Records for Life: Utilizing Digital Archiving in Business Transformation

Making the switch from traditional to digital archiving can be the catalyst of revolutionary growth in productivity for governments and businesses. Digital archiving is more than just the conversion of documents into digital form—it’s the streamlining and simplification of workflow, the transformation into smart archives, and the growth of increased efficiency and productivity in the workplace with the help of scanners.

Epson WorkForce DS-1630

For Epson, a global leader in technology solutions, transitioning to smart archiving eliminates numerous obstacles that hinder productivity and organizational growth within the workforce.

“Traditional record archiving often takes up tremendous space, leaves more room for human error - such as mislabelling, misplacing, and damaging documents - and ultimately results in downtime rather than focusing on tasks that will benefit the business,” said Ed Bonoan, General Manager of Marketing Division at Epson Philippines. “In certain businesses, this human error is tolerable. However, in certain industries such as healthcare, human error or inefficiency has dire consequences.”

Transforming Business Productivity

All industries are seeing immense transformation due to digitization, and the healthcare industry is one that is perhaps delivering the greatest impact due to it. The increase of digital archiving has allowed for the industry to provide innovative services to their patients, especially amidst a pandemic—from streamlined and efficient patient care, to the uptake of telehealth or telemedicine, to hospitals being able to share cases with one another. In healthcare, digital archiving is improving quality of life by delivering true impact to patients, ensuring that all records are up-to-date, resulting in real life difference. Although scanning has specific uses in this industry, it shares similarities with other businesses in terms of the impact digital archiving delivers.

With the innovation found in today’s scanners, organizations can reduce their storage space by housing a scanner in the corner of the office. Epson, the market leader in document scanners in the Southeast Asia region, makes this possible with its compact and innovative scanners. Within the workspace, digitizing traditional archives provides a more efficient way of operating and ensuring that the businesses have a consolidated archive that is easy to access and extract information. In addition, digitally archiving or embedding digital documentation has also opened a new avenue for businesses to retain and obtain new customers.

“Today, convenience is a top consumer and business priority, as it is a way to address administrative issues on the go. With the ability to scan documents from a mobile phone, signing documents on applications like DocuSign and the infinite storage potential of the cloud, businesses that leverage digital documentation are not restricted by the traditional brick and mortar method of traditional archiving,” said Bonoan. “Scanning to the cloud not only makes archiving and retrieving these documents faster and more convenient, but also lowers environmental impact by reducing mailing and the need for additional paper and printing.”

As technology continues its evolution to place customers at the center of businesses, there is an immense need for businesses to have all their customer’s information consolidated. Unlike traditional archiving where documents are dispersed across different storage, digital archives and the technology available allows for businesses to have a single source of information—information that is accurate, reliable, and immediately accessible.

“With the consolidation, people from the same organization are able to access the same information, which in return will allow them to provide the same level of personal service to their customers, ensuring that the customer value is consistent through the entire journey,” said Bonoan.

Sustainability in New Ways of Working

Perhaps one of the most overlooked benefits of scanning is that it is sustainable. In organizations where documents are confidential in nature, by digitally sharing these documents, organizations can reduce the need to mail and courier documents. This results in a reduced risk of losing confidential information, and more importantly, a huge reduction in carbon footprint.

“Ultimately, it is important to find the solutions that match your organization’s needs without compromising on efficiency and sustainability,” said Bonoan. “For many businesses and industries, digitally archiving documents is an impactful way to increase productivity within an organization that has been traditional in their ways, while driving sustainable growth.”