Last year, Parascript set out to measure the adoption of automated recognition of both Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) for processing forms. The results were astounding, especially the lack of organizations utilizing automated recognition. Only 32% of organizations surveyed are using OCR to extract document content. Over the last year, we have confirmed these numbers with much of the analyst community.

Working with AIIM, we produced an infographic highlighting some of the key points:

Here are a few datapoints:

50% of respondents say hand print or hand-script (cursive) fields are quite important; 25% say they play a key role.

However, many organizations are not taking advantage of this information. 88% of respondents say they scan forms, but only 32% say they perform text recognition to automatically make that data readily available for use in their organizations. The majority of respondents (55%) report they scan images and manually re-key the data as part of their workflow.

At the same time, survey participants estimate that they would achieve a considerable level of productivity savings if they were able to automate the recognition of hand-written text. The average estimate is a 34.8% improvement. The median is 23% more productive. 36% of respondents would expect a 50% or greater increase in improvement.

The majority cite localized decision-making and difficulty in accommodating different types of form layouts as the main reason for not adopting forms scanning, followed by a lack of designated owner.

Is this consistent with what you see? Share your experience by dropping us a line below. If you’re interested in seeing the complete AIIM survey, you can get it here.