Akbank Paperless Branch Project Team has preferred PaperWork for success.

Akbank, thanks to "paperless branch" project that he has realized with cooperation of GG Soft; aims to make an economy of 40 thousand photocopy each day and increase its productivity 10%.

"Paperless Branch" Project of Akbank aiming to increase operational productivity in branches has become a big success story in a short time under the idea leadership of deputy general manager Sevilay Öztürk responsible for Akbank Operations and Akbank Project Team together with GG Soft cooperation. With the project that foresees saving and sharing all documents not requiring wet signature in magnetic media, dependency on photocopy becomes obsolete, while most of processes of document flow are becoming easier than ever. Project is still in expanding process, after it has been under trial from November 2008 to January 2009. Project is currently being used actively over 100 Akbank Branches.

It is very important to hit the road with an experienced team

Melek Yılmaz, Akbank Project Manager, telling the "Paperless Branch" project as a project aiming to transfer the documents not requiring wet signature into a magnetic media explains the starting point of project as:

"We can summarize our aim as to put away photocopy machines, keep only documents requiring wet signature in physical archives and direct these document in shortest time possible into document flow related to center. For this, we were supposed to establish a distributed scanning system that will facilitates documents to arrive in center after they are scanned. We were aware that we were supposed to build up serious experience and information on this issue. For this reason, we decided to get help from a specialized team on this subject. One of the companies we have met during our researches was GG Soft. Deciding on GG Soft was a long process. We made POC studies for two months with companies we have chosen. Afterwards, we evaluated companies with various criteria and prepared our contract. After all evaluations, winner has become GG Soft. "
Yılmaz, quoting that all working processes have been realized under a complete project management discipline, says that, starting from the very first day, GG Soft has been in team from analysis phase to expansion phase and provided us with the support that we expected and contributed a lot to realize the project.   

Photocopies have become obsolete and productivity has increased.

Yılmaz, quoting that paperless branch project is expected to positively affect processes in bank branches in addition to eliminating the need of photocopy machines, says: "Formerly, documents are archived after they are copied and put in boxes, sending to central archive. With the realized project, we can directly associate documents from customers. Documents scanned in branches are indexed by customer number in information bank and sent to central branch with one click. Thus, we can trace not only documents belonging to customers with their versions but also that which process is realized with which document."
Yılmaz adds that this project sets a base for a bigger transformation, at the end of this, they will be able to process over this infrastructure the more comprehensive documents and forms such as credit card, credit card application and customer acceptance.

We made an economy of 40 thousand photocopies each day

Sefa Ulusoy, Manager of Document Management Systems in Akbank IT Software Development Group explains how successful this project has become on reaching the aim with this striking example: "Under the normal conditions, users are always cold to this kind of new applications. We were thinking that our users would be cold to this new application at the beginning. But, by putting paperless branch into operation, we have realized that our personnel started using the system in common faster than we could foresee. I believe that this speed comes from seeing immediately the profit of system. Thanks to this system, we are saving 40 thousand pages every day let alone saving labor wasted to photocopy and need of place to store them. All these reflect on our operational productivity.

GG Soft has provided support on every issue with his information and experience

By stressing on GG Soft's command of developments and issues on his fields, Melek Yılmaz expresses that they have gotten consultancy on whole system in addition to the project realized with GG Soft. What has been effective while Akbank was choosing GG Soft has been that experience on image processing, archive experience, having his own infrastructure, security, ability to use compression and encryption algorithm, ability for development on scanner, ability to share scanner over network, ability to make development on different model and mark scanners, use of current technologies, company references and results of studies on concept proving.

Yılmaz says that he believes GG Soft has met all these requirements and they realized a whole team working with GG Soft. Yılmaz additionally says: "Generally speaking working with external companies causes problems. In any change in contracts, articles in contracts emerge to surface and problems arise. But finishing project with success was GG Soft's high priority. This is how we turned to project and did not have any problems."
Sefa Ulusoy expresses his satisfaction beyond their expectations from GG Soft with these words: "Our first preference was GG Soft during concept proving studies. The first feature of GG Soft striking our eyes was his technical adequacy. We were thinking how fast we could get the right solution. We chose GG Soft, because we believed that he could offer right solutions to our problems. Furthermore, it was important for us that companies should be solution focused at technical phase. That is, we evaluated whether companies were eager to offer comprehensive solutions or not rather than sell a product. We were impressed by these two features and GG Soft was the winner of concept proving.

Unexpected problems did not delay

Melek Yılmaz, stating that there was design change need after an evaluation while continuing on project works and would be delay in project calendar, says that they easily overcame this problem with GG Soft experience. She summarizes the situation: "There was a strategic decision taken at the beginning of the project. ID cards would be scanned black and white, photos in colors. Otherwise, workload over network would be immense. Nevertheless, when we reached user's acceptance test, it was not satisfactory enough. ID verification in this way would not be productive enough. By changing design, we decided to scan in colors. In this case, we were supposed to solve the problem of network capacity. Immediately, we decided to include DJVU algorithms into the system. It meant that we had to go through a risky developing study at that point of the project. This was a critical situation in terms of not only technical contract and purchasing but project due time as well. GG Soft directed us at this point and finished the project in time. This was a risky situation in project. However, we took the risk and went through successfully."

GG Soft has a robust motivation on issues to finish the work on time, which has already started. This is how we headed towards our aim and did not experience any problem during the project.