Document and Content Services From Plain Vanillla to Super Deluxe

摘要

Things sure have changed at service bureaus. It's not that they're offering 39 flavors of service; they're more like the new "old fashioned" ice cream stores that start with plain vanilla and then mix in toppings to create whatever concoctions customers want. Most service bureaus still start with basic document-oriented services, such as scanning and data entry, but it's the added services that really bring value to customers. "The role of service bureaus has evolved from one of just enabling companies to save space by making electronic copies of documents, to one of empow- ering them to leverage the content in those documents," explains John Solomon, president of Input Solutions, an imaging-oriented service provider in Gaithersburg, MD. "Increasingly, companies [want] value-added services like database design, sophisticated indexing schemes and knowledge management capabilities."