The Transformation of Document Capture

There is a quiet transformation going on in the document capture market regarding how the very nature of the business is articulated. This transformation, or evolution, is driven

The transformation involves the use of the term "document capture" itself. With the exponential growth of business software used in the olfice such as e-mail or Microsoft Office applications, along with the prolileration of Web-based business content, the term "document capture" dues nut encompass all the durerent types of information that can be gathered in everyday business processes.

For example, think of all the different forms of communication that a company uses to interact with its customers: everything lrom e-mail to technical-support calls to Web chats to hardcopy direct-mail pieces to white papers in PDF lormat. Now, consider how all of this information is aggregated, and then used to derive tangible business value. Many businesses have found that the business applications and processes in which they have invested millions of dollars, such as an enterprise-wide e-mail system, are not yielding measurable ROI (return on investment) from a business-intelligence standpoint. The question then becomes how to derive business value from everyday tools, such as e-mail, Web chats, technical support calls, etc. Therein lies the true transformation from "document capture" to the broader, more comprehensive "information capture."

Why is "information capture" as a term more appropriate? Because new technologies are driving a new but fundamental need in the market; the need tu capture information from unstructured data. In fact, industry analysts estimate that structured information only accounts for 20 percent of the data that businesses need to capture, while unstructured data amounts for as much as 80 percent.

Successful document capture vendors are automating their software's capabilities to capture not just paper or forms but also other media such as video, audio, computer file documents, e-mail, and online content. Automating the capture and classification of these types of unstructured data ultimately will simplify the complexity of information capture and enable businesses to more efficiently record business transactions and deliver information into a workflow system.

Businesses looking for an information capture solution now must consider products that accommodate structured, semi-structured, and unstructured paper and data content. The ability to effectively capture all types of information leads to faster processing of all document types, the elimination ol manual classification processes, a lower cost of ownership, and significantly higher value for virtually every enterprise application that "touches" the customer.