Data Dimensions helps businesses move files forward
JANESVILLE
“Once we’re in, we spread like a bad rash.” It’s a crude analogy that the chief executive officer of Data Dimensions attributes to his vice president of sales.
But, CEO Jon Boumstein said, it’s a fair representation of what’s happening with an innovative new line of business that the Janesville company is using to bolster its remarkable growth.
Since 1982, Data Dimensions has specialized in document conversion. It has grown to become a leader in business process automation, helping customers streamline workflows by converting forms and hard copy documents into electronic documents through a variety of document capture services.
Recently, the company started working with customers who want to extract and transfer mountains of electronic data from aging content management systems.
For a variety of reasons, however, the customers can’t move the information that’s trapped in outdated, outmoded storage systems.
“There just weren’t any migration solutions for old platforms,” said Tom Boser, president of Olim Technologies Group, the information technology consulting company he founded in 2003 and sold to Data Dimensions—his largest customer—in 2009.
“Companies have information that is trapped in their old system. It doesn’t mean they can’t access it or use it. They just can’t move it to a new system and keep moving forward.”
Olim and Data Dimensions have developed a method of extracting information from aged document management systems and migrating it into Collybus, its enterprise content management system.
It involves complex forensic programming to extract the data and save it in a form that can be easily accessed. The Data Dimensions team developed a custom extraction application that makes automated migration of files possible, regardless of the proprietary database they’re stored on.
To say it’s complicated is a gross understatement.
Boser sums it up this way:
“We
write code that will replicate every keystroke, every dropdown menu,
every task that someone would do to open the file on a daily basis, then
have the program replicate that millions of times to extract the data
and move it forward.”
Many
companies actually use two storage systems: one for their old “legacy”
data and one for current updates. With Data Dimension’s forensic
programming application, companies can move all their data into a single
system—often cloud based—and streamline their operation.
Companies facing data migration issues face two problems, Boser said.
Because it can involve millions of documents, extraction is extremely expensive.
Second, companies that developed the old systems often are reluctant to provide migration services because it means the old system will no longer be used.
The
data migration services are opening doors for Data Dimensions’
traditional services and putting another tool in the box for the
company’s sales team.
Data Dimensions’
automated solution solves both, Boser said, noting that his company has
so far done custom extractions for major insurance and benefit
administration companies.
“This solves real challenges for companies, and it’s something we’ve had a lot of success with,” Boumstein said.
The
data migration services are opening doors for Data Dimensions’
traditional services and putting another tool in the box for the
company’s sales team.
“Some
of the larger opportunities we’re getting have not been for our base
services,” Boumstein said. “This helps us move up the food chain.”
Many
potential customers are companies that already have IT departments to
provide the base services that Data Dimensions offers. If Data
Dimensions can get in the door with its migration services, it often so
impresses the customer that it signs on for the base services, Boumstein
said.
“They see what we can do, how we work and hopefully stay with us,” he said.
The
data migration services are the latest example of innovation that has
fueled wild growth for the familyowned Data Dimensions, which now
employs more than 800 people. The company also has experienced growth
because of government contracts for processing and automating a
mountainous backlog of medical records for the Veterans Administration.
In
Janesville, Data Dimensions operates corporate offices, a records
management center, a processing facility and a Tier III data center that
opened in 2010. It also has two operations in the Milwaukee area and
one in Clinton, Iowa.
Late
last year, Data Dimensions opened a $6 million operations facility in
Clinton, Iowa, that nearly doubled the size of its existing facility.
Between Jan. 1, 2012, and June 30, 2013, the company added
350 people, which prompted recognition from Inc. magazine as the second
largest job creator in Wisconsin and 34th largest in the United States.
That growth isn’t expected to end anytime soon.
“If
you don’t change and adapt and innovate, you die,” Boumstein said.
“People always ask me what we’re going to do next, and there are a lot
of things we’re toying with.
“What I can tell you is that in six months or a year, it won’t likely be the same stuff we’re doing now.”