Over the last few years, companies have been focused on consolidating their heterogeneous print infrastructure and standardising their portfolio strategy. In the meantime, it has become increasingly obvious that requests for Managed Print Services have become ever more complex.
Businesses these days are searching for an IT partner that can offer a holistic solution and that can take on responsibility for the securing of output processes across departments and around the globe, no matter if that’s output from home, business premises or production.
Serverless, follow-you and mobile printing are already state of the art and due to the technological possibilities of today’s printing systems plus changes in the workplace, security and cloud printing are also becoming increasingly important.
None of this is really new and is directly connected to printing a single page. However, the digital natives that make up Generation Z along with the lack of a skilled workforce are driving business to get a handle on their documentation and information logistics. The primary focus is to optimise document processes and make them available from anywhere within the corporate structure. What’s more, authorisation workflows and direct feedback or assignment of documents to the respective process are generated.
Other reasons for advancing digitalisation in this field are the greater availability of information plus the increase in efficiency and savings potential. With optimized filing and intelligent linking of documents and files, up to the following results can be achieved:
- 75% faster filing
- 84% faster access
- 60% more digitisation
In which areas can digital workflows help businesses?
In general, digital workflows can be used everywhere within companies and accelerate and improve the way they work. Here are a few examples from different areas:
- Accounts payable scan invoices and receipts before identifying, indicating and saving them—according to customer and suppler— in secured folders
- Purchasing scans, distributes and indicates documents such as offers and tenders using barcodes
- Customer services scan contracts and reports into the customer data system and e-mail documents to customers
- Accounting scans indexes and stores contracts as searchable or editable text directly in the case management system
- The health industry shares documents between Hl7-compliant patient file systems
- HR scans indexes and links CVs, forms, employee data etc. in a DMS
How can digital workflows be leveraged?
It really depends on knowing the individual processes and to connect across departments in order to understand the information lifecycle throughout the company. Contacts with the company are the first port of call in the individual departments.
Information sources include multi-function printing systems (MFPs), PCs, smartphones, tablets, MDEs and also information coming directly from the departments themselves.
During processing, a distinction is made between the following evolutionary stages:
Digital document logistics
- Generation of enriched documents
- Context-based information enrichment
- Watermarks
- Redaction of texts
- Distribution for better digital processing
- Text recognition (OCR)
- Barcodes
- RPA (Robotic Process Automation)
Digital information logistics
- Native information processing of application input and output.
- No media disruption
The development of target definitions and the resulting implementation are based on the results of analyses carried out with the support of the departments.
What does that mean for your print infrastructure?
The volume of printouts is going to dramatically reduce in the coming years. It won’t just be the functionality of the end devices that grows in importance, but also their scan and application capabilities. Traditional print concepts that are characterised by strict contract periods and defined print volumes reduce the savings potential and hinder digitalisation across the company. Dependencies between hardware, software and services are becoming greater. On top of this is the fact that the technical requirements of each individual department (e.g. offices and production) will no longer be able to be fulfilled following a “one vendor” strategy.
Find out what Bechtle can do for you.
In PP 2000 Business Integration AG, Bechtle has a group of experts in the field of Managed Print Services. The company has nearly 30 years of experience in a wide variety of industries. From IT logistics, services, solutions and operations, PP 2000 BI AG offers everything from a single source and acts as an integrated IT solutions partner with a focus on digital document and information logistics.
We’ll support you to...
- analyse your existing processes
- select the best components
- define target processes
- Launch implementation and operations
Want to find out more? Get in touch!
