Document Capture Yields Happy Customers and Positive ROI

By David Roe | Published Jul 17, 2009

Document Capture Yields Productivity and Positive ROI A new AIIM (news, site) survey for the EMC Corporation (news, site) that has just been released probably provides few surprises concluding that investment in document capture technologies is ultimately going to save companies money.

However, in all such surveys there are always one or two points that really make you stand back and go “Wow’! I wouldn’t have thought that at all!”

And this one is no exception. In this particular case the ‘Wow factor' comes from the revelation that while most organizations have already invested in capture technologies, two-thirds were only scanning 50% of possible documents.

ROI In 12 Months

While many respondents cited lack of capture-enabled enterprise applications, others cited physical distance between businesses and capture facilities as the principal reason for this state of affairs.

While it might be a tad facetious to suggest in these cases the use of ‘snail mail’ to send documents to someone who can actually do the capturing, it does raise a point that is worth underlining — if the on-site conditions ain’t right, no amount technology is going to help your company.

Which is a pity really, because the survey, entitled Extending Capture Capabilities – Measuring the ROI, does seem to show that significant ROI can be made within 12 months of implementing document capture technologies.

Risk-free Investment

Carried out across 677 information and records management professionals, IT staff and line of business executives it showed that document scanning is a risk-free investment compared to the installation of other IT projects.

There are other figures that the bean-counters will be looking at too when it comes to this particular technology.

Chief amongst them are:

Productivity has almost doubled in 42% following the installation of document capture technology
ROI has been achieved by two thirds of companies within 18 months, 43% within 12 months
Paper storage costs dropped by 40% in half of the companies surveyed

Investing In Information Access

However, another fact that raised an eyebrow is that while clearly many companies are looking to save money by investing in document capture, a significant number cited ease of access to information as being the principal driver in investing.

This is closely related to the finding that using electronic documents had improved customer compliance ratings and, consequently, enhanced a company’s ability to provide satisfactory customer service.

Okay, at least superficially there is no immediate financial gain in that, but a company that does not provide secure compliance services, is going to get a lot of door-action from its clients, and most of it in the wrong direction.

Well worth a look if your company is considering document capture technologies and well worth a look if you already have and are trying to justify that investment to the board.