The company is in the process of implementing Skywire Software's Docuflex product to automate the design, production, management, delivery and archival of all essential customer communications from a central repository for the first time. The software is anticipated to be an enabler for document delivery to its customers through a range of current and emerging electronic channels.

Yorkshire Building Society selected Skywire Software's Docuflex because of its proven ability to support the growing complexity and volume of documents the company must deliver to customers in a timely and professional manner. In addition, it required a solution that enabled enterprise wide standardisation of document composition and archival to reduce production of duplicate documents and generate cost savings.

Sean Caine, strategy and enterprise architecture manager, Yorkshire Building Society, commented: "Regulation across the financial services industry currently demands that a high level of consumer information is provided. In this environment, better customer communication becomes a necessity. Consequently, improving the processes behind that communication will result in a clear advantage both in terms of efficiency and cost. For many years, we have been one of the most cost-effective building societies in the industry. The Society's management expense ratio is one of the lowest in the building society sector and we are determined to maintain this competitive position, which was one of the central reasons we turned to Skywire Software.

"Customer correspondence has become a very complex area, and our decision to improve the automation of our processes is a reflection of that change," added Mr. Caine. "The huge volume of correspondence, along with the need to make frequent and costly changes to templates, hastened our decision."

A key driver for the company's selection was having the ability to quickly produce a mortgage Key Facts Illustration (KFI) that complies with Fiiies with Financial Services Authority (FSA) requirements, while meeting the company's branding standards. With Docuflex the Yorkshire Building Society's employees can make changes to letters and other documents via a series of rules applied to templates. These templates can be used to control anything from content and branding, through to personalised services and delivery. The use of automated rules reduces the amount of manual intervention and results in correspondence being issued both quickly and accurately.

Docuflex will enable the Society's staff to generate templates according to whatever rules are specified. This creates the potential for continuous improvement of speed and efficiency as well as the scope to centrally control templates.

"The production of a large percentage of the Society's documents is currently handled by the IT department, requiring highly skilled personnel on the one hand, whilst on the other removing this process from the actual back office staff," added Mr. Caine, who noted the implementation will fit well with the company's requirements for a more open service-oriented architecture (SOA). "Skywire Software will enable us to return document design and fulfillment to the business and marketing teams where it belongs, whilst refocusing the IT teams on what they should be doing. There is no doubt that this solution will deliver a critical competitive advantage in the marketplace."

Yorkshire Building Society will eventually benefit from having a common document production service, helping to create a standard and synchronised document portfolio. Shorter document production times will improve staff productivity and customer service, allowing larger volumes of cases to be handled. The ability to easily access archived documents for speedy search and retrieval also will enhance efficiency.