techWeek Interviews Julio Olivares, President of the Document Management Software Company DocPath.
By Angel Gallego, December 23, 2008
In a year of crisis they expect to grow 15 percent after absorbing Resolutions in the United States. The Spanish company will be orienting its document management to environmentally-friendly document generation and its pricing will be geared even more toward the small enterprise.
tW: The volume of information that companies manage is constantly increasing, but the available solutions on the market are also increasing proportionately. How do you distinguish yourself from the rest?
J.O.: The document management cycle is vast, as well as the workflow. First of all, we try to adjust the solutions to the different enterprises, which sometimes are legal in nature, and other times are financial, etc. Because of this, I think it’s difficult for a company to do it all well. There are companies such as IBM, Adobe or EMC that have done a lot to reinforce themselves, but these are multifunctional companies for which ECM is just one of many things they offer, while for us it’s the core of what we do.
In the case of FileNet, excellent resources are available for managing information already stored, but for us the means of storage are not critical, rather how the information is formatted, which security measures are used, how the user perceives it and how its cycle is followed. Those elements are what we specialize in: document generation, capture, storage, etc., in the quality that the user receives from a document and the quality of how the document is retrieved from its correlative database. We distinguish ourselves in focusing purely on document management as opposed to what other companies do; our solution is being appreciated by the medium-to-large enterprise, because of its reasonable cost and first rate technology.
tW: What has the acquisition of Resolutions meant to you?
J.O.: It’s a move oriented toward the American market, which we consider vital and in which one must show a particular quality and strength, as well as a reasonable product maturity. There are many startups but the greater market considers with whom you’re doing business. Resolutions is a company with a very significant client base, with between 400 and 500 clients, 17 years of experience, and it’s well known to the IBM AS400 platform. Its employees have been working with our software for a while and some of our connections are being made with them, although I can’t mention them by name. One is a big player and the other will offer support in the native language and culture of the clients.
tW: Why didn’t you wait to grow more in Spain, buying a company here?
J.O.: The Spanish market has certain dimensions and we now have a presence in 80 percent of the insurance industry and with almost all of the large banks. This means that if we want new clients, we have to go out of Spain, and a venture like this doesn’t bear fruit from one day to the next. It’s been 10 months since we bought the company, but the five-year objectives we’ve marked out for ourselves are still very far.
We’ve invested a lot of resources there and we don’t think we should expect more, and even if we lose our investment in the United States, the company in Spain will not be affected.
tW: Who are your primary business partners in Spain?
J.O.: Informática El Corte Inglés, Avansis and Oesía are today our primary business partners here. In the United States we want to have no more than two or three because we don’t like to work with too many at one time. Since 1993, we’ve been growing without large peaks and valleys, for which trajectory has been constant, growing approximately 20 percent annually, except for certain moments like when we acquired the Bank of Brazil account.
tW: A few months back we spoke with Groupama and they talked about how much they’ve improved with your solutions. Is this your profile of clients, or can the small and medium size companies also adopt your solutions?
J.O.: Information technology is valid for any company, without it a company can not manage its clients well. Consequently, it’s necessary to make a smart investment in technology without spending a lot of money. What’s required is to make good use of one’s existing resources along with what we …
…offer large companies but adjusted for smaller companies at adjusted costs. We don’t believe a small to medium size business should have to pay the same as a large business. It’s not about selling to everybody the most expensive thing.
tW: What is an example of a small business that can take advantage of DocPath solutions?
J.O.: Our Business Suite is oriented to the small and medium size business. The most economical one we offer is for 1,800 euros, which is geared for a company of four or five employees working with full color documents.
tW: What are the leading sectors in document management?
J.O.: Logistics companies like UPS and DHL have begun to make good use of document management because of their need for flexibility and speed. Little by little Spanish companies are beginning to understand this, but besides the existing crisis there’s a traditional lack of confidence in technology, being considered a mistaken investment. Dutch and Norwegian small-to-medium size businesses have realized for years that efficient use of information is fundamental.
tW: Do you maintain partnerships with other providers to expand into other markets? Is a partnership with printing service provider feasible?
J.O.: We’re talking with printing service providers and in January we’ll be revealing an agreement. This is developing in Brazil because there paper is abused and we work to prevent that, in addition to making life easier, with technology. Our solution has focused on eliminating paper to a certain degree, but we’re going to dedicate more resources to perfect our product and adapt it for higher volume work.
tW: At a recent document management forum, a CIO from a very important institution in Spain was saying that the scarceness of document management providers made companies slaves to them, and that they weren’t characterized for having affordable solutions. What do you think of this assertion?
J.O.: I know the pricing in our market and I know positively that we aren’t the most expensive. In fact, in one project with a savings bank our price was more or less one-third the price of the alternative option. We’re a company with very tight resources, with some 60 employees in Spain, with five management people that aren’t seated at their desks but with the clients every day. Clients can change at any time. We don’t take prisoners. PKI, PDF, … everything is totally standard.
Our policy regarding pricing is to charge the client for our license and not for specific development. In other words, the client doesn’t pay for modifying the product. In this manner, our solution is a standard solution and we don’t make our clients captives.
tW: How is this year’s crisis affecting DocPath? What growth provisions are you considering for 2008?
J.O.: We are closing many deals and we expect to have 15 percent growth, which isn’t bad for a year of crisis in which we’ve invested a lot in human resources. We don’t operate with banking finances. We’re self financed and don’t venture in big risks, which permits us to be optimistic with a billing base of five million euros, including the business in the United States.
tW: What is your company’s commitment to R&D? How is that strategy going to evolve in centers like those in Ciudad Real?
J.O.: I have great respect for the people working there because they investigate in the technology that enables us to compete with the best, even though they work in an geographic area that doesn’t offer many opportunities for IT professionals. They aren’t “Quijotes.” They work in the latest technology from the United States and also offer technical support there.