Growth in a fragmented market
The market for automated document management is fragmented and is in a development phase from a global perspective. This entails a high rate of growth and extensive establishments of new companies and means that mergers and acquisitions are common.
As automated document management comprises growing numbers of business processes and document types, such as e-mail and XML documents, competition from the suppliers that traditionally do not supply solutions in the area will increase.
More and more of the companies active in nearby market segments have begun to see the potential in data capture. There is therefore a trend for them to broaden their operations to cover this segment as well. This can in turn give rise to new alliances or acquisitions among the leading suppliers.
At the same time, the degree of maturity between different regions varies, where the knowledge of automated document management is widespread in Europe while this awareness is significantly lower in other parts of the world. According to a webcast survey conducted by the Hackett Group, approximately 17 percent of the participating companies (Fortune 1000) use both automated invoice processing and content extraction as the primary method of handling paper invoices.
Although the technology today comprises all kinds of documents, solutions associated with invoice processing are still what drive the market. A greater insight into the fact that the trend towards electronic invoices is somewhat slower than expected means that there is still a need for efficient processing of paper invoices. Many invoices are sent by e-mail to reduce printing costs and automated document management software is used to process them.