Datacap, Canon, TAWPI Study Reveals One-Third of Companies Scan More than 200,000 Documents Monthly; Survey of 328 Firms Finds 93% of Distributed Capture Deployments Met or Exceeded Expectations.

TARRYTOWN, N.Y. -- Datacap Inc., the leading provider of flexible document capture and forms processing software solutions to organizations worldwide, Canon U.S.A, Inc. and The Association For Work Process Improvement (TAWPI) today announced the availability of the industry's first survey focused exclusively on distributed capture benefits, success factors and barriers. Power Decisions Group, Inc. provided study design consulting as well as objective analysis and reporting of the data. The survey report is available online at: http://www.datacap.com/downloads/survey/

The scanning of documents at remote sites, linked to a central processing center via the Internet or WAN, is known as distributed capture. While remote scanning has existed for nearly a decade, the practice has grown increasingly popular in the past 3 years, with the proliferation of bandwidth and a new generation of browser-based capture software. This study is the first of its kind designed to measure remote scanning adoption rates, volumes, expectations and benefits experienced by end users.

The survey results reveal that distributed capture has been embraced by a wide variety of organizations that generate paper in multiple locations. Of the 328 respondents, 36% are high volume users of scanning technology. More than three quarters of end-user respondents report distributed scanning operations for longer than one year; while 36% have used remote scanning for more than three years.

"This industry survey provides unique insight into the document capture practices of companies in different industries nationwide," said Scott Blau, CEO, Datacap Inc. "It confirms the benefits of remote document scanning, and more importantly, the opportunity for additional productivity achievements with automated forms processing technology."

Range of Industries Prefer Remote Scanning

The business sectors represented in the study were lead by financial services, with an even representation from insurance, healthcare, government, manufacturing and utilities. More than half (55%) of all end-users are scanning unstructured (non-form) documents remotely. Thirty-seven percent of survey respondents say they are capturing invoices remotely. Sixty-two percent have five remote scanning locations or less. Remote scanning and capture users report satisfaction levels that far exceed the industry norm - more than 93% of remote scanning and end-users state that their systems have met or exceeded expectations.

Question Text: What types of documents do you scan?

                  0%                  20%                 40%

Application
 forms              xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx46%

Other unstructured
 forms              xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 45%

Other structured
 forms              xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 42%

Invoices            xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 37%

Statements          xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 25%

Mortgage/loan       xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 23%

Other               xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 22%

Insurance policy    xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 19%

Medical insurance
 claims             xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 16%

Tax returns         xxxxxxxxxxxx 12%

Surveys/
 Questionnaires     xxxxxxxx 8%

Transportation/
 shipping           xxxxxxxx 8%

Bottom Line Benefits Consistently Achieved

The survey measured application objectives sought by end-users before implementation, and the benefits realized after implementation. When asked to prioritize, "Improved business process" is the business benefit cited by more than half of respondents. Distributed scanning is universally seen as cost effective with an overall performance rating of 93%. Among end-users, the two attributes that received the highest level of satisfaction are "Cost effectiveness" and "Overall performance."

Impressive Returns Could Be Even Better

More than 70% of survey respondents reported a full return on their investment in less than 12 months. As good as that sounds, the survey indicated opportunities for significant additional ROI, since only 7% of respondents are using recognition and other forms processing technologies, which eliminate manual keying of index data.

For a free copy of the survey report, visit http://www.datacap.com/downloads/survey/

About Datacap

Since 1988, Datacap Inc. has provided leading document capture and forms processing software solutions to organizations worldwide. Datacap Taskmaster software efficiently transforms paper into information, reducing data entry costs and improving information accuracy. A client/server, rules-based document capture workflow platform, Taskmaster provides highly flexible solutions for both image indexing and data entry automation. Taskmaster also enables distributed scanning, indexing and administration from a browser and integrates with all leading document management solutions. http://www.datacap.com/

About Canon U.S.A.

Canon U.S.A. Inc. is an industry leader in professional imaging solutions and a top patent-holder of imaging technologies. Canon's full line-up of document scanners enables businesses to capture, store and distribute information. Canon's products include: document scanners, color and black-and-white multifunction devices, copiers, printers, facsimile machines, projectors and cameras.

About TAWPI

The Association for Work Process Improvement (TAWPI) is the leading professional organization focused on best practices in information capture, imaging, remittance processing and document management. TAWPI serves thousands of end user professionals networked together with a common goal: improving work processes to streamline productivity within information capture operations. Visit www.tawpi.org or call 800-99TAWPI to find out more.