Since its establishment in 1999, Hong Kong based ParaDM has pursued its company mission with single-mindedness and zeal - to be a leading software vendor in providing document and workflow management solutions to their customers.

Sonny Ng, general manager, ParaDM Pte Ltd, elaborates, "We place heavy emphasis on solving our customers' business problems, ensuring they derive satisfaction and value from ParaDM's suite of products in the process, and at the same time helping them achieve their business objectives."

For many businesses, the focus of document management is on the organization and storage of documents. They want to be able to store documents in an organized and secure way that still allows documents to be found easily.

There is a move within large organizations to use document management software to help them do this. This may or may not involve using a document imaging system. While document management software is designed to make handling electronic files more efficient, it doesn't let you convert paper files into electronic files like document imaging systems do.

Document Management technology is not something new. It has been around for some time and over the last 4-5 years, has been growing significantly year-on-year. According to Ng, in Asia, some countries are more ready than others in adopting Document Management and in these countries', they have a good understanding of what Document Management can do, as well as its benefits to their organization.

"The strength of ParaDM in this domain is the ease of use of the products, comprehensive functionalities, relatively low total cost of ownership (TCO) and the east of customization. In addition, we provide a SDK (Software Development Kit) for partners and customers who wish to build additional capabilities to the base product. These are some key strengths of ParaDM," Ng explains.

Commenting on the key trends of Document Management Systems (DMS) in Asia, Ng remarks that the industry is undergoing some consolidation. "This current consolidation trend will very likely continue, and we expect the market to mature more rapidly in the coming year as people are starting to understand the value of document and workflow management solutions. The past couple of years have seen a lot of customer education, especially on the benefits of document and workflow management. This year and beyond, we anticipate the more ready adoption of this technology as companies realize that it will help them achieve their business objectives more easily. In addition, we believe that the market will increasingly manifest itself as a service-oriented business," he elaborates.

It is exactly this manifestation of DMS as a service-oriented business that fits perfectly into ParaDM's business and market strategy. "With our service culture, we hope that we will play an important role in meeting this evolving change," says Ng.

According to Ng, in 2007, ParaDM is looking at growing the North Asia markets (Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau), with Hong Kong remaining the key market for the company. It is also looking at establishing a strong presence in South East Asia. Here, the pieces have already been set in place with the incorporation of ParaDM's Singapore office last December. This office will be the hub of the company's business in the region and will cover Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippine and Indonesia. Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are the focal starting points for ParaDM's penetration and expansion into South East Asia because Ng notes, "These countries are the early adopters of technology and innovation, and companies in these countries place a high emphasis on automating processes and tasks to minimize cost, improve employees' productivity and comply with Government regulations. However, having said this, we are seeing other developing countries such as Taiwan, Macau and the Philippines adopting this technology as well."

He adds that the company is also planning to build a team of sales, marketing and technical personnel in Singapore to support the growth in South East Asia. "We are seeing a lot pf potential in South East Asia in the next few years where document and workflow management is concerned. In the pipeline, we may target South Korea, Australia and even Japan in 2008," he remarks.

ParaDM's strategy in South East Asia is a hybrid model of direct and indirect sales in the short term. Elaborating on this, Ng says, "For the time being, we will engage customers directly while we get some of our partners up to speed with the product and implementation knowledge. In the longer term, we aim to have a fully indirect channel model where partners will sell and implement the solution with support from our ParaDM Singapore office. However, as in any business, if the model does not work out, we will modify and fine-tune it to suit local market conditions.

In line with its aggressive expansion plans in this region, Ng says that the company is always on the look out for partners. "The profile of the partners we are looking for ideally will be someone who is familiar with the document management market. Companies who have prior experience doing document management or companies who are providing one-stop solutions for printing, copier, scanning, document and workflow management will be a good fit for ParaDM's products," he elaborates.

"In terms of technical skill sets, the basic requirement is some web knowledge and database expertise. Systems Integrators (SIs) and Value Added Reseller (VARs) who are interested to fill the mid-market space are prime candidates for ParaDM as well. We also have a Referral Partner Program where we reward handsome commission for partners who just want to refer prospects," Ng continues.

Describing ParaDM's channel engagement as ‘proactive', Ng explains, "We ensure we engage our partners in all the relevant activities; from joint pre-sales calls to doing proof-of-concepts and post-sales support activities. In addition, our marketing team is geared up to support the partners in marketing activities to ramp-up lead generation as well as build-up brand awareness in South East Asia."

He concedes that there are still challenges to be overcome - "In any channel business, one of the key challenges is really getting partners and ensuring that they have a continuous stream of revenue to maintain a viable business. In this regard, we have different partner programs to cater to the needs of our partners."

Partners joining ParaDM do not need to invest heavily initially to get started, says Ng. "As they see their business grow, they can re-invest in their technical skill-sets, thereby reaping services revenue," he says. In fact, according to Ng, the company is extremely proud of its service culture. "This is our motto and we strive to ensure our customers derive maximum satisfaction and value from every ParaDM implementation. So far, both we and they have not been disappointed," he concludes. ◊

By Shanti Anne Morais