About Z + M Group

The Z + M Group is a market leader in Document Processing Outsourcing (DPO) with more than 550 employees, including a strong commitment to employing people with reduced working capacity. Through Z + M Partner, the company delivers global services alongside the Canon Group—notably IRIS AG and Canon Business Services in the U.K., U.S., Germany, Hong Kong, Australia, Norway, and Finland.
Z + M Partner operates two cloud-based digitization centers in Prague and Ostrava and processes 10+ million document pages annually, specializing in Accounts Payable (AP) outsourcing. Operations meet ISO 27001 standards, and data is handled in a SOC 2 Type II audited environment.

Challenges Before IRIS

Partnering with Capgemini, a global leader in IT services, Z + M manages technically demanding projects across diverse industries. The challenges included:

• Complex, multi-format extraction: Required flexible algorithms to extract complete data from PDF, JPEG, XML, and e-invoicing formats. Unreadable segments needed manual completion during validation.
• Exception handling & compliance: Implementing business‑critical exceptions—e.g., tax data, currencies, invoice types—demanded precise alignment with each customer’s processes.
• High-volume automation: To minimize manual intervention, Z + M needed reliable database matching against customer systems to improve extraction quality and reduce validation effort.

The IRIS Solution

IRIS and Z + M Group formed a strategic partnership to scale DPO services:

• IRISPowerscan®: Used to digitize and separate incoming physical documents, creating clean input for downstream automation.
• IRISXtract®: Powers AP and eProcurement automation, delivering accurate capture, classification, and validation across multiple customers.
• Fast migration from legacy: Leveraging standardized AP templates and best practices, Z + M migrated 10+ customer projects from a legacy Tungsten solution in under 3 months. A small admin team can tailor configurations to individual customer needs, enabling scalable operations.

Results & Impact

Z + M achieves a balance of automation, compliance, and scalability across complex, multi‑stakeholder environments. Key enablers include:

• Robust error detection and dynamic rule updates to sustain accuracy.
• Transparent communication and shared responsibility among Z + M, customers, and IRIS to resolve daily operational challenges.
• Performance optimization, documentation, and testing routines that reduce risk of SLA or contractual breaches and secure long‑term value for customers.

Outlook & Next Steps

Z + M is expanding internationally to process invoices from around the world and is participating in the IRIS webinar, “Mastering International Accounts Payable—From Paper to E‑Invoicing Across Borders.” The team will showcase its DPO portal and how SLAs are achieved with the IRISXtract add‑on ITTC.
Looking ahead, Z + M aims to boost line‑item recognition with dedicated AI models.
Customer Quote

“We empower people and organizations with proven innovative technologies from IRIS which help us to take control of their information flows, automate repetitive tasks, and focus on their core business.”
— Jan Rataj, Chief Solution Architect, Z + M Partner