Lyra Symposium Ed Schmid Keynote

Editor's Notes

• #3: Historically, the automated processing of business documents required a centralized scanning, QC and data entry team, along with dedicated/expensive capture software and specialized high speed scanners. Because of the way production capture systems are designed and function, a centralized system requires very high volumes of the same paper form in order to deliver a reasonable ROI – 10,000-100,000 per month. A centralized approach supports the notion of distributed scanning, but only in the sense that remote scan stations feed into the centralized TEAM to process, and do data entry. These systems fill a niche in the market, but their centralized architecture and processing approach puts them out of the reach of 95% of the people who can benefit from automated document processing solutions. Further, they are so specialized and require extensive training, they are not a solution that can be leveraged throughout the office. You wouldn't expect an office worker to learn how to operate a specialized high speed scanner and learn about virtual rescan or batch classifications, for example.
• #4: Let’s take a look at where production scanning and the other types of document imaging software fit within the overall document imaging software market. As you move higher on this chart, the characteristics of the document imaging process change. The higher you are on the chart, the scanning is completed in a centralized process and processes like indexing are automated. Here technologies like barcode recognition, zonal OCR, forms recognition and automated redaction are more frequently employed. As you move lower, processes are less repeatable and there is mixed types of content being scanned. Indexing and routing are handled by the individual that is scanning and are typically not automated with barcodes or zonal OCR. While the top bubble represents the production scanning market. The bottom bubble represents the ad hoc space, where scan to e-mail and scan to file typically are included. The growth area is the Business Process Automation space. This is where technologies from production software are mated with ad hoc ease of use. The processes that are addressed by BPA document imaging software typically are repeatable tasks like invoice processing, especially in remote offices, but the documents are scanned and processed by the document owner and not a production scanning specialist. BPA is the growth market and software providers coming from the Ad Hoc market are trying to move up while those in the Production market are trying to move down.
• #5: An obvious conclusion when comparing the markets is to bring production capture capabilities, which are more mature and sophisticated, to the MFP capture industry, but in a way that is easy enough for anyone to use. That means automating processes with advanced software, but in a way that there is no need for a highly trained document imaging specialist who have spent hours mastering sophisticated software and specialized high speed scanner. There is no need to learn about concepts like virtual rescan or batch classifications, for example. Adding documents to advanced workflows should be as easy or even easier than making a copy. Nuance believes the market for this is significant and that MFPs have tooled up to the point where they provide the right platform. MFPs are already in every office. Office workers are already used to them. Their networked and provide powerful scanning capabilities. Plus, more and more devices have the large screens and keyboards that are required for advance workflows. Finally the MFP manufacturers’ SDKs are reaching the point where advanced applications can now be integrated with the devices.
• #6: Of course, MFP capture all started with scan-to-e-mail and every MFP vendor now provides this capability.
• #7: But there was a major barrier for document imaging at the MFP to move beyond scan-to-e-mail to more sophisticated applications and workflows. The barrier was a common platform across MFP brands. You can’t really have significant applications available if the market doesn’t offer a universal platform for application developers. They need to be able to write one application software connector and have it work across MFP brands. Otherwise it’s just not viable for application providers to create the same integration for all the proprietary MFP brands and devices. I’m pleased to say that Nuance has now resolved this issue, making it possible to have one development environment across all the MFP Platforms as well as scanners.
• #8: When it comes to integrating devices with business applications, you have to think beyond the MFP to the desktop. Some workflows require that the document be sent back to the desktop where they can be merged with previously electronic documents and modified using advanced technologies including zonal OCR, forms recognition or converted into different formats in batch using advanced document imaging software.
• #9: While some document workflows require that the document be placed directly into business applications from the MFP … others require that the documents are connected to applications via the users Desktop. MFP capture must facilitate both requirements in a easy to use “no training required” process.
• #10: Connecting to business applications is an important step that MFP manufacturers have recognized as critical to providing the advanced capabilities that will open powerful new markets for the office equipment channel. But the story doesn’t end there. MFPs can connect directly to advanced document services that automate business processes, in many cases taking the low value added drudgery out of office workers’ lives. For example, In the legal industry, documents can be scanned and automatically converted to searchable PDF documents and, at the same time, certain text strings can be automatically redacted … so for example every time a person’s name appears in the document it is automatically redacted. A customer number can be automatically extracted from a form and the data stored in a data base. Documents can be scanned and automatically converted to a format for reading on the new tablet e-Readers that Amazon, Apple and others are just now introducing into the market. Barcodes can be read, meta data associated with the document and the it can be stored automatically in the right business application.
• #11: New York City Housing is a good example of the distributing the production scanning capabilities to your average office worker. In this example, the MFP is not only a device that scans the document but it also facilitates the quality control by playing back the data that is read by the zonal OCR software. In this example the Tenant number is read and the MFP prompts the user to confirm that the change form applies to the right user. Then a change is read and the Oracle Siebel system is updated in real time. Typically this would have been handled with a production capture system and it could have taken days for the form to travel by interoffice mail and put in the queue to be scanned by the operator and then sent back to the original user for QC. This becomes a faster and more efficient process by pushing the document capture out to the document owner.
• #12: So how do you position your organization to get ready for these new capabilities that will be available to the office equipment channel. As yourself these four questions. Can you place your organization in the ideal category? What will it take to get there?
• #13: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk with you. Nuance is a global company… publicly traded with more than 4K employees. It holds leadership positions in speech and document imaging markets. There are over 100 million licenses shipped of Nuance document imaging products. In the MFP capture segment of the document imaging market, we hold the dominant share of the market with 54% according to Harvey Spencer Associates.