ITMATTERS [ INSIGHT ]
by Bruce Orcutt Senior Vice President, ABBYY bruce.orcutt@abbyy.com | 408-457-9777
Digital Transformation: The Experience is King A survey among supply chain leaders reveals that two-thirds of staff struggle to find the information they need to do their job. Alarmingly, 73% waste up to eight hours each week just trying to find data–leading to delays (46%), errors (28%), and bad customer experience (24%).
within documents are major factors to improving the customer experience. Remember, the main reason that digital transformation falls short is because of bad experiences— sending employees, partners, and customers elsewhere. 2. Huge investments in document processing technology. The supply chain relies heavily on documents—from bills of lading to declaration forms, invoices to dock receipts, and more. As I referenced earlier, 70% of leaders in the supply chain say they plan to invest in technology to upgrade document processing. Analysts expect a 36.8% growth in the use of intelligent document processing (IDP) in the industry in 2022. Companies want to see a more seamless way of dealing with documents while reducing errors and speeding workflow. That means taking the next step in document automation. Despite many organizations having invested heavily in digitizing paper, it is still not fully automated, and they are not taking full advantage of new technology. For example, research commissioned by ABBYY shows that one-third of organizations in the supply chain are
the experience proves difficult. When leaders were asked how they measure customer experience, more than 55% said they base it on staff feedback, which means their business intelligence tools can’t do it. Organizations within the supply chain should be able to monitor, evaluate, and predict exactly how the customer journey is flowing and intercede when needed. This means every variation and bottleneck in processes and the documents fueling them—no matter the channel through which they entered the company or whether they were born digital or paper— directly impacts the experience. When employees admit they can spend up to eight hours looking for information they need to do their job, it means they waste an entire day each week. This obviously has an impact on customer service. Knowing what causes this game of hide-and-seek in business documents and delivering to staff drag-and-drop technology tools that can understand content and context
It’s easy to see that documents remain an overwhelming challenge for the industry and something that I anticipate will be addressed this year with a boom in document automation. Research shows more than 70% of company bosses in the supply chain plan to update their intelligent document processing. But what are the other major changes ahead for the industry? In reviewing and analyzing the latest trends on digital transformation, I identified three top priorities for the coming year. 1. The experience is king. It’s always said that the customer comes first, but how about employees or suppliers? We know that good customer service is crucial to staying ahead of the competition. In 2022, however, the emphasis on a great experience will be a priority across the board, which also includes staff and partners. Smart companies are now more demanding of technology to transform the experience— the key metric for success. Unfortunately, being able to measure
30 Inbound Logistics • February 2022
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