Managed.IT - issue 53

SCANNERS MANAGED.IT 19 www.managedITmag.co.uk hardware device, it may offer it on an OPEX basis, with a subscription for the whole solution, including the hardware, service, connectivity and the eco-system used to manage and control the device. Greater automation Lofstrom adds that Alaris’s imaging expertise and versatile, reliable paper-handling are selling points for all Alaris devices, as the digitisation of business and the emergence of new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), robotic process automation (RPA) and machine learning continue to change scanning requirements. “The market has moved on from scanning primarily being scan to archive and this plays to our strengths in terms of image quality, where driving better OCR read rates and downstream effectiveness is increasingly part of where we can make a difference in proof of concept in head-to-head contests,” he said. Lofstrom says that the emergence of AI, RPA and machine learning are providing a fillip to the scanner market by raising interest at board level and by giving organisations the impetus to fully automate processes. “As things like RPA and artificial intelligence have come of age, those technologies are front of centre for the CIOs of many large enterprises. The importance of having digital input, high quality digital input, is steadily elevating. Even sophisticated organisations we talk to, like banks, sometimes struggle to drive those engines effectively – some will manually import information into pre- formatted excel spreadsheets just because they have struggled to get the flow working. “So, part of what we are focused on is the next level of connectivity into the workflows. It is a point of focus because companies are struggling with it. They want to feed those systems, and very often they will need to feed them with multiple format inputs, digitisation from a scanner, emails and so on. Those, collectively, are in the purview of what we will be looking at in how to connect those systems,” he said. “The marketplace has traditionally had a focus on speeds and feeds, but the value proposition has moved on from those being the primary selection vectors. Now, people are more interested in image quality, file format, size etc. because they are driving downstream processes and need the OCR engine to work effectively. ‘If I can get high percentages in that, I am truly in the world of automation. I don’t need to invest a lot of human capital to do quality control checks and things like that which become necessary if you don’t get good success rates’.” New growth areas In addition to developments in scanning, Alaris is exploring other growth opportunities, can imagine the issues this raises: ‘Did we get the right goods for that invoice?’, and then trying to find the person in the supermarket who was there at the point of transaction. The produce department isn’t a place where you will find a PC or even an MFP. They don’t necessarily have the infrastructure there or want the expense of putting in the infrastructure. For them, it is very appealing to have a small footprint, purpose-designed device that they can plug in and connect to the internet, with a push button that connects right into the relevant process. With bi-directional connectivity, they can do the quality checks into back-end systems right at point of introduction, with confirmation that the image is good or needs re-scanning. That wasn’t a scanner market before; it wasn’t even an MFP market. It’s a new market,” he said. Another application Alaris is already exploring is to use the device alongside an MFP to free up the latter for printing and copying. “An MFP is not always the optimal solution for scanning, so you could see it as complementary to an MFP dealer’s offer that also offers better image quality to drive downstream processes like OCR and better feeding technology to be able to handle multiple document types in a single scanning session,” explained Lofstrom. It is also looking to develop solutions around the identity of the user for information chain of custody. In line with Alaris’s intention to elevate the value proposition for this product beyond a traditional continued... Alaris E1000 Series scanners give partners the opportunity to capitalise on growing demand for desktop scanners. More than half (53%) of businesses surveyed for the InfoTrends Business Technology and Solutions 2018 – Image Scanning Trends report said they expect to do more scanning on dedicated single-function desktop scanners this year. Designed for small office/home office environments, reception areas and workgroups, the Alaris E1025 and E1035 are easy to set up and integrate with existing business processes, applications and infrastructures, offering scanning right out of the box. The emergence of AI, RPA and machine learning are providing a fillip to the scanner market by raising interest at board level