Document Imaging Standard Helps IT Improve Office Workflows

The conference was held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, with the goal of bringing together leading experts to discuss the future of document imaging solutions in Western Europe.

For a review of the presentation, we sat down with Edward to discuss what he is hearing from Information Technology (IT) executives as they look to improve document management and workflow processes.

In your keynote address, you talked about the emergence of an office document technology ecosystem. What is this and what’s driving its creation?

The ecosystem is a deeper level of partnership among software vendors, MFP manufacturers, and office equipment dealers who are teaming up to enable greater end-user success. The motivation is two-fold. One, create differentiation to drive more business. But as important, it is recognition that to be successful, everyone needs to be working more closely together on addressing a customer’s unique needs.

What’s a typical focal point for this closer collaboration?

We see companies – driven by their IT departments – working to build solutions around a standard. In the context of document scanning at end-user organizations, a standard means office workers can use the same scanning procedures at any of an organization’s MFPs, which can be especially important for compliance processes.

A standard would make it easier for IT to manage systems too, right?

Yes. We hear consistently from IT that they are looking to reduce complexity in their infrastructure. A single software standard makes it easier for IT personnel to manage multiple MFP devices from different manufacturers. The number of MFPs deployed is expanding rapidly in most organizations and companies are looking to avoid vendor lock-in. Leveraging a software standard that goes across MFP brands maintains freedom of choice.

But wouldn’t having a diverse MFP base make it more difficult to integrate scanning with business applications?

Not at all. That’s the beauty of a standard. Software vendors can provide users with support for scanning on all MFPs simply by developing one application when they leverage a standard. This approach encourages more applications to connect to MFP scanning – and IT likes this because they gain greater opportunity to integrate document scanning with the applications that run the business. IT can help users pull in the paper information which slows down electronic workflows.

So how does the office document technology ecosystem actually work in delivering document scanning integrated with business applications?

Let’s take a look at the international law firm Salans. They are a large law firm – 18 offices and more than 550 attorneys which can make it hard for people to work together efficiently. Also, due to the nature of their work, document processes need to support their compliance procedures.

What they have done is deploy eCopy as their document scanning standard working on Canon MFPs and integrated with an Interwoven document management system. This has helped Salans gain ISO process-quality certification by allowing all information to be digitized and saved in one location.

So it sounds like the ecosystem can help IT implement an office document technology platform that transforms paper into application value for the business?

That’s right. IT can improve workflows with a standard document scanning solution that increases operational efficiency. It also protects investments by leveraging existing network and MFP infrastructure, and business applications to control more of the information lifecycle.