Distributed Capture 2.0

By Don McMahan

In the year of a presidential election we hear a lot of about the power of choice and the promise for change. For document capture, the premises of choice and observation of change are also stimulating an industry-wide conversation. However, unlike political promises that may wind up being empty, the reality of document capture is living up to its talk. Innovations in document capture are democratizing the benefits of document management systems for an unprecedented number of end users and enterprises.

Since their introduction to the industry, distributed scanners have provided a way for smaller organizations to take advantage of dedicated document capture solutions, previously available only to organizations whose budgets could support both costly equipment and the trained personnel to operate it. Lower costs, smaller size and ease of usability have enabled the small-and medium-sized business to save time and money, achieve faster access to digitized information and enhance overall document management.

The rapidly growing distributed capture segment is estimated to comprise the majority of all scanning units sold in 2011 (“Document Imaging Scanner Forecast for North America: 2006 – 2011,” InfoTrends). The range of emerging benefits are dynamically changing through many advancements in quality, speed, intelligent recognition and automation for the distributed capture category. These expanded benefits have driven the creation of sub-segments within the distributed capture; including workgroup, departmental, and networked scanners. Let’s take a quick look at what I call Distributed Capture 2.0 to see what technological advances and innovations in distributed scanning have brought us.

Workgroup and departmental scanners — differing in scanning speeds and throughput specifications — provide individuals a dedicated capture unit for digitizing documents at an early stage of overall workflow. These scanners have provided desktop applications for a variety of industries, from legal to healthcare, enabling workers to meet compliance standards and better share and archive their information. In the last couple of years or so, a new sub category, lower workgroup scanners or personal workgroup scanners, have been offering similar benefits, but are integrating better affordability and portability for the small office and home office market. This sub segment has also made it feasible for those who often do business on the road, such as insurance claim agents, to process information faster and more effectively. Overall, the workgroup and distributed scanners’ small size coupled with intuitive one-touch functions enable virtually any knowledge-based worker to easily implement document capture into their daily workflow.

One-touch functions are also mainstay of networked scanning, combining the benefits of a dedicated scanner without the need for dedicated computer operation as the scanner takes advantage of programs and devices already on the network. Networked scanners are finding favor with businesses whose individual employees may not need individual capture devices but do require a method for capturing, extracting and sharing critical information via an easy to use package. This segment will continue to provide increasing opportunities for SMBs to realize the total value of their existing information.

Technologies, range of options and tools to meet your needs are constantly expanding. Additionally, extensive service and support packages provide further enhancements, especially for businesses with a limited knowledge of document imaging.

Through these innovations, we’re observing how distributed capture is not only changing how document capture better serves current end users, but also the landscape of who the average end users will be in the future. As technologies become more intelligent, easier to use, more accessible and more affordable for more customers, the industry will also begin to see more pre-packaged solutions for a variety of vertical industries. The continued advancements in imaging hardware and software will move distributed capture beyond the primary benefits of document scanning towards highly specialized applications for information management solutions.

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