A Brief Guide to Scanning

DOCUMENT SCANNING

1. Why scan at all?

• 
  The most up-to-date and dynamic business information belonging to an organisation is held in
  computer systems and can usually be retrieved, processed and distributed quickly, easily and at
  will.
• 
  This, however, is usually a tiny proportion of the legacy data that is held in paper documents
  that are held in various locations, formats and states of disorganisation.
• 
  Access to this data is rare, and usually less than 1% is ever needed, but there is no way of
  knowing which and the whole lot must be kept.
• 
  If a file is removed for any reason, it is quite often not returned with the same care that attended
  its original placement, which can result in that document being effectively lost.
• 
  Worst-case scenario of a lost document varies from one organisation to another, but it can be
  terminal, as in the case of a well known transport company that folded under the weight of
  uncollected debts resulting from its inability to find PODs.

 o  Office-workers spend between 30 and 40% of their time doing non-productive                               document related tasks – Gartner Group survey
o   80% of managers and directors of SMEs spend at least an hour each day looking for
documents – YouGov survey
o   Managers spend up to 25% of their time searching for information – Accenture survey

 Conclusion: Scanning of documents to a well-constructed electronic document management system can save time and money expended in searching for documents and guarantees that none will ever be lost.

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