This report compares strategies for outsourced, centralized and distributed scanning, and concludes that there is a move back to centralized scanning operations, along with a greater investment in capture and recognition software to automate data capture and indexing processes. Although outsourcing has cost and management benefits, quality of indexing and difficulty of integration back into electronic archives are given as the biggest disadvantages.

Meanwhile, more reliable and more capable scanners, more automated capture processes, and in particular, the availability of a multi-function scanner/printer in almost every office has led over the last 5 to 6 years to a new model of distributed scanning, local to the office staff processing the documents. In this report, we look at the issues and potential benefits of these different approaches, and consider the potential Return on Investment (ROI) across the more popular application areas.