By Layan Damanhouri
Saudi Gazette
Businesses and government organizations are most successful in their ability to transform information into knowledge, according to Kodak Alaris’s eastern cluster manager David Whitton.
Companies and governments gain a competitive advantage if they are able to “create order out of chaos”.
“According to a survey, if an organization can achieve a 10 percent increase in its ability to mine data and turn that into relevant knowledge for managers within and outside the company, they will achieve a bottom line net profit of 65 million dollars,” he said in an interview with Saudi Gazette.
“The amount of unstructured data is increasing every single year almost exponentially,” he further said. “We’re trying to create some order out of the chaos, whether that’s paper information or electronic information.”
Kodak Alaris, what used to be mainly known as a paper digitizing company, has been selling scanners for many years.
Whitton says Kodak Alaris provides technology in scanning paper or importing information from mobile phone into a corporate repository that is simpler and easier than ever before.
Ministers, government bodies, banks and financial institutions use Kodak Alaris technology in Saudi Arabia.
Further, whereas the IT team would have had to install scanners in several offices, now they can install it centrally.
Digitizing goes beyond scanning as it includes ad hoc scanning solutions on mobile, classifying data, social media, and classification from multiple channels.
Preparing the paper and sorting the paper right after the scan can save a lot of time, says Whitton. “Allowing more scanning to happen more quickly and get the knowledge out of the data is more efficient.”
It can be used in several sectors. In healthcare, for instance, such solutions allow for digitizing health records in a storage base, allowing practitioners to access records more quickly who can also have access off-site. “This leads to get better patient outcomes,” says Whitton. “That’s where technology gets exciting and impacts daily lives.”
Asked about the future of scanning, he says: “It’s currently a niche industry. However, with dedicated scanners, wireless technology, sharing scanners, software is easily used. Scanning will move out of the niche and become standard as printing and faxing has been.
With the way technology is evolving, it will be a normal experience where you can scan in any office.”
At this year’s Gitex Technology Week, the company unveiled the Kodak i5850S Scanner, its new high-volume production scanner that offers three-pocket sorting capabilities, designed for the extreme scanning demands of service bureaus, business process outsourcing organizations and corporate scanning departments. Also showcased, was the company’s new robust, compact and highly affordable i3300 Scanner, enabling organizations to go paperless and scan a variety of document types in a fast and reliable way. There was a lot of interest around the KODAK Info Input Solution, a web-based and mobile capture application, designed to help businesses simplify document capture so that information can be intelligently used in a business process.
