Global companies should focus more on document scanning and capture, a very risk-free investment compared to other types of IT projects and payback time of the initial investment frequently occurs in less than one year, a new survey said.

The survey, commissioned by storage giant EMC also said the process of digitizing documents also increases a company’s productivity substantially. The survey polled 677 information and records management professionals, IT staff and line of business executives, EMC said.

EMC said the survey indicated that 42 percent of respondent organizations have increased productivity by 50 percent from their scanning and capture investment. The company said that about 43 percent of the respondents achieved payback within 12 months and two-thirds within 18 months.

Nearly half have achieved savings of 40 percent or more in paper storage costs, the survey said.

EMC further said a significant number of respondents, about 41 percent, cited “improved access to information” as the most important driver for scanning and capture investments.

This demonstrates that companies are achieving soft-dollar benefits in addition to hard-dollar ROI, EMC said.

Other business drivers include compliance, productivity and improved customer service, the company added.

The survey also found that while most organizations have already invested in capture technologies, two-thirds were only scanning 50 percent of possible documents.

Respondents attributed the underutilization to the lack of capture facilities close to the business process as well as the existence of few enterprise applications that are captured-enabled, EMC said.

“Document capture can no longer be thought of as a technology running in a silo but rather as an integral part of a business process,” said Whitney Tidmarsh, chief marketing officer, content management and archiving division at EMC.