.png)
Today, business organizations – large, midsized or small, deal with two main problems. One, is the exponential increase in the volume of paper documents, owing to the influx of customer/client and sales & marketing data and analytics. Two, is the rising rent and increasing workforce problem, forcing organizations to optimize their work area and provide more space for office work.
While the latter is not always under the organization’s control and poses the threat of frequent relocation, the former is not only manageable and solvable, but in a way, provide solution to the other problem. Yes, going Digital is the answer.
As digital technology continues to evolve, it is easy for business organizations to go paperless. Important documents can be converted into digital format for seamless storage, prompt retrieval, and easy sharing. Digitization has thus become a necessity rather than an option nowadays. Keeping your data and documents in the form of hard copies is not acceptable anymore.
Digitizing your valuable documents is less expensive and also improves the efficiency of the business environment. It reduces wastage of paper, giving the business a chance to streamline operations, and improve employee productivity.
Moreover, digitization of paper records with the help of document scanning services is an efficient way to save space and also a great way to curb the loss or misplacement of documents. The lack of effective document search mechanisms due to the huge volume of archive, often encourages unauthorized access to business-critical information. Hence, converting paper documents into digital provides higher levels of data security and privacy which is an essential part of any digital transformation initiative.
Document Archiving
Document archiving means putting data and information you don’t use regularly into secure storage for extended periods of time. One of the vital steps towards digitization is to establish a comprehensive physical archive that will be the cornerstone for the implementation of systematic document capture. Scanning and archiving business documents helps in organizing and arranging the documents systematically. The digitized copies of your documents can be stored in any storage device like flash drive, external disk etc. and these files can be indexed easily, which lets you find the required documents quickly. It reduces the need for storage space in the office and also eliminates the cost of purchasing file cabinets and other products.
Organizing the Archive
Archiving the records according to the accessibility principle ensures that the documents can be accessed only by authorized people. Access can be granted only to persons trained for archiving. Organizing the archive also helps to retrieve documents quickly. Poorly organized storage can put your business at risk and also lead to information loss.
Document Indexing
Document indexing is the practice of tagging documents with certain attributes so that they may be easily searched for and retrieved later. Accessing relevant data in any digital file requires proper indexing. Indexing the scanned documents is also crucial for any document imaging project. Indexing and archiving services include categorizing any of your scattered data into a perfect database, which makes accessing and retrieving information a much easier task.
Scanned images are useful only when they are stored in a well-structured database and indexed for easy retrieval. Some of the indexing services provided by professional companies are:
Barcode indexing
OCR document indexing (image to text conversion)
Full profile and text indexing
Keyword and Meta Data indexing
Invoice indexing
Legal document indexing
Indexing based on scientific notations
Should you outsource your document digitization needs?
There has been a tremendous rise in trend to outsource document scanning services across the world. When you have thousands or even millions of documents to be digitized, doing it in-house is not the best option. Scanning, Indexing and Archiving may sound a not-so-tough task that can be done in-house, but it can be very tedious and requires a lot of effort to be done accurately. Large quantities of documents would require lot of tools and equipment, a dedicated team of skilled professionals, project managers, space, software, training, and audit. Therefore, there emerges the immediate need for outsourcing document scanning services.
Hence many companies outsource document scanning services. According to Quocircas PRINT2025 report, 77% of millennial workers still think paper/physical documents will be important or very important in the workplace in 2025, making the task of transforming into a paperless enterprise more challenging.
Digitized and indexed documents can be exported to a Document Management System (DMS) or automatically stored in the relevant digital libraries, where their usage is tracked, documented and managed. By controlling the creation, duplication, deletion and distribution of document digitally, the solution improves individual productivity and enable organizations to centralize unstructured content and extract business related information quickly and effectively. Furthermore, by tracking keywords in documents, they help users to find the right document quickly and easily in addition to providing federated searches.
5 Reasons why you should hire professionals to digitize your documents
Document scanning companies have skilled professionals who have plenty of experience in the field and do their work with maximum quality and precision. By outsourcing document scanning services, you can:
1. Get access to the latest and updated scanning equipment that is capable of digitizing different types of documents including fast scanners, flatbed, wide format, photo and book scanners, microfilm scanners and so on
2. Get assurance on quality procedures needed to deliver the best quality of images and accurate index data
3. Ensure great results. Document preparation needs a lot of manual labor and technical expertise is needed to handle such large amounts of data into accessible databases and for compatible storage into data management systems or cloud-hosted systems
4. Be cost effective. The overall cost to outsource your project to document management solutions is much lower than hiring an in-house team to the same work. And there is no guarantee they will get the work done with the same quality on time
5. Focus on your core activities. Archival document scanning is a difficult, time-consuming and labor-intensive task. Undertaking such tasks can prevent you from focusing on your organization’s primary goals and objectives. The result will be less profit and growth
Hence, outsourcing document digitization services is the best solution. It is less expensive, less stressful and faster. You get high-quality work done in the defined frame of time.
How to choose the right Service provider?
When you decide to outsource document digitization services - scanning, archiving, indexing, there are a few things to consider when choosing a partner.
Be sure to choose a firm that has experience in doing projects similar to your requirements
Ensure that they can cater to the size and scope you plan to expand at least within a year
Check what kind of quality and security measures they follow
See that they have set the right workflow to ensure your project is done accurately and on time
You can contact us for any help or queries related to Document Digitization, Indexing and Archiving services.
Comments