For years, capture systems have focused on scanning paper documents to create digital versions instead. This fundamental scan-and-store approach helps reduce the costs and inefficiencies of paper-intensive processes. But today, organizations are finding new advantages by bringing the concept of capture out of the back office and into the front line of business process. The ability to capture information at any point in any process is a big boost information governance; reducing risk, lowering costs and increasing organizational performance.

A New View of Capture

Viewing capture as strictly a scan-and-store activity is overlooking a great deal of opportunity. It’s not just about paper anymore: it’s about capturing and using information in more agile and dynamic ways, with capture technology serving as the bridge between paper and digital media. This new view of capture is quickly being adopted as a result. A 2014 study conducted by AIIM found that a majority of companies (67%) feel that capture will “play a key role” in their future strategies.

A New Information Governance Paradigm

As the volume and variety of enterprise information continues to grow, so does the need for well-thought strategies and approaches for information governance. While information governance is most commonly associated with things like data security, privacy and compliance, a more expansive definition is emerging that has broader implications in terms of organizational cost and performance as well. This new information governance paradigm requires that organizations have the ability to understand what information they have throughout the enterprise, and respond with completeness and agility to any number of demands at any point in any process.

Capturing More Value

Organizations can get more value out of capture technology, often with the systems they already own, by adopting a broader view of capture that looks beyond a typical front end, scan-and-store approach. Organizations today must have the ability to capture and understand information, in whatever form it takes, at any point in the process. The key to capturing value is the adoption of comprehensive tools and strategies to automate and broaden the application of capture enterprise-wide.