Jesse Wood is the CEO of Efilecabinet, an automation and Document management platform used as a centralized solution for documents. He has a strong leadership background with over 20 years of experience he brings to the industry. Prior to eFileCabinet, Jesse developed innovative custom technical solutions for a wide-range of Business applications.

What brought you to where you are today? 

My background is in automation and process. I started out in smart home automation, where my early years in the field were focused on leading hardware and software teams for the company. Later on, I worked in sales and project management, so I’ve got experience in both the technology and business-side of things. I joined eFileCabinet in 2014 as CTO, because of the incredible potential I saw to impact processes and efficiency for businesses and individuals in literally every sector. 

What drew you to this industry?

Automation is what drives business to succeed. It allows people to perform complicated tasks simply and efficiently. I’m passionate about problem-solving, so automated processes are really what drew me into this kind of work. Businesses create and implement lots of amazing technology that doesn’t always hit the mark, because the return on investment only comes if you can understand it and use it in an accessible way. With automation, you only need to program that technology once. 

What specifically drew me to eFileCabinet was seeing the product itself and its potential to help businesses succeed. Business process automation allows people to connect back with what their business really does. When there’s not as much need for redundant business operations, they can get back to what they do best and why they got into business in the first place.

Tell me how you are changing up document management. 

Document management sometimes has a stigma of just being a storage solution, but it’s so much more than that. We want to provide a product that brings true value to our customers. Our approach to document management is a focus on simplifying our customers’ processes. Some businesses will find that their growth is plateauing because their overhead from regular business operations keeps ballooning. Our goal is to help organizations actually reduce that overhead through the streamlining of those regular processes that require so many labor hours. 

Tell us how COVID has affected the subscription industry and what it has changed

Like most of the rest of the world, COVID forced us and many others to a work-from-home model. Fortunately, as a cloud-based solution, we could quickly adapt and help our customers adapt to this change of pace. A lot of negatives have come as a result of the pandemic, but people and businesses should remember to take with them the positive lessons they’ve learned, that way the interruptions to their business are minimized when these types of events occur.

What brands have you worked with and what types of industries are they in?

 A large sector of our customer base is in accounting and finance. We’ve since expanded into nearly every industry including insurance, government, education, and healthcare. Every business has an operation side of things, so our product is a great fit for every type of business.

What draws companies to use a service like eFileCabinet?

Digitalization in business is standard these days. Companies are bringing their business to the web, including their day-to-day operations. There’s a surprising amount of organizations still dealing with physical documents and storage, but more businesses are seeing the advantages of a digital environment, which is becoming more than an excuse to throw out the old filing cabinet. When your documents are in a digital space, you’re able leverage automated workflows to make them more dynamic and continue working for you, rather than taking up space.

As a CEO and business owner, what has been a highlight in your journey?

When I joined eFileCabinet our product was focused largely on document storage. I am very proud of the vision we’ve achieved and continue to achieve for our product. It’s capacity to create workflows and automate processes makes everyone’s jobs easier. I love that we’ve been able to realize that functionality that several years ago was just a dream. With the launch of our latest product Rubex, I’ve really seen incredible drive within our company and a commitment to fulfilling our customers’ needs. Ever since then, we’ve been constantly building upon this new platform with better features and improvements to increase the value for our customers.   

What advice would you give other entrepreneurs?

Business success is important, but people are more important. Care for and nurture your relationships both with customers and your employees. I’m a big believer that success is the result of drive and commitment, and I personally feel more successful as a CEO when my customers find true value in our product. Give your employees both the tools and the autonomy to be more productive. When they have the tools they need, your whole business is productive.

Besides saving paper, what are some benefits of having a DMS?

The ability to streamline day-to-day tasks allows businesses to free up their teams to get back to the work that really matters. Our founder came up with the idea for eFileCabinet when he saw how many times his assistant would walk back and forth between their desk and the filing cabinet in his office. With a digital system, you save more time than you know filing and retrieving documents. And that’s just the beginning of what processes that DMS can simplify. 

One of the most common workflows we see customers setting up are accounts payable and accounts receivable workflows. It saves so much time when you can route invoices to the right people to approve and reject, and accounting managers no longer need to run around collecting signatures.

Furthermore, compliance can be completely automated. You can route finalized documents to locations with governance rules, that apply the correct retention and protection requirements. Once you’ve retained a document for the required amount of time, the system can automatically delete it from the system. Plus, accurate audit reports can prove that those documents were completely tamper-proof. 

Can you talk about how much more efficient companies are that use a DMS?

Our best customer success stories are those who find themselves with more time than they know what to do with. The immediate changes they see like clearing up space in the office and being able to access their records from any device is invaluable, but the true value they begin to see is the more time they get to spend on working with clients, improving their product, and truly growing their business. 

Team Select Home Care is a healthcare organization that saw tremendous growth since implementing eFileCabinet. The company went from 600 to 2,700 employees in a matter of a few years. Since implementing they’ve saved nearly $150,000 a year in labor hours. 

During 2020, we’ve had several customers tell us that eFileCabinet was a life-saver when their businesses were ordered to work from home. The HVAC trade association AHRI has strict compliance standards they need to adhere to. Something that would be nearly impossible without a cloud-based DMS solution. Audits still happen, and with eFileCabinet they had nothing to worry about.

What has been the most surprising thing you have found regarding this service to businesses?

I’m always happily surprised whenever I hear that our product and service has not only helped a business be successful, but also made a positive difference in someone’s life.

What is next for eFileCabinet?

We’re not stopping the momentum we’ve had on enhancing our product. We’ve already got a stacked schedule of new enhancements and offerings that no other DMS is providing. I’m really excited to share them with customers. 

What is next for you?

I’m going to continue rallying my team to keep driving towards our goal of fulfilling our commitment to our customers. 

What is the best way for people to contact you directly?

People can contact me at my LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesse-wood-9077a982/