Understanding Importance of OCR Scanning In Modern Business

OCR or optical character recognition technology is the process for the conversion of a text containing image text into textual form. OCR scanning is commonly used to identify text in images of scanned documents.

OCR scanning technology utilizes specialized pattern-matching algorithms to study an image. These pattern-matching algorithms identify text in the document, identify the language of the text, and then match it across character databases to produce coherent textual data.

Importance of OCR Scanning in Modern Business and Technology

OCR scanning offers great potential when it comes to running and managing a business that requires image-to-text conversion in any capacity. Following are a few of the major benefits that a modern business can acquire through OCR scanning services.

• KYC compliance

The digital age is gradually moving towards a standard electronic ID verification process.

While in the future we may have strictly digital systems instead of ID cards as we know them today in the mainstream, for businesses working today, EIDV involves scanning of photo IDs or other documents which are run through OCR scanning.

For many kinds of businesses, digital screening is essential when it comes to new client onboarding. This essential KYC – OCR compliance is a legal requirement for some businesses especially those that deal with financial management.

• Automating Manual Data Entry Tasks

Businesses today are being bombarded with data. With hundreds and thousands of new sign-ups for many businesses, manual data entry is a tedious task. For manual entry, a business would require looking up every data field provided by a customer in the system for easy tracking in the future.

OCR scanning offers a simple solution to this hefty task. While with manual labor, employees would have to sift through each and every document, identifying all crucial details, and uploading each and every one of those into the database. OCR Scanning makes it simple by automatically looking up the data required, doing the essential editing to make it more readable, and uploading the results.

• Improving Data Accuracy and Consistency

Data Accuracy and consistency are key to an effective data entry process. During automation, the use of OCR scanning software ensures that the data is free from any human errors and is proofread.

OCR scanning and text recognition apps also offer standardization of data ensuring consistency and regularity in the data.

Besides the initial data entry process, the use of OCR screening during the initial data processing period ensures that even when data is being replicated, it is free from typos or any missing content. This also improves search-ability and indexing of the data ensuring quick and easy access to data, unlike traditional methods.

In industries where the correct information is extremely critical, this can be of great benefit.

With data being a big factor for almost all industries today, automation of data extraction, data storage, and retrieval through the utilization of OCR scanning can help businesses greatly improve efficiency and upscale their services.

• Green Corporate Social Responsibility

Green Corporate Social Responsibility refers to a business adopting certain measures and practices that can help it comply better with environmental laws. Some environmental legislations essential for businesses to comply with include recycling waste products, limiting any potential nuisances such as noise, fumes, etc., and compliance with air and water laws.

Traditional systems for data entry or data storage may take up tons of paper that will only go to waste ultimately. Besides paper, there are also thousands of pens and other stationery that contribute to waste.

An OCR company with digital OCR scanning processes helps the environment by getting rid of all this potential waste. While this may not be a legal requirement for businesses today, fulfilling green social responsibility in any way improves the brand image and helps develop a positive attitude of the people toward the company. In an era where climate activism is one of the most active causes, this can greatly help build trust.

OCR Screening in the Future: Expectations and Opportunities

The OCR Technology industry is constantly evolving. With evolution, we see improvement. While we can’t say for certain what will happen in the future, OCR scanning has a few trends that we expect in the coming few years.

While current optical character recognition scanners offer great accuracy, there is always room for error, and measured accuracy is usually 96-97%. In the future, even greater accuracy can be expected.

OCR scanning technology currently utilizes artificial intelligence systems. However, just like facial verification technology, in the future, we can expect to see the integration of other models such as machine learning and deep learning algorithms.

Legal regulations for OCR scanning for digital ID verification can and should be implemented. These can help standardize the process for the users, and also help with national security purposes.

OCR technology is a fast-growing technology. With probably the simplest looking systems due to its relative simplicity from others, OCR technology can be expected to grow and fall into practice much more.