FACT CHECKED
Do you know that according to McKinsey, almost 70% of digital transformations fail? Of the many stumbling blocks, the absence of an OCR reader is one major cause. We assume you all are aware of this technology. If not, let’s recapitulate a bit and then proceed into its significance for businesses interested in digital adoption.
Running Through an OCR Reader for an Instant Recall
[“Converting printed texts to digitized copy”]
OCR – an acronym of Optical Character Recognition/ Reader indicates the conversion of handwritten or print texts into editable and searchable machine-encoded text. It’s a data extraction process from images and scanned documents to offer you a digitized copy that can be processed and accessed at your will.
Significance of OCR Readers to Companies Adopting Digital Transformation Strategies
The key benefits of digital adoption are recognized by one and all. The pandemic has killed whatever little doubts that were left, as stated by Divyesh Dalal – the head of DBS Bank. Therefore, it’s high time you leverage digital tools like OCR to automate business processes, streamline workflows, boost stakeholder satisfaction, and lower costs. For more inspiration, check out the business benefits of embracing OCR readers.
Now that you have a rough idea of OCR and digital adoption, let’s stop beating around the bush. Dive straight into how the prior can help you achieve the latter: –
- By enabling data analytics
If you are eager to adopt digitalization, start by capturing data from unstructured formats and analyzing them. However, the biggest roadblock to achieving it is that data is scattered across physical forms, documents, and correspondence. Luckily, OCR technology allows users to access them. Once retrieved, you can analyze them and draw meaningful insights about market trends, customer preferences and do so much more.
- By improving customer experiences
All would agree to digital adoption as a resort to tweaking customer experiences. An OCR reader enables the same through automation of documentation procedures in a bid to free up manpower. Now, what do you think this workforce would do? They would go the extra mile to exceed client expectations by converting unstructured data into searchable text for further analysis. This is how businesses can identify the problem areas, work on them and take them as opportunities to draw client satisfaction.
- By supporting RPA
One of the entry-level approaches to adopt digitalization is Robotics Process Automation, or simply RPA. It streamlines back-office procedures by automating repetitive tasks. However, integrating RPA requires easy access to machine-readable data, and probably the only way to extract so is via OCR. If you can successfully leverage the technology, you can best feel the upsides of RPA – boosted productivity, enhanced accuracy, and lower costs from freeing up manpower.
- By automating content processing
As discussed already, digitalization is the automation of processes. This includes content as well. An Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered OCR pulls necessary information from documents and uses them to fill up forms. An exemplary case is the identity verification process or digitizing IDs. Authorities can extract them from IDs to fill in forms for official tasks.
Looking to own an OCR scanner? You have got two choices – physical and online. Decide the suitable one by referring to the pros and cons of OCR devices and apps.
These are a few of the major reasons why OCR readers are absolute necessities for the successful adoption of digitalization. Apart from the stated ones, there are a few things we would like to draw your attention to.
Why do you think businesses are desperately adopting digitalization? To reduce operational costs, put an end to the exhausting manual processes, and boost business productivity. OCR makes them all possible. Let’s check how: –
- Consider the role of some human resources. They mostly spend their time entering customer details manually. If you can free them up through the successful integration of OCR reader services, you can eliminate the operation costs.
- Similarly, you can cut down on overall expenses, gone into the record-keeping process. OCR can empower you to automate the data entry task and eliminate costs by 66%. This applies to both small and medium-sized businesses.
- Lastly, you can lower the probabilities of human error from manual data entry. OCR assures so through mechanization.
Don’t you think digitalization has the same set of objectives as discussed above? Nothing could have been possible without this reader technology. Agree? There is no wonder why the OCR market size is expected to expand at 16.7% CAGR within the timeline of 2021 and 2028!
Optical Character Recognition Use Cases
Let’s look into some cases in different industry verticals to check how OCR readers have simplified the operations. This way, you can figure out why technology is critical for taking a step towards digitalization.
- Banking – Perhaps the largest user of reader technology is the banking sector. Today, cheque clearances take little time. Thanks to OCR! It scans the details, instantly converts them to digital text, and validates signatures without involving human resources.
[“Scanning a cheque”]
- Healthcare – Apart from helping doctors to access the medical history of patients from a single location, healthcare OCR assists with inventory planning and formulation of health policies.
[“Doctor accessing medical record of a patient”]
- Legal – This sector involves maximum paperwork. The scanner allows a legal team to store everything in a database and access them when needed to solve innumerable cases. The legal documents can be anything here – affidavits, wills, filings, or statements.
- Supply Chain Management – Locating items within a supply chain can be tricky. Not anymore! OCR deserves all the appreciation for scoring high in efficiency, even when compared to barcodes. Its software scanner can interpret expiry dates, lot codes, serial numbers, and barcodes. The same is necessary to track an item through the usual stages of the supply chain – packaging, palletizing, labeling, etc.
[“Use of OCR in a warehouse”]
- Insurance – Claim processing nowadays occurs at lightning speed. No, we are not exaggerating but highlighting the role played by OCR in the same sector.
- Tourism – Another staggering contribution of OCR is experienced in the tourism industry. Tourists can now check-in without any hassle simply by scanning their passports over mobile applications and websites.
- Communication – An astounding contribution of OCR to ease communication is Google Translate technology. From digitizing books to unstructured documents to enable users to interpret any language, today, everything is possible in the presence of technology.
- Retail – Lastly, the retail sector too has benefited from the integration of reader technology. Customers can redeem vouchers simply by scanning serial codes through their mobile devices. Isn’t that great?
Likewise, there are plenty of ways to utilize OCR, and when teamed up with NLP (Natural Language Processing), it can empower you in Semantic Analysis.
Embark on the Digital Adoption Journey with OCR Reader!
If you are to unlock the full potentials of digitalization, begin with OCR Reader! It enables all to leverage data at hand through automation and document digitization. Since data is at the heart of the latter, you can now get quick access to them and streamline processes to enjoy massive returns on investment.
