Digital Transformation and The Evolving Role of Data and Information Management

by Emma Isichei | 2/15/16
Everyone talks about digital transformation. How do you define it? Originally, the term “digital transformation” was used to describe the digitization of paper documents and processes. Now digital transformation essentially means the transformation of all business activities to be more competitive in today’s digital economy. Putting digital transformation at the center of the universe ranges from technologies and processes to connecting business divisions, systems, partner ecosystems, employees, and devices.

It’s not as much a technological phenomenon as it is a business requirement. Forrester’s Martin Gill nailed it in the title of his recent blog post: “Don’t Build a Digital Strategy; Digitize Your Business Strategy“.

Information is the lifeblood of digital transformation. When IDC said that information is at the core of the new digital ecosystem earlier this year, this confirmed what information management professionals and digital business practitioners already know quite well: that the way organizations (don’t) deal with information will define whether they will succeed in years to come or not.

Despite this fact, many organizations are only at the beginning of developing the holistic information management and activation capabilities that will enable them to unlock the value of information. Organizations are overwhelmed with an increasing flood of unstructured data. With the Internet of Things, the sheer volume will grow in an even more exponential way. One thing is certain — data alone is useless without a holistic and connected strategy, all the way from capture to output in whatever the desired shape or form.

The role of data accuracy in unlocking the value of information

As mentioned in a recent blog post, Gartner estimated that on average, poor data quality costs organizations $14.2 million annually, so there’s clearly an opportunity for organizations to improve in the area of data accuracy.

Here are some ways to improve data accuracy during capture.

Automation. Manual data entry is prone to errors and human errors overall are among the main reasons of data quality issues. It’s important to automate where it makes sense and avoid the ‘bad data in’ where human mistakes lead to financial losses and slow processes, essentially also resulting in missed revenues and hidden costs. Automating manual processes regarding data input is all the more important today as data is a key asset in the digital business.

Document capture excellence. A lot of data still comes from paper sources, often standing in the way of digital transformation. But paper will not go away any time soon for so many reasons. So, let’s just make digitization better! To ensure the accuracy of the information that sits in paper documents and enhance efficiency it’s important to choose document scanners that enable the best image quality, among others with integrated image processing.

Professional capture software. Hardware alone is not enough: the capture software plays a critical role too. It can help avoid costly human errors while enhancing efficiency and data quality.

Processes. Processes are key, regardless of data source or channel. And even if you use the best document scanners, capture software and other data capturing sources, the processing and routing of the information across various connected systems needs to be fast, correct and streamlined.

Close to the source. Capturing close to the source with the best capture solutions and streamlining information processes means a world of difference for business efficiency. And it helps you save a lot of money. This goes for paper documents where the need to capture close to the point of entry is known to reduce errors and speed up processes but also for many other ways of information and data capture where we want to shorten the time between capture or ‘data in’ and output or ‘data out’. While data is a core asset, speed is a key differentiator in an age where the right information needs to be available in the best and most rapid way without any loss of data quality.

Emma Isichei is category director, Capture Solutions at Kodak Alaris. For more information, please visit the Kodak Alaris website.