Loading ...
brandonmount
Other
DIR - Document Imaging Report
5
0
Try Now
Log In
Pricing
Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 1 Table Of Contents Who’s Clueless About Digital Transformation? 2 Digital Transformation Challenges – and Opportunities: Research Roundup 3 TWAIN Direct Web Scanning Finds an Audience at the Capture Conference 2022 With TWAIN Direct Developers Day for Hands-on Development 12 The DIR Interview: Elena Drecheva 17 Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 2 Who’s Clueless About Digital Transformation? According to research, just about every executive is clueless about how to make digital transformation a reality rather than an aspiration. For IT industry veterans, this probably isn't a huge shock, right? Year after year and new technology after new technology, executives glom onto the next "silver bullet" that's going to kill the werewolf of London (apologies, that song is playing in the background as I write this). As we all know, there is no technology silver bullet. What there is, though, is an incredible set of technologies that improve customer service, save money (and time), and can increase revenue. For now, many of these initiatives are grouped under "digital transformation" as companies move on from manual, paper-based processe to automated, digital processes. I'm sure that in a decade, we'll be calling this something different. I've pulled together statistics from a range of research papers to try to see where the industry stands. We also have an overview of a new TWAIN initiative as well as our second DIR interview. Thanks for reading. Bryant Duhon, Editor-in-Chief bdu@info-source.com Comments, criticsms, and witticsms welcomed. Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 3 And while businesses are keen on taking advantage of technology to hyperautomate their digital transformation strategies with intelligent, AI-centric automation (sorry, I thought I’s see how it felt to string a bunch of terms together), many have no idea what they’re doing. This sounds like a great opportunity for software vendors. Let’s discuss. I led with that quote because as bullish as everyone is about digital transformation, they stink at it. Companies don’t seem to know what they’re doing when it comes to digital transformation. Same as it ever was, right? Anyone in the IT space has seen executives chase the next bright, shiny object in the hopes of a silver bullet while ignoring the hard work and the technologies that are already working and could help them achieve their business goals. Over the past few months, I’ve come across a variety of research reports from different sources. Looked at as a whole, the landscape of intelligent automation becomes a little less blurry. Let’s say, less Monet and more Manet or Degas (still impressionistic, but a little sharper). Bret Taylor — Vice Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Of□cer, Salesforce, 01 June 2022 “And the common theme from the customers I’ve met with, from Singapore to New York to the 30 CEOs I met one-on-one with at Davos last week, is the digital transformation trends that dramatically accelerated during the pandemic, they continue full steam ahead despite all the volatility in the global economy.” Digital Transformation Challenges – and Opportunities: Research Roundup Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 4 I found the headline above from an article depressing, though not surprising. I’ve often shared the story of, literally, the □rst IT article I ever read. I’m pretty sure it was an eWeek piece. I don’t recall the exact title, but the gist of the article was “determine your business goals and objectives, then purchase the IT tools that will help you achieve those goals.” “Well, duh,” I thought to myself at the time. Years later, I just think “oh, sweet summer child, how little you knew!” Before reviewing the research, I’m just going to quote this : delightful segment of an article from ZDnet “Well, this survey of 1,475 senior business leaders – who, remarkably, still have jobs at companies with more than 500 employees all over the world – offers quite a few clues. Here was my favorite: 70% could not identify exactly who is responsible for managing the adoption of new technologies in their organization. This does sound slightly twerpish. They buy lots of fancy technology and then imagine what, exactly? That all the Gen Z employees will teach all the Boomer employees how to use it? Please clutch that 70% □gure closely to your warm self while I offer the next glorious nugget: 67% of these □ne leaders say they're under "incredible pressure" to accelerate digital transformation.” The article above is a response to sponsored by WalkMe. The State of Digital Adoption 2022-2023 It gets worse: 60% of enterprises say change management programs are “no longer □t for purpose” 63% of enterprises say a one-size-□ts-all approach to technology support and training “isn’t applicable” 62% of enterprises are “concerned” that a lack of understanding of new applications is increasing risk Essentially, reading this data, digital transformation “leaders” are literally throwing money away by Executives Are Clueless About Digital Transformation Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 5 Opportunity In This Cluelessness To put into perspective how much money is being wasted: the WalkMe study found that, on average, large enterprises spent $104 million on digital transformation and software. The graphic here shows the portion of digital transformation spend – there is a lot of money to be made. □. Not taking the time to understand the business objectives and then choosing the right technology □. When they buy technology, even if they stumble into the right tool(s) – even a blind squirrel □nds the occasional nut, right? – there’s no training infrastructure in place to take advantage of the technology. This is a SNA . . . , a cluster . . . , this is a mess. The respondents to the survey then seemingly throw their employees under the bus. Notice the phrasing on this question: “60% of decision makers are concerned about whether digital projects will provide the expected ROI because end users aren’t adopting the technology quickly enough.” Soooooo, after haphazardly choosing technology and then providing poor support, it’s the users’ fault. No wonder there’s an epidemic of silent quitting. Gartner’s Q2 2022 IT Spend Forecast says that global IT spend will be $4.4 trillion this year and increase 5.5% in 2023. “Leaders” like the ones in the quote above will continue to throw money at a problem with not idea of how to solve it. Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 6 And then here’s what the research showed as spend wasted – some of which could have been saved with better adoption practices. Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 7 Note that I’m not arguing that all of this digital transformation spend is related to this industry (though wouldn’t that be fantastic?). However, given how fundamental work□ow and capture are for digital transformation, there’s at least of chunk of spend on this industry in the above numbers. From my perspective, there’s a huge opportunity for the IT market, this one included, to serve as real resources for these executives. I know that some will remain clueless. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it think after all. Still, holding an executive’s hand throughout their digital transformation initiative should pay off in both immediate sales and lock you in for future sales (assuming your product keeps pace with changing industry trends). Hopefully, no one is so unscrupulous as to sell a poor □t to a clueless executive just because you can, right? asked 300 survey respondents what “unstructured data processing” solutions they are currently using and looking to install. I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen a set of numbers that better illustrates the ongoing opportunity for capture technology. Research from the Intelligent Automation Network Basically, everyone who hasn’t implemented these tools yet is looking to implement these tools. Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 8 echoes this opportunity. One of their 14 trends is “Applied AI” which they de□ne as “models trained in machine learning can be used to solve classi□cation, prediction, and control problems to automate activities, add or augment capabilities and offerings, and make better decisions.” McKinsey Technology Trends Outlook 2022 McKinsey gives this trend an adoption score of 4 (out of 5) and $165 billion in investment in 2021. Of course, that’s a broader trend, but it encompasses – as near as I can tell – the tools all of you sell and purchase. Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 9 Talent Gap and Buying Shifts So the perennial low-hanging fruit in this industry – AP, invoices, etc. – looks to remain low hanging based on this shift in where the AP function is going to be doing its work in the future. has some interesting nuggets: DX Talent Reimagined I’ve lost track of how many conversations I’ve had over the years about how the core business objectives enabled by this industry have remained unchanged – automating □nancial processes and improving customer service. The emphasis on customer service isn’t new for this industry – automating forms, digital signatures, and making documents available to customers have always been important strategies to improve customer service. Neither is a focus on accounts payable. I like the concept of removing friction in the report. It has this interesting nugget: Global State of Operational Excellence from BTOES "44.3% of organizations are utilizing Operational Excellence methodologies to achieve Customers Delight, which is now a front and center focus of Operational Excellence programs. Customers want all the friction taken out of their customer journey." Research reinforces the emphasis on customer service. The top response, by far, to “What do you think is the MOST IMPORTANT ingredient in your digital transformation strategy” was 34% for enriching customer experience in all aspects of the business. AIIM State of the Intelligent Information Management Industry Then, of course, there’s accounts payable. You’re all aware of the use cases for accounts payable in this industry. Research from Ardent Partners, while focused on procurement trends in general, has this nugget relevant to this industry: “One area that appears forever changed is the workplace. New Ardent Partners research reveals that post-pandemic, the workplace for most AP and procure-to-pay pros (85%) will mean some version of hybrid work. Less than 10% of P2P teams plan to return to the of□ce full time, while only 6% plan to be fully remote. Given the potential impact of a permanent shift to hybrid or remote work on employee productivity and morale, workforce-related decisions should be clearly explained and closely managed.” Eliminating Friction for Customers and Financial Processes Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 10 “In a survey conducted by Gartner, IT executives see the talent shortage as the most signi□cant adoption barrier to 64% of emerging technologies surpassing implementation cost (29%) and security risk (7%). An eye-opening report released by Korn Ferry predicts that by 2030 there will be a global shortage of more than 85 million tech workers, representing $8.5 trillion in lost annual revenue.” And, of course, the ongoing talent shortage (I also wrote about this in the 4.25.22 issue of DIR). This is becoming a strategic priority for business, 67% of Talent Reimagined respondents consider closing the RPA and intelligent automation talent gap is a strategic priority. (And while this particular piece of research may focus too much on a what is becoming a commoditized technology – RPA, which doesn’t distract from the overall implications of the research.) Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 11 shows that only 26% of technical investments are funded entirely by the IT organization. As we all know, cloud/software-as-a-service has been shifting IT provisioning from capital expense to operational expense for the last 20-odd years. This isn’t really surprising. Gartner research from earlier in the year What I thought interesting is this: “Gartner research found that 41% of employees are , creating technology or analytics capabilities for internal or external business use and reporting outside of IT departments. In a world where most technologists work outside the corporate IT department, literally anyone could be a technology buyer for their organization.” business technologists There’s also a split in funding approaches based on what’s being purchased: Hardware, technology services, and managed services are most often funded by IT Software and integrated solutions, funding by multiple departments and IT is most common This obviously makes it more dif□cult to identify the right buyer in an organization. Another task for hardware and software vendors is to identify how a project is being funded. In the Gartner survey, 75% of respondents said that there were delays for shared funding approaches. The IA Network research showed one potential answer – or at least part of the answer – to overcoming the talent gap: upskilling. A Gallup survey in 2021 points out 65% of workers consider the chance to participate in an upskilling program extremely or very important when taking a job, and 61% when considering whether or not to stay in a job. Companies are beginning to upskill existing tech workers (52%). (sponsored by Pega) notes that the role of IT will change. What’s unclear now is how low/no code and cloud outsourcing will impact the ability of companies’ digital transformation efforts. The Future of IT Report Key takeaways include: Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 12 What’s It All Mean? The decentralization and dispersion of IT tasks will see IT more integrated across enterprises, requiring deeper knowledge of the business. Those who understand their industry best and can lead it into the digital future will rise to the top. The industry-speci□c IT professional will play a crucial role. IT executives will gain more power as digital innovation becomes increasingly critical to the bottom line over other functions. Meanwhile, IT managers’ jobs will shift dramatically as they’re freed from IT management tasks like database and network maintenance. Those who reskill and adapt the quickest will thrive. IT executives will become even more valued. Things like recoding, IT management, and data management will be automated or outsourced to the cloud in many circumstances. Hands-on IT management skills will become less important. Oh, yes, “to the cloud.” I haven’t seen any research on this, but the question, in my mind, is that will cloud providers also feel the IT shortage pinch? Reading some research, it almost seems that there’s an IT future where the IT pros (in the sense of the people who know how to do the IT “grunt work” of coding, etc.) are concentrated in managed services, cloud, and Fortune 5000 companies. Nearly everyone else will have “IT management professionals” who understand the business and understand how to juggle a mostly or entirely outsourced IT stack. I’ve always shied away from making de□nitive predictions. However, after reading through a good chunk of research from a variety of sources, there are a few things about the evolution of this industry that I think are true: □. The functionality of capture and process/work□ow remains foundational to the success of any digital transformation initiative. □. The IT profession will fragment into IT folks who can “do” the coding and hard IT work and “IT Lite” pros who understand how to manage cloud services and maybe do some low-coding. Some business users will also become de facto IT assets with the ability to use low-code to create things like business work□ows. Whether or not this industry remains distinct – beyond the ongoing combination of the capture and process industries – I don’t know. If I did, I’d start making some prudent stock purchases! Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 13 TWAIN Direct Web Scanning Finds an Audience at the Capture Conference 2022 With TWAIN Direct Developers Day for Hands-on Development After several years of evangelizing their TWAIN Direct open-source, scanner RESTful API protocol, it seems that the TWAIN Working Group (TWG) has found an audience. As previously shared on DIR’s with the analogy of and our , the TWAIN Working Group (TWG) promised to load the train and head into the Capture Conference full-steam ahead and did they ever deliver! blog site The Little Engine That Could Capture Conference: Sneak Peak We recently attended the in Chicago where long- time sponsor, TWG once again sponsored the Capture Conference. Their sponsorship included a demonstration table as well as a 10-minute TWAIN Working Group and TWAIN Direct update. Infosource Capture Conference 2022 Since the in September 2019, at the Capture Conference 2019 as a matter of fact, TWG has been advocating for zero-footprint/no software installation of Web scanning applications connected DIRECTLY to hardware document scanners. of□cial introduction of TWAIN Direct Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 14 We’ve seen a lot of TWG’s efforts such as their , their , as well as their . This year at the Capture Conference, it seems that TWG’s marketing efforts are paying off in that each of these business value propositions was clear to the Capture attendees. In fact, we even noticed some of the other presenters and attendees using TWAIN Direct value concepts such as “removing possible points of failure,” “quicker capture deployments,” or “effective device and work□ow management.” There seemed to be some tangible collaboration opportunities to do integration projects, instead of just talking about these technology trends. “operating system agnostic” video “monetizing open-source software” webinar “bene□ts of TWAIN Direct for ISV’s” video Kevin Neal – TWAIN Working Group Marketing Chair at Infosource Capture Conference 2022 Opening Reception Kevin Neal, CEO of P3iD Technologies and Marketing Chair of TWAIN Working Group, represented the group at the conference with a tabletop display demonstrating the following: TWAIN Direct thin client web ethernet scanning with the Xerox D70n hardware- enabled desktop scanner TWAIN Direct thin client web scanning using USB scanners and the TWAIN Direct Bridge software Mobile devices as the user interface to use TWAIN Direct scanners which is a much better user experience for authentication and image preview Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 15 TWAIN Direct cutting the USB cable with hardware-embedded document scanners and zero-software installation He mentioned that eventually the group would like to see the TWAIN Direct technology inside of all scanner models because this is the most impressive way to utilize PC less scanning, but at least there is an option to retro-□t existing USB scanners to make them TWAIN Direct-compatible with TWAIN Direct Bridge. Overall, the attendees at the Capture Conference seemed to grasp the versatility of the TWAIN Direct architecture including push-scanning, pull-scanning, local or cloud deployments and, especially, the bene□ts of true thin client applications with zero software installation Kevin also provided a TWAIN Working Group presentation update on their activities over the past year. As a technology group, typically their updates have been heavily focused on technology, however this year they also provided a lot more details on marketing activities and events. The technology update was about the release of to incorporate additional features including barcode, patch code, image address, and printing. They also announce enhanced TWAIN Direct source code that will be exclusive for the upcoming and eventually be placed on their GitHub for developers to download and integrate this royalty-free, open-source software. TWAIN Classic 2.5 TWAIN Direct Developers Day Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 16 To gather real world feedback, TWG organized 3 Focus Groups last year which were small roundtable-type events and included industry experts in cloud infrastructure, capture software, RPA, cybersecurity, vertical market applications, and even blockchain, to name a few! By all accounts these Focus Groups seemed useful not only for TWG to gather feedback, but also value for the attendees to have an open conversation about what others are seeing in the marketplace. TWG has just announced another Focus Group to be held via Zoom on October 27 . If you would like to join one of these Focus Group sessions, please send an email to . th erin.dempsey@twain.org As a result of gathering feedback from the Focus Groups, plus their survey questions, as well as their weekly internal group meetings, one of the most requested items was to organize a hands-on event where both developers and business folks can spend some time together discussing everything TWAIN Direct related. For this reason, the TWAIN Working Group has their □rst TWAIN Direct Developers Day to be held on November 8 and 9 at the Safety Harbor Resort and Spa in Safety Harbor, Florida. They are encouraging on-site attendance to get the most out of the event but remote is also an option for those that can’t be there in-person. of□cially announced th th TWG’s “Why attend?” message says the following: “TWAIN Direct Developers Day is the most cost-effective way to develop a TWAIN Direct application in the shortest period of time with direct support from TWAIN Direct Guides on-site or online. If you are considering development/implementation of Network and/or Cloud scanning applications, this your event. If you want to TWAIN Direct-enable your scanners/applications that currently utilize TWAIN Classic drivers, this is your event.” Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 17 “The TWAIN Working Group is very excited about this inaugural event, by providing developers an opportunity to develop a TWAIN Direct scanning solution. The upcoming Developers Day will be a steppingstone for hardware manufacturers and software developers to experience for themselves how easy and quick the development of a TWAIN Direct application really is.” DIR is a proud media sponsor of TWAIN Direct Developers Day, along with technology sponsors Visioneer and Verve Corporation. You can view the TWAIN Direct Developers Day agenda . Additional technology and partner sponsorships are available from the TWAIN Working Group. here Purchase a developer seat, get more information or explore sponsorship by contacting or +1 (910) 574-6631. erin.dempsey@twain.org Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 18 Elena Drecheva has been the Managing Director of Konica Minolta Business Solutions Bulgaria since 2005. In fact, she was the □rst employee and has built up Konica Minolta’s presence in the country from the ground up. From her professional bio: Professional with more than 20 years’ experience in the technology sector, leading during both periods of explosive growth and in times of economic crisis. I believe that continual learning, empowering people, and building strong teams achieves success. I feel myself powerful in dynamically changing environment. Routine kills me. And I have hunger to win and curiosity for new insights. The recognition that “I” take responsibility to lead and am never a victim. It was truly a pleasure to speak with Elena, here is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. How did you get into the IT industry? Was it a choice or did it just happen? DIR: It mostly just happened. At university, I was studying business administration. I just wanted to see how it applied in real life. So I applied for an interim program at a Bulgarian company that was, at the time, the biggest IT solution provider in Bulgaria. And this is how it started and I'm already 23 years in this sector. Elena: Was that a Konica-af□liated company? DIR: No, they were a distributor of Toshiba and OKI brands. The company was sold and the new owners weren’t interested in developing that side of the business and I quit. A colleague from Canon Representative Of□ce in Bulgaria recommended me to their distributor. So I spent one year there developing the channel for them. Elena: The DIR Interview: Elena Drecheva Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 19 I then learned that Konica Minolta was looking for someone to establish the company in Bulgaria in 2005. I applied and I received a management contract to build the Konica Minolta presence in Bulgaria. I hadn’t realized that you were employee 1, so to speak, for Konica Minolta in Bulgaria. That’s fantastic. How large is the company now? DIR: We are roughly 80 people, with our headquarters here in the capitol, So□a, and physical of□ces in two major cities. In some of the other big cities, we have our own employees, mainly service engineers. We also have a service organization that covers the whole territory of Bulgaria. We can service all customers in Bulgaria. We have more than 2,200 customers in Bulgaria. We are monitoring more than 10,000 devices. Elena: We have digitalized a LOT of documents and automated a many processes that were paper-focused before. That’s obviously a huge accomplishment – growing a company from yourself to serving the entirety of Bulgaria. When you were presented with the opportunity, what most excited you about it? DIR: It was a big opportunity, of course. The most exciting piece was the freedom to choose a strategy and execute it. Konica Minolta usually starts with direct operations and then build the partner channel. My business plan and strategy was to start with the partner companies. Elena: This was the easier way because I knew a lot about the partner channel and, at that time, the market was open. We began with partners and then in 2010 developed the direct channel. The freedom to build the company as I imagined it (within the “rules” and guidance of Konica Minolta) was great. I also was able to choose my own team, one by one. So I know all 80 people that are working in Konica Minolta; some of them have been with me for over 10 years. I noticed mention of the “kaizen” concept in an interview you did. How does that concept affect how you operate as a Konica Minolta entity in Bulgaria? DIR: Yes, as an extension of a Japanese company, I was asked in that interview the pros and cons of working with a Japanese company and how that concept worked here. We have implemented the philosophy in our company. For example, we invest a lot of effort in making an informed decision. Once made, we stick to this decision and during the execution we stick to that. Elena: Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 20 From quality perspective, Japanese culture is to check and not send to the market something that is not working properly. While this sometimes causes delays and our competitors are in front of us, it also ensures that when we send something to the market the quality is there for the product or service. We plan a lot in Japanese companies. Previously, we had a □ve-year planning period, which decreased to four. Hopefully, this year we’ll be down to three years of very detailed planning. It’s hard to plan with so much uncertainty and to strike that balance of too much planning versus not enough. It’s interesting how you have been able to have so much freedom to build your company, but it’s within an overall very structured environment. DIR: What do you enjoy the most about what you do? I really enjoy the conversations with customers. While I'm as with them as I used to be because we have a really good sales team; co-creation with customers allows us to learn from them and they can also inspire new ideas for us. Elena: We have very good, close relationships with our customers. We are always trying new technologies and solutions. When we see something that works – or doesn’t work – with customers, we can use that information to keep going or stop projects with other customers. I also enjoy being kind of a role model for the people on my team. Sharing experiences and monitoring how they develop and grow and become professionals and market experts. I have really enjoyed working with the people and creating a culture of trust and self-development. So, the □ip side; what’s the least favorite part of your job? DIR: Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 21 Administrative work! That’s why we’ve digitized everything possible internally. Cut out the boring stuff so we can focus on the exiting work. Elena: One of the lines in your in your bio made me laugh a little bit, “Routine kills me.” If there’s one thing about IT, it’s constantly changing. Is that one reason this industry has been a good career □t for you? DIR: Yes. First, the technology is developing so fast you cannot be bored. Secondly, the company has continually transformed itself. We have a concept of the intelligent connected workplace. Under this roof, we have managed print services, managed video solution services, managed content services, cloud solutions, automation in process work□ows, and so on. Over the years I have really enjoyed working with the different portfolios creating. How can we use these concepts in different scenarios, manage these portfolios, and create our value proposition. It’s always interesting! Elena: We talked a little about this in the beginning; what is your role Managing Director in Bulgaria? DIR: My role is to create the strategy and ensure fast execution of the strategy. I also focus on being hyper aware of what is going on both internally and externally. My focus internally is identifying cross-functional resources that we can use to be more effective. Externally, I’m always looking for available opportunities for both new business and ideas to continue to motivate my team. Everything starts from the people and that’s really a major role for me – developing the team and constantly motivating them. Elena: Of course I also have KPIs that must be ful□lled as well. So businesswoman, mentor, and coach. Switching gears from the personal to Konica Minolta and the industry, how did COVID affect Konica Minolta in Bulgaria? DIR: While for many companies, the fast switch to a hybrid environment was disruptive for us we didn’t change how we worked very much. The big change was in our core business of printing services and having people working at home. There was a slight drop I this business area, but we’ve recovered from it now. Elena: Konica Minolta offers m-Files as a cloud-based service for content and document management. While the copier and MPS side of your business took a hit, did COVID boost you there? DIR: Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 22 Yes. Like elsewhere, companies quickly realized having their data on paper wasn’t useful during the pandemic. We really exploded in the area of data capturing, data processing, automation of the work□ows, and digital archives – and cloud services in parallel to those areas. Elena: We saw an uptick in secure solutions that we offer and automation in manufacturing processes. COVID played the role of booster for digital transformation. Like everywhere, a horrible pandemic that has been □nancially bene□cial for this industry. Picking up on your digital transformation point, you touched on a few things, but how does Konica Minolta help customers on their digital transformation journey? DIR: We have a slogan: Rethink. It’s not only a slogan, but also how we start with our customers. We start with a blank page and analyze where they are on a digital transformation journey then identify where we can help. Companies have so much data coming in from everywhere and sometimes it’s hard for them understand what they can do to improve the situation. Often, the essential data is hidden. We try to visualize this data and help companies take informed decisions and empower their employees to have data-driven decisions – all securely. Elena: I've already mentioned our concept of intelligent connected workplace. We offer solutions that aren’t just focused on paper and printers, but also digitalization of paper documents, capturing the data, digital work□ow, intelligent video surveillance, and so on it managed IT infrastructure. I think that's a good lead in for the next question. I know that Konica Minolta does much more than sell copiers (and that copiers are more than copiers these days) but is there still a perception that it’s a copier company. Speci□c to M-Files, are you seeing an uptake in that product at all? DIR: There is some truth to that. You used the word “copier” even though you know they’re more than that. These multi-functional devices are very intelligent. We use them mainly for scanning and then transferring the document, digital documents now, to M- Files. M-Files is a really powerful, user-friendly platform that can be customized for every customer needs and it's really pretty well accepted by the market, especially in Bulgaria. Elena: Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 23 We have reference customers here in Bulgaria in a variety of industries. We also connected the □le system platform with the digital signing. We have contract and employee management modules using M-Files. For employees, there are lots of documents that need to be signed and managed over their period of employment. These documents can be easily automated to create a good digital experience for all employees in an organization. We sell it and also use it internally for different kinds of processes like carpool management and expenses. It’s customizable and very powerful. Switching gears a little bit, paper is declining, but it's not going away. Obviously, you still probably make a good chunk of your business on paper and management services. So where is where is paper still effective in a business environment? DIR: In general, I would say paper still exists and will exist and even will increase – for example the volumes in the packaging and labeling because of ecommerce. That’s growing rapidly. All ecommerce shipments need packages and labels so that is a fast- growing industry segment. Elena: Also books, in Bulgaria and also Europe, even though electronic books are popular, they are only 6% of total amount of books. So books will continue to be on paper at least for next 5-10 years. Logistics departments are still printing a lot because this is connected to legislation which requires shipments to be supported with many different kinds of documents like packing lists for example – even more documents if exported from Europe. There’s still a need for paper output. As I look at multiple cats lounging I a few different boxes on my □oor here, I just realized how much paper does go into each of those packages. DIR: The □nal question is about your Certi□cate for Storytelling for In□uencers. I love that. Stories are how we learn and are a great way to sell. What led you to that storytelling and how do you use that as part of your part of your career at Konica Minolta? I’ve taken a design thinking course and storytelling was a part of that. Design thinking puts the human in the center; I’ve implemented that concept into our work here in Bulgaria. I have ambassadors internally that promote this way of doing business because I really believe that this concept works. As I said before, people are in the beginning of everything. Elena: Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 24 In 2017, I wanted to get out of my routine and went to Stanford for an executive leadership program. Jennifer Acker was a really interesting professor there. I can also recommend her book, The Dragon□y Effect. Anyway, she explained to us and convinced us how powerful storytelling is. People remember mostly stories, not so much facts and data. And they're very powerful tool to inspire somebody to do something, to convince somebody to do something, to work with the customers, with the stories, to give them real examples. That’s why I decided to take the IDEO course. How have you used this in your work? DIR: We do our best to use reference customers and have them tell their stories so that new customers can hear about best practices and learn from others’ experiences. Often from these stories we □nd new areas for development or for improvement. On our website, we have a lot of stories to inspire others and to see the bene□ts of technology and our solutions. Elena: I’d like to thank Elena for sharing her “story.” It was a pleasure to speak with her. DOCUMENT IMAGING REPORT Business Trends on Converting Paper Processes to Electronic Format. DIR is the leading executive report on managing documents for e-business. Areas we cover include: Document Capture; OCR/ICR, AI, and Machine Learning; RPA; ECM; Records Management; Document Output; and BPM. DIR brings you the inside story behind the deals and decisions that affect your business. Vol. 32, No. 12 Managing Editor: Ralph Gammon; Editor-in-Chief: Bryant Duhon; and +1 (301) 275-7496 rg@info-source.com bdu@info-source.com DIR is published approximately 15 times per year by: Infosource SA Avenues des Grande-Communes 8, 1213 Petit-Lancy, Geneva, Switzerland http://www.info-source.com Document Imaging Report October 10, 2022 Page 25 Copyright @ 2022 by Infosource SA. Federal copyright law prohibits unauthorized reproduction by any means including photocopying or facsimile distribution of this copyrighted newsletter. Such copyright infringement is subject to □nes of up to $25,000. Because subscriptions are our main source of income, newsletter publishers take copyright violations seriously. Some publishers have prosecuted and won enormous settlements for infringement. To encourage you to adhere to the law, we make multiple-copy subscriptions available at a substantially reduced price. Subscriptions: Single user: $597 (electronic) Two users: $897 From 3 to 5 every extra user: +$100 10 users: $1,497 Company-wide subscription: $2,500 (country-speci□c) Enterprise-wide subscription: $4,500 (global)
