BILL PRINT OUTSOURCING

What we do?

James J. Jossie Consulting LLC (J³ Consulting) specializes in providing consulting services to help companies make informed decisions on their bill print outsourcing projects. This is accomplished by helping companies to effectively identify their business requirements, and to better establish and manage their initial project plans for the outsourcing of their bill printing.

In addition, J³ Consulting provides a comprehensive methodology to enhance and ensure the thoroughness of the evaluation of your bill print outsourcing options by utilizing the most extensive information available.

What is the value?

Utilizing J³ Consulting’s services will provide your company with significant value and help you better understand your options and how to develop the initial steps of your project. These learnings will continually be recognized throughout the following phases of your project.

J³ Consulting provides a questionnaire as a starting point for questions that may be asked of a vendor regarding their bill print outsourcing solution. The objective is to build a plan that encompasses all the critical requirements upfront, thus reducing the “surprises” that can hinder the project’s schedule later on and to greatly reduce the possibility of project “scope creep.”

This questionnaire is divided into sections that follow the processing steps beginning with:

• Implementation procedures
• Handling input using either raw data from your Bill/Customer Information System processing or a formatted print stream
• Bill formatting or bill creation processing
• Fulfillment services
• Mailing procedures and timetables

In addition, included are sections on customer support, audit requirements, security, and backup/disaster recovery support.

What is the approach?

J³ Consulting engagement is designed to ensure the success of your bill print outsourcing project. Services provided by J³ Consulting include support for both on site meetings and follow up via the telephone and/or the Internet. J³ Consulting will work with your project manager and with each of the respective stakeholder business units to ensure the success of your project and provide the greatest benefits for your company.

Most importantly, you will maintain control of the business decisions and direction of your project, while capitalizing on the experience J³ Consulting brings to get your project initiated in the most efficient manner. J³ Consulting will help identify those critical questions that need to be resolved early in your project. In addition, J³ Consulting will provide information to help educate your project team on the many options they will now have available for their consideration.

BILL PRINT IN-HOUSE -- DOCUMENT COMPOSITION/BILL FORMATTING

What we do?

James J. Jossie Consulting LLC (J³ Consulting) specializes in providing consulting services to help companies make informed decisions on their in-house bill printing – Document Composition/Bill Formatting projects. This is accomplished by helping companies to effectively identify their business requirements, and to better establish and manage their initial project plans for the document composition/bill formatting projects.

In addition, J³ Consulting provides a comprehensive methodology to enhance and ensure the thoroughness of the evaluation of your document composition/bill formatting options by utilizing the most extensive information available.

What is the value?

Utilizing J³ Consulting’s services will provide your company with significant value and help you better understand your options and how to develop the initial steps of your project. These learnings will continually be recognized throughout the following phases of your project.

J³ Consulting will work with your team to review your bill design and structure of your bill documents to facilitate the initial bill composition phase and ongoing maintenance requirements. Composition features and functions will be identified and prioritized. Messaging strategies will be developed. Variations for residential and commercial & industrial bills will be determined. Output management criteria will be established and finally, backup/disaster recovery support will be defined.

Key objectives for engaging J³ Consulting are to build a plan that encompasses all the critical requirements upfront, thus reducing the “surprises” that can hinder the project’s schedule later on and to greatly reduce the possibility of project “scope creep.”

What is the approach?

J³ Consulting engagement is designed to ensure the success of your bill print – document composition project. Services provided by J³ Consulting include support for both on site meetings and follow up via the telephone and/or the Internet. J³ Consulting will work with your project manager and with each of the respective stakeholder business units to ensure the success of your project and provide the greatest benefits for your company.

Most importantly, you will maintain control of the business decisions and direction of your project, while capitalizing on the experience J³ Consulting brings to get your project initiated in the most efficient manner. J³ Consulting will help identify those critical questions that need to be resolved early in your project. In addition, J³ Consulting will provide information to help educate your project team on the many options they will now have available for their consideration.

INTERNET BILLING -- ELECTRONIC PRESENTMENT AND AUTOMATED PAYMENTS

What we do?

James J. Jossie Consulting LLC (J³ Consulting) specializes in providing consulting services to help companies make informed decisions on their electronic presentment and automated payments projects.

In addition, J³ Consulting provides a comprehensive methodology to enhance and ensure the thoroughness of the evaluation of your electronic presentment and automated payment options by utilizing the most extensive information available.

What is the value?

Utilizing J³ Consulting’s services will provide your company with significant value and help you better understand your options and how to develop the initial steps of your project. These learnings will continually be recognized throughout the following phases of your project.

J³ Consulting will work with your team to evaluate your overall Electronic Presentment and Automated Payments (EP&AP) Strategy. This Strategy includes the use of the various bill delivery and payment collection solutions that are now available via the Internet.

The various solutions included in EP&AP are:

• Electronic Bill Presentment & Payment (EBPP) – This solution is the process in which the customer enrolls in the EBPP service offered by your company. The Biller (your company) will send an e-mail notification to inform the customer their current bill is ready to view and pay. The customer then will access your company’s website, probably through a hotlink in the e-mail, sign on and view their bill. The customer can pay the bill at that time, schedule a payment date, or re-access your company’s website at a later time to pay their bill.
• Payment Only – This solution includes electronic payments originated from your company’s website or payments sent from the various Consumer Service Providers (CSPs). The CSPs are the various portals that offer their customers bill payment options within their Internet service offerings. Included in this category are payments originated from banks or financial institutions that are providing bill payment services. The customer is required to identify the vendors they want to pay, enter amounts to be paid, and the due date or payment date for these transactions. Customers may also utilize the services of an "aggregator" or "consolidator" to handle their electronic payments.
• Bills Distributed in a Secure E-mail Message – This solution is sometimes referred to as “push e-mails.” Under this option, after the customer enrolls in this service offered by your company, bills are delivered via a secure e-mail from your company to your enrolled customers. The customer may make their payment by utilizing the secure payment function provided within the e-mail.
• Payment Option within Interactive Voice Response (IVR) or Speech Recognition Systems – This solution includes payments originated as the result of the customer calling your company and selecting an option provided by your company’s IVR or Speech Recognition System. IVR and Speech Recognition Systems are typically thought of as being solutions within the Customer Self Care strategy of a company. However, in J³ Consulting’s opinion, they should also be included under EP&AP since they deliver the technology to provide the customer with additional choices for making their payments.

J³ Consulting provides a questionnaire as a starting point for identifying the questions that your team will need to resolve during the process of developing your company’s electronic presentment and automated payment strategy, with the objective of building a plan that encompasses all the critical requirements upfront, thus reducing the “surprises” that can hinder the project’s schedule later on.

This questionnaire is divided into sections that follow the processing steps beginning with:

• Implementation procedures
• Input requirements
• Customer’s online experience
• Payment options and funds settlement methodology
• Customer support
• Audit requirements
• Security
• Backup/disaster recovery support

What is the approach?

J³ Consulting engagement is designed to ensure the success of your electronic presentment and automated payment project. Services provided by J³ Consulting include support for both on site meetings and follow up via the telephone and/or the Internet. J³ Consulting will work with your project manager and with each of the respective stakeholder business units to ensure the success of your project and provide the greatest benefits for your company.

Most importantly, you will maintain control of the business decisions and direction of your project, while capitalizing on the experience J³ Consulting brings to get your project initiated in the most efficient manner. J³ Consulting will help identify those critical questions that need to be resolved early in your project. In addition, J³ Consulting will provide information to help educate your project team on the many options they will now have available for their consideration.

BEST PRACTICES ANALYSIS FOR UTILITY BILL PRINTING OPERATIONS

James J. Jossie Consulting LLC (J³ Consulting) and Madison Advisors, Inc. have teamed together to bring the highly regarded Madison Advisors' Best Practices Analysis to the Utility Industry. Having collected and measured data across a broad range of industries, Madison Advisors is now offering a best practices study of the Utility Industry.

Madison Advisors' Best Practices Analysis (BPA) is a continuing, comprehensive study designed to examine the practices of high-volume output and electronic delivery operations -- both in-house and outsourcing operations. Madison Advisors has conducted its BPA with over 60 Fortune 1000 organizations. Through the study Madison Advisors analysts gain first-hand knowledge of the output practices -- good and bad -- across a variety of industries and applications.

Madison Advisors has captured over 600 data points from each participating organization in order to quantitatively rate strategies, processes, and the application of technology in support of enterprise output objectives. The graph below shows the industry best practices, average, and minimums across numerous areas from the BPA study.

Madison Advisors plots each participating organization's scores against the group scores, providing participants objective insight into how their operations and practices compare to those of the industry at large. BPA participants also benefit from the real-time analysis and expert opinions of Madison Advisors analysts in several areas:

• The best application of resources to support high levels of document production efficiency, effectiveness, and quality
• Means for achieving cost containment
• Means for successfully deploying technology
• Means for enhancing organizational control to gain additional improvements over time

In addition, all participants in the BPA receive customized analysis and recommendations from Madison Advisors' analyst team through a customized Analysis Report and a Q&A Conference Session.

If your organization is interested in obtaining more information or participating in Madison Advisors' Best Practices Analysis for Utility Bill Printing Operations please contact Jim Jossie from J³ Consulting at 262-242-3190 or Kemal Carr from Madison Advisors at 817-684-7545.

For additional information on Madison Advisors, please visit www.madison-advisors.com.