Reynolds Bish, chief executive of Irvine-based Kofax Inc., whose software products speed up handling of documents and invoices, said having people work from home has been a challenge during the COVID-19 crisis but the results have been successful.
“I’ve never been much of a proponent of highly distributed workforces because I didn’t think it would be productive, but I’ve been proven wrong,” Bish told the Business Journal on Aug. 27.
“So, I’ve embraced the concept now.”
Bish said the Spectrum-area company generates about $600 million a year in revenue and has approximately 2,000 employees in 30 countries around the world. Kofax moved up two places to No. 13 on the Business Journal’s Aug. 24 list of largest software companies in Orange County by headcount.
That workforce is mainly an at-home one for now.
“Making that transition—I wouldn’t say it’s been difficult but I think you have to really try hard to ensure that you have that level of ongoing interaction on a regular basis in order to collaborate with one another,” he said of having his workforce spread out due to the virus crisis. “It’s been somewhat of a challenge to maintain that when we’re not in the same place anymore.”
COVID-Related Work
The company’s software handles masses of written information digitally, for instance letting firms automate their invoice processing and accounts payable processes. The pandemic has led to requests for relief and financial assistance, generating more information for businesses and government agencies using Kofax software.
“Here over the last six months we’ve had a number of entities, businesses as well as individuals [apply for] government relief and financial assistance as a result of COVID,” said Bish, requiring an application and “onboarding” process.
A number of government agencies and financial services organizations around the world have been buying Kofax software “to contend with that increased inflow of information they’ve got to process,” according to Bish.
Productivity Maintained
“We’ve actually maintained the same level of productivity that we experienced before we sent people home, which was a real surprise to me.”
Kofax in mid-March told employees globally to work from home, saying Sept. 1 would be the earliest the company would consider bringing workers back into the office.
“Just earlier this month (August), we told them that after evaluating what has transpired, we are going to delay that until Jan. 1,” according to Bish.
The company is already thinking about what kind of work-from-home policy it may have when the crisis ends.
Long Career
Bish boasts a long career in the software business, including co-founding and serving as CEO of Captiva Software Corp.; CEO of Unibase Systems Inc.; and co-founder and CFO of Covalent Systems Corp.
The Kofax TotalAgility Cloud, which debuted in November, is designed to track documents long considered too unwieldy to automate, as it “captures” various forms of information and helps to navigate through the increasingly important Cloud.
TotalAgility Cloud uses AI to acquire, interpret and act on unstructured data in documents, emails, social media and other sources, ramping up simple character recognition, without requiring onsite infrastructure. It aims to cut manual work and mistakes.
Kofax is owned by private equity firm Thoma Bravo, which bought it in 2017. Thoma has offices in San Francisco and Chicago.
