In the interview with Dr. Frank Wermeyer, Managing Director of Binect GmbH

Digitalization is advancing in all industries and sectors – especially in those that were still firmly rooted in analog processes just a few years ago. This also includes the digitalization of (postal) shipping processes – both for outgoing and incoming mail. Such digitalization, paired with the right software solutions, offers numerous benefits through automation: time and cost savings from previously manual processes, as well as the consolidation of shipping for companies and public institutions. Binect GmbH, based in Weiterstadt, Hesse, provides software and fulfillment solutions in the field of document/output management. The Binect output management software enables the consolidation of documents from various sources, specialized applications, or processes, and with different formats, into ready-to-send mailings. These can then be delivered digitally (e.g., via email) or as physical mail. In the case of physical mailings, Binect also handles the entire fulfillment process – from printing, enveloping, and franking to delivery.

The company from Weiterstadt has been actively and very successfully supporting its customers since 2001 in digitalizing their outgoing – and soon also their incoming – processes in customer communication. In addition to its own fulfillment services, Binect offers the complete outsourcing of physical mail dispatch. The core of its offering consists of standardized and easy-to-use software solutions, which are predominantly provided as SaaS services.

In an interview with Dr. Frank Wermeyer, Managing Director of Binect GmbH, we discuss today the digitalization of outgoing and incoming mail processes, as well as the outsourcing of printing, franking, and delivery processes (hybrid mail), the benefits, and of course, the potential savings.

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: Mr. Dr. Wermeyer, before becoming Managing Director of Binect GmbH and a member of the Board of Binect AG, you were responsible at Deutsche Telekom AG for the nationwide introduction of the De-Mail platform initiated by the German government. Digitalization and mail dispatch seem to be in your blood. What drives you personally?

Dr. Frank Wermeyer: The experiences with De-Mail and the digital e-Postbrief have shown that Germany struggles with the digitalisation of mail. The high expectations of major senders, particularly insurance companies, to deliver the bulk of their mail entirely digitally have not been met. There are various reasons for this, partly due to a lack of or unclear legal framework (what can actually be delivered digitally?), and partly simply due to a lack of acceptance among recipients. My personal motivation is to provide practical solutions to senders in particular. They should be able to fully digitalise on their side – regardless of whether recipients receive a physical letter for certain reasons. For senders, the processes that still often exist (from manually compiling documents into a shipment to printing, enveloping, franking, etc.) are associated with high costs, such as a great deal of time and, of course, corresponding costs. The same applies to the receiving side of companies and authorities: here, too, there are often processes that have remained stuck in a time long before digitalisation.

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: Your company has been able to report strong growth figures. Nevertheless, many companies have not yet switched to digitalising their outgoing mail. What are the biggest showstoppers currently preventing companies from switching to your hybrid mail offering?

Dr. Frank Wermeyer: We are very proud of our growth. This shows that we offer the right solutions for many companies and authorities and eliminate their pain points. However, the term “hybrid mail” only partially captures what we do. Many hybrid mail providers primarily accept finished bulk mailings and push them towards printing and delivery. We take a slightly different approach: for 20 years, we have also offered solutions for daily mail, where employees can process mailings using an intuitive interface. Our software allows users to create mailings from, for example, multiple individual documents. Printing and delivery come afterwards.

In my view, there are no showstoppers left today – except for the misconception that digitalising outgoing mail is a major digitalisation project that would significantly increase the workload of digitalisation officers. The opposite is true. Outgoing mail is a lean subprocess. Optimising it with high efficiency gains is possible with little effort – regardless of other digitalisation projects. At least if you use standardised Binect solutions.

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: Could you briefly outline the process flow or the outsourcing of document management, printing, franking and delivery processes for our readers?

Dr. Frank Wermeyer: This is relatively easy to explain: You transfer your documents or finished shipments via the Binect tool, which works best with your specialist processes. Shipments are generally not created in Word, but are generated in an application. For example, hospitals use KIS. The administrators or users then define via the Binect software which processing steps should be carried out. This means which documents, in which order, with which features should be merged, whether an approval process should take place or a signature should be applied, etc.

Of course, there are many other processing and configuration options for which administrators and users have intuitive web clients at their disposal. The finished shipment is thus created in the Binect software, which is then validated and prepared for production and dispatch. Subsequently, in the case of physical dispatch, Binect takes over all further work steps, such as printing, enveloping, franking, delivery to the carrier and always reports the status of a shipment back in the software.

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: Let's also take a look at the topic of the General Data Protection Regulation. How can you dispel the doubts of interested companies at this point?

Dr. Frank Wermeyer: This is very simple. For many years, we have been working for customers with highly sensitive or highly protected data, such as patient data, tax data, etc. Accordingly, we are audited and certified by independent institutions once a year (ISO 9001 and ISO 27001) and conclude corresponding AV contracts. Of course, we also give our customers the opportunity to audit us. So far, we have been able to convince every potential customer! Incidentally, data protection is also a reason why we offer our customers SaaS solutions on request, i.e. a dedicated instance with dedicated transfer to printing, and not a public cloud whose instances have to be shared with many other customers.

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: When we first looked at your business model, we assumed that your solution would mainly be profitable for very large companies. Is that correct? From what size does it make sense to switch to hybrid mail?

Dr. Frank Wermeyer: Naturally, we benefit from the experience we have gained in the enterprise customer business. For example, our Output Management Systems are used by large health insurance companies and are continuously developed in collaboration with these sensitive customers. For years, our focus has been on offering standardized solutions for medium-sized companies and public authorities. They do not need custom solutions but rather a comprehensive feature set that they can use in a plug-and-play product, such as the award-winning Binect Cube or in a configurable SaaS solution. For medium-sized and even smaller customers, our solutions are already worthwhile at comparatively low dispatch volumes of around 1,000 items per month. If it involves significantly fewer items, our Briefportal Binect Online already pays off from the very first item!

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: What savings opportunities have you been able to achieve in recent years, particularly for high-volume senders? In which areas have the greatest savings been achieved?

Dr. Frank Wermeyer: The savings opportunities are very customer-specific, as each customer has a completely unique starting situation, e.g., in terms of the effort involved in current shipping processes or current postage costs. It can be generalized that our customers typically achieve significant process cost reductions by eliminating many labor-intensive and complex processing steps. In addition, medium-sized companies and public authorities benefit from postage cost reductions in physical mail dispatch – often in the double-digit percentage range.

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: Please name the five most important arguments as to why it is worthwhile to focus on the topic of digital dispatch of genuine documents.

Dr. Frank Wermeyer: With our solutions, we pursue a central goal: Our customers should be relieved in their outgoing document processes and thus have significantly more freedom for what matters most – their core business.

Broken down into five key points, this means that our customers…

… gain time that they and their employees can use differently.
… achieve cost savings that enable other investments.
… increase employee motivation, as unpopular tasks are eliminated.
… improve the quality of output management, making rework unnecessary.
… optimize interaction with their customers, leading to greater customer satisfaction.

DIGITAL FUTUREmag: Dr. Wermeyer, we have learned a lot. Thank you very much for the interview and your time.