Once you have made the transition you will find that many of these virtual resources are more easily managed and backed up for disaster recovery. In fact, in the virtual server environment there is a “snapshot” image of each server captured and stored for just such emergencies. When a server crashes (and unfortunately virtual environments still aren’t completely exempt from this), the need to rebuild one is completed in a matter of 1-2 hours versus 1-3 days as it is in the physical server environment. We all know the great value in getting the system back online with as little downtime as possible.

These changes to the virtual environment also provide more effective tools to manage the server farm. There are many tools available today to automate monitoring the health of the virtual servers and to manage the updates and patches to maintain their optimum health. One example is SpiceWorks, which has numerous tools to automatically monitor and supervise all of the virtual servers in the farm. The system sends periodic reports outlining the chores needed for the day, week or month. There are also numerous other reports available from the system covering things such as bandwidth and connectivity, CPU utilization for each server, and security. When these tools are completely set up, the autonomous controls do much of the system network administration and greatly reduce the workload on the support staff freeing up time for them to address other issues. The virtual server environment also allows the company to fully embrace housing options within outsourced data centers further maximizing the equipment suite.

Now that you have a clear understanding of the huge undertaking to convert to a virtual server network within your own environment and you can readily estimate the hardware, software and labor costs, it is prudent to look at the resource options being delivered to your user base when you engage the VCO Desktop cloud environment to manage and support your IT network. The cost savings to shift from an internal IT environment to a hosted cloud environment are very attractive and Acris Technology can give you an analysis of those savings.

Change is the one constant we know in IT. With the virtualization of all servers maintained in the VCO network we strive to deliver systems that are at or near the state of the art in the industry, thus providing your user base with all of the bells and whistles they need to get the job done with ever improving productivity.

First of all, are they all on similar system platforms? What will you need to accomplish to migrate them to a common platform? Utilizing virtual desktops is a smart, comprehensive solution for getting all of your employees on the same page. VCO Desk is a centralized virtual desktop that can be accessed anytime, anywhere and is easily scalable to fit your company’s individual needs. Using this solution, you can move the acquired branch to your system by simply issuing them a username and login. By insuring they have adequate bandwidth to connect the user base to the Internet, they are now capable of being a part of your mortgage operation’s entire network immediately with full access to your loan origination software, in addition to the entire Microsoft Office suite, electronic faxes, and more, all provisioned as a part of VCO Desk. With some training on your systems they will be ready to start producing in no time!

Moving into new office space for your additional mortgage branch would be even simpler as it is now possible to walk into an empty suite, install a service modem, connect it to a wireless router and then all users can connect wirelessly to the network by simply accessing the Internet. Add VoIP business phone service and you have a fully functioning office without stringing a cable!

Reason Two – Reduce Office Space Requirements by Accommodating Remote Staff 

A cloud desktop virtualization configuration that promotes a remote workforce can be of great interest to mortgage companies, which are often subjected to chimerical market swings causing periods of rapid expansion and contraction. For those that have been there, I don’t need to tell you about the time and expense associated with growth, but allow me to remind you of a few things: office space, long-term lease liability, geographic logistical issues, workstations, supplies, desktop computers, network cabling, tenant improvements, network expansion capital expense, software licensing, network speed and latency issues, and IT expense. Now imagine a virtual company infrastructure where new employees work remotely (ideally from home) and getting them up and going is as easy as configuring their credentials on the network in less than an hour. The well planned virtual company eliminates the restraints of physical locality, and with a secure off-site virtualized server infrastructure designed for scalability, adding or removing staff becomes effortless and the costs can be incrementally accounted for.

The physical footprint of the brick and mortar office is quickly becoming obsolete in the business world as companies continue to realize the benefits of creating productive remote workforce environments. Very large companies have stated goals of at least 50% remote users within 3 years. They understand the direct relationship between full-time-employees (FTEs) and corporate overhead, and they are controlling those costs by reducing or eliminating the constraints associated with real estate.

Changing the Way You Manage…For the Better!

Managing staff in a virtual environment requires a change in mindset and the adoption of a few tools. Sight-and-sound and “hover” style conventional management will be challenged, but for those that embrace change and adopt electronic tools to track, report on, and monitor performance will discover improved efficiencies and overall team productivity. For instance, the right phone system will convey user status (available, on break, out of office, etc.), a network login system can track in/out times and thus hours worked, an LOS with task queuing and collaborative workflow logic ensures turn-times and user accountability, real time LOS reporting compares user productivity against one another and established goals, virtualization technologies allow telephony and screen eavesdropping which become effective management and training tools. A company that invests in these technologies and has the fortitude and will to commit to them through change leadership will empower its staff and attract progressive, results-oriented management.

Conventional vs Cloud-Based Mortgage Banking Illustrated

Let’s take this a bit further and draw a comparison. Let’s pretend we have a 200 employee, four office mortgage banking operation configured first in a conventional manner, and then in a virtualized cloud manner. Production wise, corporate runs a call center, and the three branches are self-sourcing operating under a P&L. Corporate has 125 employees, and the branches each have 25. Branch employees consist of loan officers, processors, and administrative staff. Underwriting, Docs and Funding are handled by corporate. Conventionally, each branch has its own local area network (LAN) consisting of client and data servers, an independent phone system, email, fax and backup servers. It operates and maintains independent accounting, sales, and LOS software. It requires at least one full-time network administrator and maybe a part-time IT help-desk person as well. Growth and staffing requires office space and equipment expenditures. There is constant stress on the ill-designed networking systems, and much time and effort is spent passing data and documents around. Production chains, on both sides, deploy a linear team workflow process, short on collaboration and wrought with operational inefficiencies creating backlog during peaks, and staff under-utilization during lulls. Data is stored independently and exchanged between the branches and corporate. For the most part, each branch acts like an independent subsidiary. Disparate systems rule, data is compromised, and compliance issues abound. Corporate and branch cultures diverge, creating divisional attitudes that undermine productivity and unity.

Today, some companies incorporate a number of cloud technologies like email, LOS and document management, but daisy-chaining these together without a common virtual platform creates incongruences for the users and technological challenges for IT.

Ok, now let’s present the same company empowered with a complete cloud configuration where users have 24/7 virtual access to desktops, data and applications. All of the networking processing power is done at the server level so users can log in anytime, from anywhere, on nearly any device (laptop, desktop, mac, iPad, or tablet). The network demands at both the branch and corporate level are eliminated as network servers move into the cloud and local demands require only an Internet connection, firewall and perhaps a print server. Servers and data are centralized, enabling centralized administration and reduced complexity. The organization’s private data, intellectual property and sensitive applications never leave the data center, and access is controlled in a highly granular manner, providing centralized monitoring and auditing of user and administrative activity. Such a configuration maximizes workforce productivity and continuity, while allowing the mortgage company to rapidly provision secure access to company software, systems and data regardless of bandwidth and local infrastructure limitations. We call this strategic mobility and business agility.

At this point it’s clear that staff can be hired and engaged from any location. Hiring opportunities are no longer confined to proximity. A virtual environment, not just of desktops and applications, but servers, networks and other data center infrastructure as well, becomes the foundation from which collaborative software applications launch. A virtual mortgage company needs a loan origination software solution that empowers remote users and maximizes the benefits of a paperless workflow. Since passing paper loan files around is no longer an option, the loan origination system must allow users to do everything from the computer while seated at their desk.

Day-to-Day Benefits of Moving Your Loan Origination Desktops to the Cloud

Under the cloud enabled operation, all 200 employees have a common desktop profile running Windows 7 with access to centralized applications and data. The LOS provides a custom interface for each staff member (based on user groups), the data is shared, and collaborative design features allow multi-user access to the same loan file. Based on workflow triggers, files pass effortlessly from origination to funding to fulfillment, as each user group is engaged by notifications and queues. Robust security rules secure data and function, yet allow flexibility such that everyone (LOs, processors, underwriters, assistants, funders, etc.) can work on a file regardless of the stage of application. The embedded paperless feature, with programmable business rules, indexing and notifications, not only facilitates the remote workforce but dynamically compiles a complete file that is ready for delivery upon funding. Perhaps the greatest benefit for the virtual mortgage company comes with tools that enable a centralized workflow. The branch or team structure–the “silo” configuration–can be replaced with a departmental structure, whereby ops staff resources are pooled collectively and business rules manage task assignment (i.e. FHA loans to CHUMS underwriters), and user-level reporting creates accountability. The end result is better utilization of human resources, faster turn-times and customer service, all of which control costs and drive the bottom line for the company.

Bottom line? The options are endless when you engage a workforce remotely and can still drive a high level of productivity. Software like VCO Lend provides the monitoring, task queuing, automation and simultaneous loan file access, while running in a Citrix-powered virtual environment like VCO Desk provides the anytime anywhere collaboration for the entire enterprise.

Reason One – The Ability to Test Everything in the Cloud before Relocating

Typically a company will try and move everything over a weekend to be up and running by Monday morning. This takes a tremendous amount of preparation, coordination and luck. In order to avoid any disruption in business, the new location’s infrastructure must be fully optimized. The network cabling connections must be sound with all switches and hubs verified for minimal signal drop. The Internet connection needs to be in place, with adequate bandwidth ordered well in advance, firewall protected and optimized for both voice (VoIP) and data. The telephony system must be working reliably with all direct dial (DID) numbers ringing to the correct desk along with their respective toll free numbers (TFN’s) pointed accordingly. The fax server has to be managing inbound and outbound faxes correctly. Each work station must be reliably connected and sufficiently powered. The entire network, including phones and faxes, needs to be stress tested beyond the levels of normal peak production. Finally, add a server room that needs to be connected, powered and cooled, with all of the servers, equipment and desktops having made the trip without damage, fired up, online and ready to go.

It is obvious that there are many areas where a single point of failure can bring the network down. If all actually goes as planned and the move is successful, you would then have to address the need for a load balanced network, not to mention consideration for failsafe redundancy, routine backups and disaster recovery strategies.  But what if something goes wrong? What if you have to troubleshoot? What if you need a part? Having a sufficiently staffed and fully capable IT team is critical, and you’d probably be wise to have vendor specific experts on standby to quickly respond to problems. No doubt, the orchestration is daunting and, in the end, if there are any problems, your organization is only as efficient as its weakest link.

Now compare this with a leisurely move to a cloud environment with desktop virtualization where you would have the ability to build-out and test the “new office space” long before you move a chair or pc. The “new office” would have a fully operational network configured with virtual desktops for each user, data storage, Windows 7, MS Office, Outlook and Exchange, phones, faxes, call center technology, along with current software apps loaded, deployed and ready for use. Clearly there are many advantages that come to mind with this approach, but of significant importance is eliminating the reliance upon a “pull the plug, hold your breath, mad-rush” move. With a pre-tested network already deployed, your IT staff and users will have a far greater degree of confidence in the system, while the business will have eliminated the threat of costly downtime and hampered productivity.

If your mortgage business is considering a move, physically or to the cloud, it would be a good idea to have a cloud assessment performed on your IT infrastructure before making any plans. You may want to take advantage of VCO Airlift, a free cloud assessment service of Mortgage VCO.

Instead, consider what it would be like to be able to expand (or contract) users on a cloud platform where you only pay for your active users per month. This means no more validating the number of licenses each month based on who was hired or terminated. No more having to send a technician to each desktop to maintain updates for your critical applications. This kind of solution would save time, money and free up your IT department to deal with more important issues.

With Mortgage VCO’s virtual desktop environment, VCO Desk, licenses are tied to active logins used per month and updates are completed in scheduled timeframes as they occur. Of course it is assumed that you have already moved to the latest software like Windows 7 and Office 2010. If not, the latest software packages may be incapable of running on the older platforms such as XP or Windows 2007/2003. Even the latest version of Internet Explorer (9) is only optimized for Windows 7.

As you can see there are many reasons to consider moving to an environment where you only pay for the actual licenses you need to run your business, knowing that you can expand or contract them on a monthly basis.

LAGUNA HILLS, CA July 31, 2012 – Acris Technology, the software development company behind Mortgage VCO, a full suite of cloud-based software applications, business and IT support resources for mortgage bankers and lenders, today announced it has availed the source code for its VCO Lend loan origination and processing software to select mid-size and large mortgage bankers.

Clients will benefit from Acris Technology’s 10+ years and multi-million-dollar investment in creating rules-based loan origination and processing software, built on a solid SQL database structure using the latest 2010 Microsoft development tools. VCO Lend is, has been, and will continue to be available to lenders of all sizes by monthly subscription.

“As we began to engage with larger mortgage banking operations with in-house development teams, we realized there was also an opportunity to provide the foundation of a substantial loan origination and processing platform like VCO Lend by giving them access to the source code,” said Martin Williams, CEO and founder of Acris Technology. “There are a lot of larger organizations out there that need more powerful, customizable solutions but they can’t find them. The VCO Lend source code meets those needs by providing the blueprint to create as comprehensive, powerful and custom a loan origination platform as a company could possibly need.”

VCO Lend was developed within the confines of a bustling mortgage banking operation and has facilitated the processing and funding of over $10 billion in loans for Williams’ Orange County, California-based mortgage banking company, Millennia Mortgage. With a computer science degree and his expertise in mortgage banking and mortgage technology, Williams was well-suited to develop software that addressed every workflow automation process his team needed. VCO Lend has recently been updated for commercial sale to mortgage bankers on a per-user basis and includes hundreds of powerful loan origination and processing features, including:

• Proprietary file and task queuing technology with interactive needs list
• Advanced analytics, production reporting and key performance indicators
• Built-in lead management
• Status-driven, rules-based loan automation
• Embedded paperless document management

“We’re excited to be able to provide a multi-million dollar head start to a limited number of mortgage bankers that are in the position to create their own enterprise loan origination systems,” continued Williams. “We’ve experienced mortgage banker’s fear of developing major customizations on top of other vendor’s mortgage technology platforms without the full assurance that the service they are integrating with will continue to meet their needs in the future. We can remove that fear while offering powerful capabilities that would be difficult, or even impossible to replicate in a reasonable amount of time.”

Interested mortgage bankers can find more information, along with screen shots of VCO Lend’s user interface at http://www.mortgagevco.com/loan-origination-software-source-code

 About Acris Technology

Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Laguna Hills, California, Acris Technology is a technology provider offering custom software development and a full range of IT services and infrastructure support. Its flagship product, Mortgage VCO, is a virtual corporate office solution that provides all the necessary software and tools to run a completely paperless, cloud-based mortgage office, enabling clients to realize increased productivity, shorter loan life cycle times and reduced expenses. The virtual suite includes loan origination and processing software, paperless electronic document management (EDM), digital e-signature tools, IP telephony, virtual desktops with Microsoft Office® and Outlook®, plus software customization and development services, IT, telephony and Citrix® virtual office consulting. For more information, visit www.mortgagevco.com.

Finding the answer starts with an objective cost analysis between the two options. With cloud desktop virtualization you are assured that the system stays current with the latest software running on state-of-the-art hardware. You are assured that the software updates and patches are completed in a scheduled timeframe and that there is a trained technician available to assist you with your needs in a timely fashion should any issue arise.

Conversely if you purchase new premise-based equipment and software, the first support element you need to address is staff to run the system. Second is the ability to expand the system’s connection capabilities beyond the four walls of the office to reach your remote users. And third would be to contract for programming resources to support the software used by your company that typically does not justify a full-time paid employee. Each of the elements on both sides of the equation can be quantified and compared. There are, however, other questions to consider:

• Do you have a complete security structure to manage all users such as employees, contract LO’s and third party collaborators?
• Do you have a loan origination software (LOS) solution that is supported by a paperless document management system that reaches beyond the loan environment to all back office functions?
• Do you have an integrated telephony system that seamlessly pushes through up-calls from your customers to your agents?

Below are just some of the features available in VCO Desk, our cloud desktop virtualization solution designed specifically for mortgage companies.

• XenApp connectivity to a secure login environment using the premier services from Citrix.
• Windows 7, Office 2010, Sequel 2012 as the core software running the platform
• VCO Lend Loan Origination Software with VCO File integrated for document management
• Option for integrated VoIP telephone system
• Option for integrated fax services
• Custom designed desktops and installation of your proprietary software

Bottom line? If your company is in the process of moving or even considering a move or just increasing your office space, it may be the perfect time to consider your next move for IT using cloud desktop virtualization. Check back for more posts about moving, expanding and cloud IT over the next few weeks.

Additional resources:
Free White Paper: Is it Time to Put Your Mortgage Business in the Cloud? 10 Things You Need to Know Now!

VCO Airlift: Free Cloud IT Evaluation

17-Page white paper outlines 10 things mortgage professionals should know before implementing a comprehensive cloud strategy with a focus on desktop virtualization and enabling a virtual or mobile workforce.

LAGUNA HILLS, CA (PRWEB) June 6, 2012 Acris Technology, the software development company behind Mortgage VCO, a full suite of cloud-based software applications, business and IT support resources for mortgage bankers and lenders, has released a new white paper featuring key benefits of implementing a comprehensive cloud strategy, leveraging best practices in desktop virtualization, paperless document management, and collaborative loan origination and processing. The 17-page white paper, titled "Is it Time to Put Your Mortgage Business in the Cloud? 10 Things You Need to Know Now", was written to help mortgage banking professionals balance the efficiencies and ROI benefits associated with the cloud, while avoiding the potential pitfalls inherent in any migration process.

Mortgage banking companies are actually very well suited for a cloud IT infrastructure, said Acris Technology President Richard Johnston. This white paper was developed to help mortgage bankers better understand the benefits of the cloud that are specific to their unique business requirements, from the unique perspective of someone that has been through the entire migration process in mortgage banking from A to Z.

The white paper is unique as it includes a running commentary by Martin Williams, the Founder/CEO of Millennia Mortgage, a mortgage banking company in Southern California that produced over $10 Billion in loans, leveraging the competitive advantages delivered by their cloud-based infrastructure. Williams is now the CEO of Acris Technology and is dedicated to making cloud IT technology and software available to any mortgage banking-related company through their suite of products and services known as Mortgage VCO.

VCO stands for Virtual Corporate Office, and our goal when we launched the Mortgage VCO suite was to make cloud technologies and comprehensive IT virtualization as affordable and painless to implement as possible, said Acris Technology CEO Martin Williams. We wrote this white paper to describe how the cloud significantly impacts each area of a mortgage banking operation and how it can introduce major increases in efficiency and productivity. Our message is that this is not pie in the sky technology. It's all available right now.

Here are a few of the areas the white paper explores:

• The differences between SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS
• Types of virtualization
• How the cloud enables a virtual workforce
• Cloud-enabled collaboration and paperless workflow
• Savings in the cloud
• Security, compliance and regulation in the cloud

The white paper can be downloaded at http://www.mortgagevco.com/10-things-whitepaper-offer

In last month's article titled 'Life in the Cloud,' I told the story of how my company, Millennia Mortgage, evolved into a fully cloud-based, paperless mortgage banking operation over a period of several years. Our employees, contractors and vendors all worked together seamlessly to process more loans in less time and expense than we ever before thought possible. We were working 'in the cloud' before ever hearing the term.

'The cloud' and all it's many iterations and descriptions can be easily misunderstood. The confusion that continues to revolve around the cloud is keeping many mortgage companies from reaping maximum benefit from the refinement of cloud-based technology that is now available with minimal capital outlay and a nominal monthly cost per user.

This article describes some practical benefits of a fully cloud-based mortgage office to the C-Level mortgage executive. After reading this article you will better understand why I am such an evangelist for the cloud.

Leverage the Cloud to Grow Your Business Cost-Effectively
I used to always say 'growth eats capital for breakfast,' and every CEO wants to know what, and when, the return on investment is going to be. Deciding to ramp up aggressively to meet demand can be risky. Recruiting and hiring qualified staff, training, agent licensing, marketing, new office space, workstation build-outs, software investment, hardware, and planning, takes time and money. The conventional approach is entirely front-loaded: lay out the capital first, then hope and pray for rates to hold while you realize a return on investment.

In a cloud environment, your capital exposure is reduced so growth strategies can be looked at more on a variable cost basis, making your organization nimble and flexible, opening new doors of opportunity. Let's look at a few examples of how this plays out in the real world.

Manage Virtual Call Centers in the Cloud
Starting and growing a call center takes planning and time as you know. It can cost up to $7-8,000 in hidden sunk costs to properly outfit a retail call center employee. There are workstation, hardware, software, and network infrastructure expenses, plus long-term lease liabilities to contend with. In this tricky environment it's getting harder to commit to that level of investment.

With a cloud-based call center, virtualization and remote login effectively eliminate many of the costs and delays of expansion. Eliminate long-term liability for office space and equipment. Eliminate sunk costs for hardware and software licensing yet build out a call center practically overnight. Staff with virtual sales, ops and support staff, train them online, and stitch them all together with a single multi-function, collaborative cloud-based LOS, that tracks, controls, facilitates and rewards. Should market rates rise rendering the model cost prohibitive, scale back, cut and regroup without incurring long-term expense or loss of capital.

Use the Cloud to Expand Your Branch Network While Keeping Complete Control Over Your Team.
Let's say you've focused your efforts on purchase money business with outside loan agents. Since purchase loans are most effectively sourced at a regional level, it's critical to equip your sales agents with effective tools at the point of sale. They need reliable product picking and pricing, quickly and easily from anywhere, on any device, at any time. They need support staff that's accessible and responsive, and a reliable, collaborative means of communicating with them, in addition to borrowers and third parties. They need to produce accurate quotes, comparisons and disclosures quickly and easily and be empowered with information and tools, yet not be chained to a desk.

Traditionally, to accommodate a high sales support structure, processing and even underwriting were pushed down to the branch level. Such a decentralized model has many inherent costs including larger branch office space, local network build outs, local IT, hiring and training challenges, and staff utilization inefficiencies. Branches lacking the social and technology ties to corporate develop their own sub-culture, may run afoul of corporate policies and procedures and often present a substantial compliance risk.
In the cloud, it's easy to consolidate and run one system company-wide, eliminating runaway costs, incompatibilities and IT management headaches. It's the perfect solution for an increasingly virtual mortgage workforce. All employees experience the same look and feel on the network, whether at the branch, home or at corporate. Company culture is now influenced, maintained and controlled globally and centrally. IT services are now served up on demand, replacing expensive on-site IT staff.

With the right cloud-based loan origination system in place, you can manage the entire loan life cycle, empowering each department with all the tools they need to perform their jobs and reporting comprehensive metrics in real time, in a consistent format across the enterprise. The system can be complemented with a collaborative communication mechanism, an easy to use document management system, and task queuing logic that drives efficiencies by enabling departmental load balancing of staffing.

The Cloud Was Built for Scalability…Up or Down
One constant we can depend on is that the mortgage business will always be in a state of flux. Rates are down right now. But they will go up! If your business is largely refinance right now, like 80% of the mortgage industry, your business model will most likely change dramatically some time in the future.

In a traditional brick and mortar business model, it's almost impossible to scale up or down quickly and cost-effectively. While no company can afford to miss out on a refinance boom, they can neither afford to be strung-out if rates bump up 200 or even 100bps. An entire business model can be rendered broken, and a pipeline useless, practically overnight.

In the cloud, you can turn fixed costs into variable costs. Scale your organization up or down quickly, and correlate costs with production. Under a software subscription arrangement, you can tie network and software costs to employee (or loan production under certain negotiated terms). Employee count typically has a direct correlation to production. In the cloud, you are as nimble as you choose to be. Adding or subtracting agents and support staff is easier.

Managing Regulation With the Cloud
The mortgage industry has received more than its fair share of regulation lately, and surely there is more to come. Mortgage companies can benefit from tighter controls and better management of their data. A decentralized data structure sourced on a multitude of platforms, daisy-chained together, increases data integrity and compliance risks. The case for easily and cost-effectively getting all your systems 'on the same page' has never been more critical than now.

The regulatory stakes are much higher today, and the consequences much more severe, so much that mortgage companies are preoccupied with compliance. A case in point for recent regulations is the introduction of the Call Report, a quarterly reporting not just on funded loan production, but on all origination, submitted quarterly in data format. It's this information that regulating entities are using to hold mortgage companies accountable. All of the sudden, origination data regardless of outcome is terribly important and must accurately reflect physical file representation. Corporations need to rein in branch staff and agent behavior now more than ever before. The cloud, empowered by the right LOS enables everyone in your organization to get on the same page, playing by the same rules.

Obstacles to Cloud Adoption
So if the benefits are so great, what's keeping lenders from adopting the cloud? While the primary purpose of this article is not to focus on the obstacles, I thought it would help to quickly address a few of the bigger objections I encounter.

Lenders think cloud solutions are expensive and difficult to implement
The reality for our company was that the cloud actually reduced our expenses across the board. I recognize that every business is different. To some degree it depends on the age and condition of existing equipment, condition of legacy IT infrastructure, in-house IT expertise, existing software, etc. While the variables are numerous, most of the guiding principles behind migration to the cloud are consistent, across just about all businesses. When performing your analysis, make sure you consider all your 'hidden' expenses. Once we had our cloud in place, we experienced reduced costs in our utility bills, software upgrades, setup and provisioning of new employees, internal and external IT expense, server equipment purchase, installation and maintenance, supplies, etc.

Lenders fear putting data in the cloud will compromise security
There's no doubt this is one of the biggest fears of moving to the cloud. But the reality is the data center environment in the cloud is more secure, more reliable and better suited for disaster recovery and security issues than any IT room located on the premises of the average or even of most large lenders today.

An optimal security solution is one where the best security technologies can be continuously deployed, and to vigilantly protect networks and transmissions, using the best digital security specialists. Few in-house IT departments can afford the level of security that is deployed in the cloud. In a cloud environment, every element of the network is better protected by layers of security measures such as redundant servers and frequently updated firewalls that also ensure high availability.

Add to these measures the controlled access by authorized, and trained personnel using managed permissions for trusted groups, and the chance for human error and security breaches goes down greatly. Access can be granted or revoked immediately. Even the programming team has limited access outside of their area of responsibility.

Also, within a cloud structure, new companies in mergers and rollups can be assimilated into the parent almost as easily as a new user, without IT workarounds and patches that create potential security leaks

Lenders fear change…letting go of legacy systems 'that work' in spite of inefficiencies
While security concerns are valid, and it's quite easy to overcome the expense argument, this one issue will probably keep more lenders from adopting the cloud than any other reason.

First, there is a valid consideration that needs to be made regarding your corporate culture. Would you characterize your organization as progressive or innovative and open to change? One of the biggest misunderstandings when performing any migration is how to manage change. If properly planned and carefully communicated, the process can be smooth and relatively uneventful. But without a certain level of change leadership, the process can be painful and even devastating to the productivity and morale of an organization. If your people are prepped properly for the change, it can be accomplished in significantly less time and hassle than one that is not.

When we first went paperless, I had staff that were kicking and screaming. Then it started to die down. The chatter faded and things got really quiet. About a month later, I started to get these emails - we had created raving fans. Time and time again, they came up to me, saying, 'I'll never go back to paper.'

The Path to the Cloud
So just how does a mortgage lender migrate to the cloud? This is a question that can't be fully answered here, but I believe one of the most important elements of a successful migration is to have experienced professionals lead you through the minefield that have successfully navigated the process within a lending environment. An experienced vendor that has experienced all the issues first hand will save you countless hours of pain, and thousands of dollars in misfires, lost time and productivity. Here's the migration process in a nutshell:

• Start with an assessment of your existing operations, systems and software
• Carefully choose the right cloud vendor based on capabilities and experience
• Create a detailed implementation roadmap both for migration to the cloud, and migration to paperless processing (paperless enables a cloud environment)
• Present the vision and goals to management and staff
• Get mid-management buy-in
• Migrate in stages, starting with virtualizing the desktop
• Stay the course – It's worth it!

Conclusion
No doubt the cloud is here to stay and it's changing the way business gets done in every sector. I can tell you from personal experience that the cloud is more beneficial to the mortgage industry than most other business processes I know of, primarily because a mortgage office thrives in a paperless, virtual, collaborative environment. While many other business models may do just fine with Google Docs, a CRM and a good email server, the mortgage industry is unique in its need for collaborative and automated loan processing, CRM and document management systems that communicate seamlessly with each other, your employees, contractors, telecommuters, vendors, and third party services, regardless of their physical location. It has to be secure, dependable, available on demand, and cost effective. The cloud is perfectly suited for this type of environment. Because of the questions that must be answered before making the leap to the cloud, we've developed a product called VCO Airlift, a 17-point evaluation system that walks you through the process of converting your business to a fully cloud-based infrastructure. Learn more at www.mortgagevco.com.

Martin Williams is CEO of Laguna Hills, California-based Acris Technology, the company behind Mortgage VCO, a full suite of cloud-based software applications and business support resources for the mortgage industry including loan origination and processing software, paperless electronic document management, electronic signatures, integrated telephony, virtual desktops with Microsoft Office® and Outlook®, software customization and development services, IT, telephony and Citrix® virtual office consulting. Follow our blog at www.mortgagevco.com/blog.

For a PDF of this article go to‚ http://www.progressinlending.com/TME0212/TME0212-39.pdf

Many people in the mortgage industry today are hearing and reading about cloud technology without having a clear understanding of what it is and what it means for their business. All they know is that ‘the cloud is where they need to be.

Those of us with some experience on this topic understand that the only thing new about cloud computing is the term itself. The Internet, in fact, is itself a ‘cloud’. So is the local power company. And yet, cloud computing does describe a very real thing happening – albeit slowly – in today’s mortgage industry. We have the potential now for anyone in any organization to be able to access all the tools and data they need, at any time, from anywhere, on nearly any device, without the concerns of owning, updating, maintaining and supporting expensive software applications. This is, in essence, what happens when you move your business into the cloud. I know, because I’ve seen it firsthand.

A Corporate Culture Built on Technology Development
When I started my own mortgage company back in 1995, Millennia Mortgage, I knew technology would play a major role. The predominant business model at the time was staffed independent loan agents in a regional office, sourcing business on their own. Our focus was on cash-out financing via 1st and 2nd TD loans. These types of loans were highly valued by the customer, easy to explain, and could be processed with relative ease. By deploying a marketing campaign consisting largely of direct mail and radio ads, we recommissioned our sales agents under a call center structure, fielding incoming phone calls from across the country, qualifying borrowers over the phone, and processing by mail and fax. We had effectively adopted the model of ‘loans-by-phone’‚ across state lines.

We first looked toward employing customer management and origination tools. Of course, there were plenty of mortgage software offerings and loan origination software systems to choose from, but none of them focused on the contact management or customer relationship management (mortgage CRM software) component of the sale. At the time, even generic stand-alone CRM tools were in short supply in the industry. There was ACT!, which many of our competitors were using, but we knew its limitations first hand, especially when it came to integration with loan origination software.

That’s when we began taking steps to develop our own loan origination software, which later would become our VCO Lend product. Initially, however, it began as a mortgage contact management application. Millennia was soon doing a large amount of volume with an average application pull-through ratio above 20 percent, and we needed a system that could manage all those contacts. Equipped with a college education in computer science, I started programming. I actually created our contact management software myself in Microsoft Access, as well as creating many of its design elements. (After a year and a half of this, however, I started hiring contractors – they were simply better than I!)

While we were developing our contact management solution, we began encountering another problem with the loan origination software we were using at the time. After we ran a borrower’s credit, there was no way to integrate the results into the loan origination software – someone actually had to type in all those credit card balances. By 1997 we had had enough, so we built a software module that allowed our staff to order credit and have the results integrated with our loan origination software. Streamlining this single task measurably improved our workflow, and helped define a company culture of innovation. Throughout our history, we embraced technology as a means to refine workflows, increase turn-times, create transparency, enhance customer relations, manage costs and ultimately yield a much better bottom-line.

Our next step was developing marketing campaign management and lead distribution tools. Pretty soon we had assembled an in-house software development team and were building custom loan origination software straight from the ground up. Around the same time, Millennia Mortgage moved to mortgage banking, so we began building tools within the loan origination software that would enable us to effectively manage all aspects of banking. Gradually we added business intelligence, workflow management, and business rules that governed security and data integration. A further step was integrating our system with third-party vendors, which created additional efficiency and time savings.

Piece by piece, we were creating from scratch all the major components of the mortgage production chain. At every step along this development path, we knocked down one inefficient task after another, shaving precious time off the mortgage production process while creating company-wide transparency

Enter the Cloud
By 2003, Millennia had grown from a mere startup to a robust company employing over 125 employees producing 400 loans a month. It was around this time where we began our migration to a virtual, paperless office engaging Citrix, the leader in desktop virtualization. Citrix allows businesses to virtualize both the server structure and the user experience. By centralizing our hardware and software in a securely protected co-location facility, we broke free of the physical constraints of traditional IT infrastructures and office space. Empowered with our proprietary electronic document management system, our staff could now login remotely from home or a laptop, have the identical user experience they’d expect while sitting at their office desk, but also have a client’s complete paperless loan file callable from directly within the loan origination software. We had enabled any employee with an Internet connection and a web browser to perform their job from any point on the globe. By all accounts, Millennia was operating in ‘the cloud’, so to speak.

This was right before the Orange County, California mortgage industry began experiencing explosive growth. The recession of 2001-2002 had set everyone back a bit, but by 2004 things in the mortgage business really started heating up. The competition for quality operations staff was extremely intense; the best were demanding up to $20,000 signing bonuses. By moving Millennia to a paperless, virtual environment, we didn’t have to rely solely on the Orange County labor market. Our operations were now cloud-based and no longer tethered to a geographic location, which meant we could hire anywhere. Aided by cost-of-living differences, we could bring on high-quality personnel living in places like Minnesota at a fraction of the price.

At the same time, our evolving technology platform allowed us to parse out our loan workflow with such refinement that we were able to contract out more and more work. While our competitors muddled with conventional linear workflows that were labor intensive and high cost, we were able to automatically assign tasks commensurate with pay grade, thereby maximizing the utility of highly compensated staff. For instance, business rules and queuing logic within our loan origination software system ensured processing assistants received the bulk of the heavy lifting, while processors and underwriters could focus on work more in line with their level of expertise. Underwriters and assistants were hired on a contract basis, and paid on a per task basis, to engage at times of peak production, effectively responding to production backlogs and keeping turn-times inside of 24 hours. Our self-assigning queuing technology would email contractors, enticing them with variable bonus incentives that were tracked, reported upon and tallied for payroll accounting.

In a 24/7 environment, contractors could work on their own time and didn’t have to quit their day jobs – they could work at night from home. By staffing with full time employees to meet production lows, and engaging contractors to manage the surges, we achieved a high level of staff-production utility. Everything – all the data, documents and software – stayed on our system. The underwriters couldn’t download anything or print anything. They didn’t need to. When the underwriters’ analysis came back in the morning, everything was stipped out, and the checklists and findings were handled by our processors and assistants. Everything happened electronically.

Meanwhile, each Millennia ops staff member had his or her own pipeline management screen within the loan origination software system. At a glance they could quickly see what needed to be done and done first, whether it was requesting a demand, ordering an appraisal, opening up title and escrow, signing off on a satisfied condition, or anything else. At the same time, our assistants, configured into three levels, would track down the multitude of conditions on a file, including making borrower contact for outstanding key documents, a benefit the sales agents truly appreciated. Our development of task and file queuing, empowered with paperless, allowed us to move away from the linear structure of file management so multiple people were able to work on the same file at the same time. This created even greater staff efficiencies, because there was less waiting around for something else to happen before someone could get to work on the file.

In 2004 we embarked on the last key component on the underwriting side: an automated underwriting and pricing engine. Fortunately, one of our investors, GMAC, granted us a large sum of money to invest in this technology. We interviewed all the prevalent vendors at the time, but rather than lease their technology, we opted to purchase the code and further engage them to build our first generation AUS just the way we wanted it, completely integrated with our proprietary loan origination software.

With exceptional ease, we could take a borrower profile and come back with all the different loan programs that the customer qualified for, stacked, conditionally approved and priced side by side. Once a loan product was selected, it was downloaded into the loan origination software along with the loan terms, end price, and a conditional loan approval. Callbacks to the AUS were facilitated at the click of a button, enabling underwriters to routinely validate approvals and pricing in the midst of guideline and pricing changes. Approval certs were produced and loaded directly into the paperless loan file, while automated AU integrations for certification were maintained with key industry investors.

What were the results of implementing a virtual ‘cloud’?‚ These innovations, over the course of an 18-month development and implementation period, ultimately shortened the loan life cycle by 40 percent, reduced the costs of operations staff by 35 percent, doubled loan volume, and improved profitability as a function of basis points by 33 percent. Loan agents were thrilled with turn-times and accountability, customers were happy, underwriters were satisfied with controls, processors were funding over 100 loans per month, managers could lead, and everyone was making more money.

By 2005, 60 percent of Millennia’s operations staff were working remotely from home, plus 20 percent of our sales force. We had grown to doing business in nearly every state and had a fully-integrated advanced call center telephony solution. We were one of the first companies to develop electronic loan delivery to secondary market investors. And from all the evidence we could gather, Millennia Mortgage had become the first end-to-end paperless mortgage banking operation in the industry. While we didn’t call it that at the time, without our ‘cloud’ technology, none of this would have been possible.

By the time Millennia shuttered its lending operations in 2007 – an event tied directly to market forces – the company’s staff of 250 people were producing upwards of 800 retail loans a month. Regardless of Millennia’s fate, I knew, as did many of my colleagues, that we had something special with our technology. Acris Paperless Solutions started out in 2005 as simply an electronic document management company, and in 2011 we changed the name to Acris Technology, incorporated all of Millennia’s technology, and launched Mortgage VCO, a comprehensive and affordable suite of cloud-based, mortgage office management products available to lenders nationwide. It includes the mortgage loan origination software system we built from scratch, VCO Lend, as well as a desktop virtualization solution including MS Windows ®, MS Office ®, an integrated IP Telephony solution, paperless document management software and electronic signatures.

So while I’m no longer running my own mortgage company, I’m passionate about helping other lenders realize the full benefits of cloud technology – a virtual, automated, paperless mortgage office, without any of the development headaches we went through. You might imagine that when I talk to these lenders, one of most compelling things I can say is that I’ve lived in the cloud myself. And let me tell you, the view from up there is amazing.

Martin Williams is CEO of Laguna Hills, California-based Acris Technology, the company behind Mortgage VCO, a full suite of cloud-based software applications and business support resources for the mortgage industry.

For a PDF of this article go to‚ http://www.progressinlending.com/TME0112/TME0112-43.pdf