July 6, 2015 – Wokingham, UK – The Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) Forum 2015 was a one-day event held in London to help information managers adapt to the changing face of electronic content management (ECM). It’s often said that the widespread adoption of personal tech devices, such as smartphones and tablets, heralds the end of the ECM era but, as AIIM President John Mancini observed in his keynote speech, a disrupted market results in new and innovative products and practices. The AIIM Forum, through a series of seminars and many opportunities for networking, allows the transmission of ideas and best practises between information practitioners so that they’re better able to deal with changing business landscapes and customer and colleague expectations.
There’s also a trade show element to the forum, so that information practitioners can appraise the latest state-of-the-art technology available and see how it can be used to augment or improve information processes within their own business. On show were products from many important players in the digital imaging industry, including IBM, Canon, Kodak, Xerox/Visioneer, Plustek, Fujitsu, ibml and InoTec. One demonstration that captured our interest was found on the ibml stand, where the company’s ImageTrac DS1150 was on display. This innovative device includes left justification feeding, making scanning of mixed-size originals an easier process (using the optional document jogger unit) versus centre-justified alternatives.
A stand-out feature of the demonstration was the SoftTrac ScanDS Add-On, which allows sorting rules to be applied in real time, routing documents into two different output trays. We were shown how the scanner could sort a batch of insurance claims so that those forms lacking a signature could be separated from those that did have a signature. Unsigned forms were successfully sent to a separate output tray so that an operator could return them to clients for a signature. It’s easy to see how this sorting mechanism could save claim-processing time.
Rules can also be set up based on other attributes, such OCR content, bar codes and media size, allowing checques to be sorted for further bank processing. Naturally, the more rules that are created, the more processing time is required, adding a delay before the device can successfully route the document to the correct tray. The delay affects the scanner speed, but we believe this is a sacrifice many would be happy to accept in exchange for a reduction in manual intervention. BLI is currently testing the ImageTrac DS1150’s sister product, the 85-ppmImageTracDS 1085 at its US lab, so keep an eye out for the forthcoming report. It’s a bustling event, yet the atmosphere at the AIIM Forum is relaxed, which means that delegates are able to question vendors and get hands-on with equipment without feeling rushed. Although it was sometimes difficult to speak to a specific individual due to their popularity, we never found ourselves waiting too long to view product demos.
IT’S GOOD TO TALK
As our there are so many facets to the document imaging industry, it’s understandable that AIIM would want to provide as many seminars as possible to cater to the needs of all delegates. Sadly, though, we felt that too little time was given to topics that should have been treated in more depth. Sure, there were opportunities to network with the speakers post-seminar, but too few of the seminars were as detailed as their titles suggested. Seminars were typically 30 minutes long, but a 45- or 60-minute running time would be better to make the most of the topics discussed.
Even though the document capture and ECM market has been shaken up by new technology, the AIIM Forum was keen to show how key disruptors, such as mobile devices and cloud services, can be used to great effect by businesses. Not only do mobile devices allow easier data communication between a business and its customers, document capture apps and ECM cloud services are a boon for improving efficiency and streamlining tedious and costly paper-based processes.
After lunch came a series of talks on how mobile technology has caused a huge paradigm shift in a broader social, economic and environmental context. Citing mobile capture as the next facet of customer engagement, Spigraph Network’s “Mobile Capture into Process” seminar kicked things off. Spigraph Network has a strong presence in the document capture and ECM space in EMEA, and it claims to have sold nearly 40 per cent of all scanners in that market in 2013. It is also the sole distribution partner for the CumulusPro mobile capture software in EMEA.
Sharing the host’s platform was CumulusPro’s founder and CEO Giulio Battistini, along with Jaspar Roos, cofounder of XL family, an organisation which helps to develop new start-ups and provides B2B and B2C enterprise, mobile and online solutions. Roos, who bears the intriguing title of Chief Inspiration Officer and whose previous work includes an early forerunner of the smartwatch, raced through myriad trends that are affecting consumer habits.
Emphasising how we are now in an era of user-centric IT and that consumerisation is transforming what end-users expect from applications, various then-and-now examples were offered to highlight how digital innovations in services have made us all less patient, such as the rise and fall of Blockbuster rental video compared with the rise and rise of Netflix over the 2004 to 2010 period, and the willingness-to-wait time for a taxi has dropped exponentially the longer Uber has operated in a city. Echoing a warning made in May 2015 from the outgoing CEO of Cisco John Chambers, we were told companies and businesses could face downfall unless they seek digital innovation in their processes.
Roos observed how mobile innovation is bringing new forms of engagement to the banking world. Examples include Bank Atom, which is an app designed to conduct virtually all banking processes with no office premises required; and Google’s Soli project, which brings gesture recognition to smart technology so that it could be possible to activate a transaction with a mere rub of the fingers. Roos rounded off with a striking sign-of-the times synopsis: in 2015, Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles; Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content; Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory; and Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate.
The platform was then given to CumulusPro's Giulio Battistini, who drilled down in detail how the key drivers, or ‘disruptors’, of consumerisation, cloud and mobile, are utterly transforming the business landscape. Customer expectations of speed and efficiency are forcing businesses to accelerate their business processes and improve client engagement by means of cloud and mobile capture solutions. Battistini went on to describe how through providing a secure SSL-encrypted connection with existing back-end systems, analytics plus intelligent image capture, optimisation and OCR capabilities, applications such as CumulusPro Mobile Capture are bridging the gap between expectation and delivery.
TODAY’S MUST-HAVE, TOMORROW’S LAND-FILL
Next up on the podium was the German company InoTec GmbH, which delivered a sobering opener on how the growth in digital mobile technology is impacting electronic waste generation. It’s astonishing to think that by the end of 2015 the mobile workforce is expected to be 1.3 billion people or, to put it another way, one in three of the global workforce. With the current life expectancy of IT equipment estimated at 1.5 years for a mobile phone, 3 years for a computer and 4 to 5 years for a scanner, the continual demand for digital equipment carries a substantial environmental and human cost.
An estimated 50 million tonnes of electronic waste will be generated by 2017, of which 90 per cent will be illegally dumped or traded. This obviously carries a significant human cost in parts of the world where chemicals, already banned in the EU and USA, are used in the disposal of electronic equipment and where employment regulations are enforced less stringently or are violated. InoTec’s Peter Schnautz went on to stress the importance of corporate sustainable responsibility, whereby long-life components, ergonomic design and socially responsible manufacturing practice can provide a more holistic strategy to meet the pressing need for digital products. InoTec’s overarching product strategy includes a parts recycling scheme, whereby the professional disposal of their scanner equipment is guaranteed and there is cooperation with a local certified waste management centre.
The AIIM Forum is a great event for those working in the document and ECM industry, whether interests lie in networking, sharing ideas and best practices or shopping for new technology to support a business. BLI is very much looking forward to the next show, which is scheduled for 22nd June 2016. Email aiim@revolution-events.com to register for that event.