes.​

SmartIQ eliminates the strains these changes place on organizations. Beyond being able to fully digitalize the complex form and agreement processes, SmartIQ is a low-code solution that allows business units to own their processes—not IT. So, gathering new pieces of information or changing an approval process can happen when the business needs it to, not when IT has time.

What to Look For

These highlights are by no means an exhaustive list of everything happening around the world today, but they are just a few examples of the headwinds companies are facing today, what to consider, and ways to prepare.

When considering a forms process automation solution, some important criteria to keep in mind include:

Versatility - Can the technology solve more than one business problem in more than one line of business?

Business Impact - Does the solution increase operational efficiency that can be tied to revenue? 

Usability – can non-developers within a line of business use the solution to problem-solve and digitalize their processes?

Time to Market – how quickly can new processes be created, tested, and deployed?

Maturity – is this a proven technology provider with extensive development experience in enterprise forms automation?

Project Maintenance – how easy is it to update and make changes to existing processes?

Connectivity – can the technology easily integrate with other core systems to transfer, update, and share data?

Security – how is data transferred during a process and once it completes?

Sustainability – does implementing this solution directly impact corporate sustainability efforts?

SmartIQ is a low-code SaaS solution that enables organizations to centralize their forms processes across the entire enterprise and transform them into intelligent,  response-based digital experiences. 

User-friendly design tools make it easy for business users to build or make changes to existing forms processes in minutes. Changes are applied across all channels and live for all users in real-time. By reducing reliance on IT, SmartIQ provides the agility today's organizations need to adapt quickly to changes in the market and deliver compliant,  customer-friendly digital experiences across the customer lifecycle.  

Contact us today to discuss how SmartIQ can help you prepare for the changes ahead.