Business System Consultation Center - Our Business System ColumnVol.128 2022.06.01 Takahashi Minoru

Beware of IT companies where sales and development don't communicate

Thank you for your interest and continued support.
This is Takahashi from the Marketing Plan Research Laboratory.


In this column, I’d like to raise awareness about “OCR.”


・Scanning paper forms (such as supplier invoices and delivery notes) and automatically
・Automating data entry into systems
・Supports handwritten text
・Includes CSV data export functionality and supports integration with multiple systems


We often hear about OCR software touted with these kinds of claims,
I have yet to encounter a company
I have yet to encounter any.


The reality is as follows:
・It misrecognizes even printed text, not just handwriting
・Accuracy is somewhat better when reading in PDFs as electronic data
(However, in that case, you could just open the PDF on a PC and manually transcribe it by copying and pasting)
・The contract stipulates that the solution provider bears no responsibility for the scanning results or accuracy
・Ultimately, the output must be visually verified, so it is far from being fully automated


The fundamental reasons are as follows
・Globally, the IT market is heavily concentrated in English-speaking and Chinese-speaking regions
・Consequently, developing OCR capable of reading Japanese wouldn’t be very profitable
・Furthermore, the top tier of global IT technology elites are not Japanese (they are from English-speaking regions)
*The claim that “Japanese characters are difficult to recognize automatically” is
is not a fundamental reason, but rather an excuse to cleverly obscure the points mentioned above.


This is the current state of “OCR” in Japan, in particular.


If you absolutely must consider OCR software for some reason,
"Ensure the initial costs aren’t too high, or that there’s a sufficient free trial period,"
"Careful consideration of the actual implementation and configuration process (and whether there is a sales representative who can explain this)"
"A plan to ensure the workplace won’t be thrown into chaos (and customers won’t be inconvenienced) if OCR is discontinued"
We recommend choosing a competent in-house staff member or a competent solution
.


That's all, Thank you for reading.

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