As Digitization becomes more pervasive, we often hear of how innovative companies like Kodak have gone the way of the dodo bird. CXpose.tech took the chance to speak to a company with seemingly legacy technology, to understand how it evades extinction and, in fact, thrive as an intelligent document processing expert.

For 90 years, Fujifilm has been synonymous with photography, film, and printing. But as digital technologies disrupted those industries, Fujifilm has been on a remarkable journey to transform and reinvent itself. What started as a chemicals and film company has evolved into an innovative solutions provider harnessing the latest digital technologies to, among other things, achieve higher workplace productivity with seamless workflow.

Healthcare and materials are now Fujifilm’s largest business segments, accounting for 33% and 23% of the group’s revenue respectively, but it’s really Fujifilm’s business innovation pillar where exciting transformations are taking place.

The former Fuji Xerox joint venture had focused on printers and copiers. Then Fujifilm separated from its 59-year partner, Xerox, in 2021 and now as Fujifilm Business Innovation, is leveraging its expertise in document management to become a leader in intelligent document processing (IDP).

Timely evolution

While printing remains a significant portion of their business, the company recognizes that the needs of their customers have changed drastically in the digital age. “Printing is not enough anymore,” explained Koh Ching Hong, CEO of Fujifilm Business Innovation Singapore. “Customers need scanning, extracting data from documents into workflows and processes.“

Koh Ching Hong, Fujifilm Business Innovation Singapore

This shift in focus has led Fujifilm to become one of the early pioneers in intelligent document processing (IDP). By leveraging technologies such as robotic process automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and optical character recognition (OCR) Fujifilm is helping businesses streamline their operations and gain valuable insights from their data.

One customer in the insurance industry had come forward with a pain point they needed to solve, saying that each of their 40 agents needed three to six days to respond to their customers with regards to claims, or queries about their insurance policy, and so on. This is a challenge that is pervasive in the insurance industry and needless to say, insurance agencies are looking for ways to achieve faster turnaround time.

Here, Ching Hong shared one impressive example of their IDP capability that can help address this.

Fujifilm has developed a solution that enables straight-through processing of medical claims and he explained, “We use generative AI to learn handwriting and extract structured data from handwritten forms. Our solutions can summarize lengthy insurance policies into key points for call center agents to quickly answer customer queries.”

Centralized printing has increased, as companies deem it more efficient to do large print jobs from centralized print rooms and send documents out to intended recipients.

This technology transforms a process that once took days into one that can be completed almost instantly, while also detecting potentially fraudulent claims for further investigation.

Another innovative use case is in the automotive sector, where the use of AI during the motor claims assessment (MCA) process will analyze photos of a damaged car to optimize repair estimates, helping insurance companies save on claims to be paid. The company is also working with banks to automate KYC (Know Your Client) processes, extracting and validating data from multiple sources to expedite account opening whilst remaining compliant with regulations.

A counterintuitive business?

What is an organization with a core printing business doing with solutions for digitizing text and images?

Ching Hong pointed out that consumer and organization’s requirements have changed. Just 20 years ago, they were focused on aspects like color quality, speed of printing, and so on while evaluating multifunction machines. These days, their main requirement is the quality of the scanning capability of a multifunction machine, along with how fast documents can be scanned, and how these scanned documents can be integrated into their workflows.

Overall, customers’ focus has shifted from just hardware specifications, to overall digitization and workflow processes.

Koh said that decentralized printing has dropped significantly since COVID, by as much as 40%, as people don’t come into offices as frequently as they used to. Instead, centralized printing has increased, as companies deem it more efficient to do large print jobs from centralized print rooms and send documents out to intended recipients. He noted that while decentralized print volume and printers in the field have reduced, centralized printing of high quality documents for private banking clients is still important.

As businesses continue to digitize their operations, Fujifilm sees a significant opportunity in helping them unlock insights from legacy data. “Many of our customers have boxes of documents sitting in warehouses for decades,” noted Ching Hong. By scanning and digitizing these documents, Fujifilm is enabling companies to apply AI and analytics to gain valuable intelligence from previously hard-to-access information.

However, the path to becoming an IDP leader is not without its challenges. A significant function Fujifilm wants to enhance is language capability, as many of their customers operate in diverse environments.

The company is actively working on expanding its capabilities beyond English to include Asian languages such as Thai and Vietnamese. The company is currently running a co-pilot translating Vietnamese medical documents into English language, with an anticipated 98% accuracy.

Internal DX

Ching Hong as the Singapore MD also sits on a regional management committee that has shared targets and objectives. He shared a mid-term plan to pivot from their core printing business towards more services and solutions,

“And for that, first we must have the right talent in place. That means upskill and reskill our current pool of people into digitization and other areas we want them to learn.

“Secondly, we need to bring in fresh new talent with new ideas and technical background to supplement our business to grow.”

Also important is being able to harness new technologies like A.I. quickly into use cases for customers, and to learn from the experience.

Internally, Fujifilm is undergoing its own digital transformation, modernizing legacy IT systems to become more agile and efficient. “We have to change our platform,” acknowledged Ching Hong, “but it’s difficult with so many different systems. So we use generative AI and analytics tools to do things which are simplified for us and our customers.”

Importantly, is collaboration with its base of 30,000 customers to develop use cases and build mindshare, as well as work with technology partners to offer solutions to customers. “We have about 15 project managers and technical solution architects to do these.”

Fujifilm’s transformation from a film and printing company to a digital innovator is a testament to the importance of adaptability in the face of disruptive change. By embracing new technologies and pivoting towards intelligent document processing, it is moving ahead of the curve to help businesses navigate digitalization and unlock the full potential of their data.