When the coronavirus pandemic hit in early 2020, UK businesses were amongst the most prepared according to Xerox’s global research[1]. The trend for digital transformation had already paved the way for digital technologies to fill the gaps left by face-to-face interactions.
Digitisation will continue to be vital as organisations evolve their initial work from home policies to create a longer-term hybrid workforce that meets both employee and business needs. But with only a third (33%)1 of UK businesses planning to allocate more budget towards technology despite the pandemic, progress could quickly stall.
Efficiency that focuses resources
For most companies, efficiency is one of the significant benefits of digital transformation. By automating and digitising processes, businesses can save themselves time, allow teams to reallocate people to higher-value tasks, and underpin that essential revenue growth. What’s more – in a pandemic era, it also supports business continuity because having those systems in place can ensure companies don’t skip a beat.
While nearly half of UK businesses (46%) will be investing more in collaboration software as a result of a prolonged period of remote working, over a third (37%) also told us that in-person communications will remain paramount to personal development and accessing talent. The time gained from automating processes can be funnelled back into these essential processes. Building better team communications, maintaining positive and meaningful relations within the workplace and welcoming new joiners ensures that the best bits of working in person are embedded in the hybrid model.
Finding solutions and seizing opportunities
When businesses begin to lean on their digitally-updated services, they free up room for growth and creativity.
HM Land Registry records every change in property ownership in England and Wales amassing enormous amounts of data from more than 25m titles, with upwards of 2,000 paper-applications per day.
By digitising its paper-based catalogue and document submission process, HM Land Registry were able to free up their customer service team to focus on the more complex applications, and deliver on its commitment to providing excellent customer service.
AI and machine learning are essential to this process, automatically capturing and validating the information from more straight-forward applications without the need for any manual intervention. Through its work with Xerox, HM Land Registry successfully took its first steps to becoming fully automated, with 99.9% of scans achieving specified standards for imaging, document classification and indexing.
Why digital transformation should be a priority
No matter the organisation, there’s inevitably a substantial amount of work that comes with the question “Can we digitise it?” But the answer should almost always be yes. Regardless of industry, practically every process can now be digitised and automated in some way. And we know it works, making it possible to do more for less, maximising output while also minimising the resources required, and stimulating the creative potential of staff in other areas.
Visit our stand at DigitalScotland2020 to find out more.
[1] Xerox Future of Work Survey, 2020
