The world is currently facing a situation like no other due to the Covid-19 outbreak which has swept the world, forcing us to drastically change the way we work and live. As the virus continues to spread, alterations are being made and
On the 23rd March 2020, Boris Johnson, PM of the United Kingdom announced that everyone should avoid offices and that non-essential business operations should be moved from the office to the home environment. These new measures were identified as essential in helping to prevent the virus from spreading and to help slow the upward trajectory of fatalities.
While for many businesses who were already largely digital-based, the transition has been plain-sailing and caused minimum disruption, others are struggling. This is largely due to the logistical elements of digitising work processes to ensure full productivity for employees. Many employees have never worked from home and many businesses haven’t got the facilities in place to allow this level of flexibility. So, what can be done to help?
Fast-tracking A Digital Transformation
There has never been a time more prevalent in the modern-day that has underlined why businesses should be geared towards digital working. For many companies, the current coronavirus outbreak won’t be affecting productivity or operation as a whole. Such companies already have digital business models in place, ensuring that technology is used to their benefit.
However, for many others, there is a desperate need to fast-track digital transformation, right now. A number of sectors have already been affected and there is plenty of work to be done. From ensuring the confidentiality of important documentation to having a central document management system in place, there’s a long list of tasks that need to be ticked off.
Pearl Scan’s Fast Track To Home Working
It’s essential to digitise documents. While paper documents are widely used across a range of public and private sectors, they can lead to a lack of security and time wasted due to processes to find data when needed.
In response to Covid-19 and the move towards home working for the foreseeable future, many companies are scanning their documents. Pearl Scan can assist with end-to-end scanning and delivery services to help you keep business going during the outbreak.
There are many benefits that come with choosing to scan and digitise your documents. You can begin setting up your remote workforce by choosing to scan with us.
Here are just some of the ways our service will help your business respond to the outbreak:
- Remote working – by choosing to scan your documents with Pearl Scan, you’ll have full remote access via our fully managed Pearl Cloud platform. This is essential for a remote workforce!
- Access to critical documents – for complete peace of mind, our fully managed document services give full access to all critical documents allowing easy working from home.
- Instant use – a secure document library of scanned files ensures instant access when you need it from any location.
- Optical Character Recognition (OCR) – this process can convert scanned images to text searchable PDF files, enable documents to be found by using keywords as well as the recognised text can be output to Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel format (In case of table data). The OCR can help users to quickly locate the documents from the archive as well as can save time and cost in retyping data in case the documents need to be converted to an editable format.
- Save space – many offices are limited space-wise. By scanning and digitising your documents there will be no need for bulky filing cabinets!
- Ensure compliance – it’s extremely important to ensure that when working from home, you are still complying with rules and regulations surrounding confidential data. Scanning your documentation can help to put this in place as we can upload the digitised documents to our Pearl Cloud storage system. You will then be able to decide who has access to through the provision of individual passwords.
Covid-19 priority and rates
We are granting special priority to life essential industries (NHS, Food, Logistics, Finance, etc.), however all businesses can outsource their scanning jobs to us. Our special document scanning rates are being offered to all affected industries including retail, hospitality and travel.
Historical Artefacts
By using our fast track service, you’ll receive your scanned and converted documents and be able to work as usual. We also offer digitisation of valuable artefacts including historical documents that may be prone to damage. Our facilities ensure that such valuable documents are stored in the correct conditions with full monitoring of humidity and temperature.
Bulk Scanning
Pearl Scan offers a bulk scanning service that is particularly useful for the digitisation of medical files, patient notes, A&E records and records for out patients. Once the documents have been scanned they are converted to fully text-searchable documents, allowing you to set up a structured database for analysis and product development. You can find out more about our bulk scanning services here.
Pearl Scan is here to help your company scan documents quickly and efficiently for home working. Our scanning bureau has the specialist equipment to digitise any size or type of document. Once the documents have been scanned, digitised and converted using OCR (if chosen), we can also securely shred the papers as an optional service.
Images will be returned to you in the format of your choice including PDF, TIFF and JPEG.
A Reliable Digital Mailroom
For many, it’s not possible to access the usual place of work due to Covid-19. As a result of this, there may be some issues that arise in relation to collecting mail. A digital mailroom service may be the answer. By choosing to redirect your mail to a secure facility, you won’t have to worry about the limited access to your workspace.
Pearl Scan’s digital mailroom is fully equipped to handle your mail, sort it, open and scan the information so that you receive it digitally. Based on the preferences that you set with us, we can make the mail available to you on the same day that it’s received via our Pearl Cloud document management system. By uploading your mail to Pearl Cloud, you can then determine which members of your home workforce need to access the information and grant permission to do so.
We use state of the art scanners to ensure that your mail is digitised to the highest quality. Scanned images are all rigorously reviewed by more than one staff member before being indexed as per your instructions.
Digital Document Management
Another big problem many companies are facing as they move to digital working is their document management systems. A remote team needs a central document management system and while there are a number of options out there, not all of them are able to accommodate scanned documents.
Pearl Cloud document management and Halogen document management provide secure and flexible access. Depending on the service that you choose, each comes with its own benefits.
Pearl Cloud can be used easily by home workers and multiple users can access the system at one time from any location. Operating as digital storage for documents, your company will be able to store, search for and retrieve information with ease. This efficiency can be particularly useful for a number of different roles, including customer service where employees need to work quickly without disruption.
Halogen, on the other hand, provides many of the same features as Pearl Cloud but is designed to work from a local network instead of Web or Cloud infrastructure – as some organisations prefer to store and manage their documents on their internal network.
Document storage and Scan-On-Demand
If you’re unable to scan your documents in one go but still require a secure location to store them, we offer document storage and scan-on-demand services.
Pearl Scan’s on-demand scanning services give you the flexibility as a business to go digital without committing to bulk scanning costs. Documents can be securely stored with us and you are able to request a scanning service as and when a file is required. This not only gives complete peace of mind security-wise, but also means that all types of businesses can benefit. You’ll save on space and the whole process is taken care of by our expert team.
When this type of service is required, we collect, scan and return your files as per your request. You can easily request services with us and once digitised you can choose to shred the documents confidentially.
Benefits of scan-on-demand services:
- Only pay for document scanning when you need it
- No need to pay for your file to be retrieved a second time
- You don’t need to pay for physical files to be delivered
- Ensures quick access to speed up efficiency
- Free up office space
Is Your Home Workforce Prepared?
If you’re in a rush to prepare your workforce for remote working, we can help. From scanning documents and ensuring they’re accessible via a secure document management system that is easy to use and secure to storing physical files, we are the experts you need right now.