05 challenges businesses face when digitizing paper data

Why Do Businesses Need to Digitize Data?

The demand for data digitization is extremely high today. According to the National Statistics Office, as of the end of 2020, Vietnam had about 700,000 active businesses, over 90% of which were traditional and state-owned enterprises. Most of these companies still use paper documents to record business information, such as invoices, receipts, contracts, and records. Particularly, industries with high digitization needs such as finance, banking, insurance, and healthcare must store millions of paper documents each year.

The use of paper documents not only causes inconvenience in storage space but also directly affects operational efficiency. According to a study by IDC, each employee spends an average of 2.5 hours a day searching for information in paper documents. Additionally, using paper makes it difficult and non-transparent to update, analyze, share, and store information. This reduces a business’s competitiveness and innovation capacity.

Therefore, digitizing data is a critical step to leverage the advantages of big data in business. By converting paper documents into digital formats, companies can save storage space, enhance information security, improve efficiency and transparency in data management, and develop capabilities for data-driven decision making.

Challenges in Data Digitization

However, digitizing data is not a simple task. Businesses must face many challenges, such as:

Storage Space

Data digitization requires businesses to have sufficient space to store paper documents before converting them. This not only takes up office space but also poses fire hazards or damage due to weather. Therefore, companies need to find safe and convenient storage solutions for their paper documents.

Document Integrity

Data digitization also requires maintaining the integrity of paper documents, ensuring they are not torn, wrinkled, smudged, or lost during the process. This requires close supervision and management by staff. Furthermore, companies must comply with legal regulations on storing and destroying paper documents after digitization.

Information Loss

Data digitization may also lead to information loss due to errors during data entry or poor-quality paper documents. This affects the accuracy and transparency of data. Therefore, businesses must verify the information post-digitization and use supporting tools to minimize input errors.

Time and Effort Consuming

Manual data entry is a tedious and time-consuming task. An employee may only enter about 1,000 characters per hour, while one document page may contain thousands of characters. Therefore, manual entry requires hiring many staff and takes up a lot of working time.

Inaccuracy and Insecurity

Manual data entry can lead to errors due to staff negligence or misunderstanding. Moreover, it poses risks to data safety and confidentiality, as paper documents may be stolen, copied, or leaked to third parties. Hence, manual entry cannot ensure data quality and security.

OCR Studio as a Data Digitization Solution

Given the disadvantages of manual entry, businesses need an efficient and cost-effective technological solution for data digitization. One such solution is OCR Studio – currently the best solution for Vietnamese handwriting recognition.

What is OCR Studio?

OCR Studio is a web-based application that allows businesses to recognize Vietnamese handwriting on paper documents quickly and accurately. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze and extract information from documents, including handwriting, printed text, symbols, charts, and images. OCR Studio can recognize most types of paper documents such as invoices, receipts, contracts, records, and personal papers.

What Features Does OCR Studio Offer?

• Vietnamese Handwriting Recognition: OCR Studio can accurately recognize Vietnamese handwriting, even if it's unclear, non-standard, or contains spelling errors.
• Document Recognition: OCR Studio can identify most types of documents, from business papers to personal ones. It can also detect symbols, charts, images, and other data.
• Data Extraction and Export: OCR Studio can extract and export data from paper documents into various digital formats such as Excel, Word, PDF, CSV, etc. It also allows users to edit and verify extracted data.
• Data Storage and Management: OCR Studio provides a secure and convenient data processing and storage system for businesses. Companies can store both paper and digitized documents, manage, sear