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Having taken over most of San Diego's Bayfront Hilton hotel complex, Kofax was determined to put on its biggest and most bullish show yet for the assembled masses. Almost 700 delegates from across the globe (including a healthy representation from the UK) enthusiastically devoured the almost-evangelical zeal of CEO Reynolds Bish and his executive team. Bish's keynote speech on day one focused, not surprisingly, on the growth strategy for the business, and the ongoing integration of the various acquired products/companies that have been added to the Kofax roster in recent times. Total Agility 7.1 (formerly of Singularity) was announced, along with Total Agility Cloud, so it was very clear that the recent Kofax focus on 'Smart Process Applications' was still very much in evidence. Indeed the recurring theme of the whole event was 'Making the First Mile smarter' which harks back to this same focus, as Kofax asked: "Today's customers are sophisticated and connected, with the power to leave you for another company with a simple swipe or click - how will you excel in the age of the customer?"

This might sound to some UK readers like 'typical US business hyperbole', but Kofax showed plenty over the course of the conference to suggest that they are putting in a great deal of effort to address the realities of the mobile/social/big data world. One of their keynote speakers was Lior Arussy of Strativity who used real life examples to surprise the audience with the true value of customer experience - and the potential economic impact of getting it wrong. According to his benchmarks, the average cost to a business of a customer complaint is over US$450; the cost to resolve that complaint properly could be over US$1,300, and the cost to recruit one new customer can be almost US$5,000. From an economics standpoint alone, the arguments for a new approach to customer interaction are extraordinarily strong.

It was in light of this idea that Kofax then spent the next two days breaking down the product portfolio, explaining how tools such as Total Agility, Kapow and Altosoft can all combine to enhance the customer experience at every stage of their interaction. More importantly perhaps, lots of presentation time was given over to explaining how all these disparate pieces fit together to create a coherent overall offering. More than ever before, Kofax is now able to present itself as offering a total end-to-end solution. It was worth noting that, as Reynolds Bish was keen to emphasise, over 86% of Kofax software revenues still comes from the firm's 'traditional' products, i.e. Capture and KTM (Kofax Transformation Modules).

Another new announcement at the event was Kofax Mobile Capture 2.0, which offered significantly enhanced useability - making it what one UK delegate called 'even more idiot proof'. Commercial users have perhaps been cautious until now of deploying mobile capture (by which we mean 'non-scanner-based' in this context) into business critical areas, fearing that capture quality issues and lack of user knowledge would create more problems than were being solved. But it is fair to say that this new version makes mobile capture genuinely ready to deploy. Previously, the user had to hold their smartphone/tablet steady over the object to be captured until it could focus (driving license, ID document etc.), which despite sounding simple, can cause no end of issues with image quality. Now the user need only 'hover' the device over the target, and the app itself will decide when the image is sharp enough and take the shot at exactly the right moment - ensuring the image is always good enough to pass into the line-of-business system. The same basic interface is now in use across all platforms (smartphone, tablet, or PC/browser - in which case it would use an attached scanner of course), making for a truly enterprise class offering with a consistent user experience.

Analyst Chris Marsh of the Yankee Group gave an interesting perspective on the mobile side of IT in his presentation, arguing that much of what enterprises are calling 'mobile management strategy' is really just broad policy - and often little more than common sense rules and regulations - rather than genuine strategy. This means that many companies are missing out on the real opportunities of mobile, he suggested. A crucial first step is to properly measure the ROI of any mobile deployments, according to Marsh - not only is the ROI often not clear, but all too often it's not being measured at all.

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