With over two and a half decade of experience in Canon, Bhaskhar is a respected name in the field of business imaging.

With the nationwide lockdown owing to the pandemic, businesses across scales are undergoing a considerable disruption. Organizations are tirelessly working towards finding normalcy in these times of distress. Regardless of whether it is a micro, small, medium, or large businesses, every segment has its own share of challenges and of all the major hiccups, maintaining business workflow and keeping the revenue-flow wheel rolling consistently, is the toughest of all. In such pressing times, it is tough to look towards the future while the world is engulfed in a crisis and awaiting an impending economic downturn. As business leaders, we owe it to our employees, our customers, our partners and most importantly, our communities to transcend beyond the difficulties and consider ways to transition to a new, post-pandemic normal successfully. Hence, companies across the globe have been pushing boundaries when it comes to technological innovations like never before.

The modern workplace, as we know, is going to go through a metamorphosis like never before. Automation has carved its way into all industries. So why should the modern day office be left behind? Office automation in simple terms refers to a confluence of hardware and software that can help to automate the day to day operation activities without manual intervention. The history of office automation can date as far back as when the typewriter was introduced in offices in the mid 1880’s. The introduction of the photocopier in the late 1950’s further strengthened the movement. From the latter half of the 1990’s office automation has also come to define the shift towards digitization and a paperless office. The 2000’s brought on premise document management solutions that allow users to access digitized records which was then followed by the wide spread availability of cloud based solutions which allow users to access data from anytime, anywhere. All these milestones have helped contribute to simplifying business.

With our lives moving towards work from home in a post COVID-19 world, I anticipate a 20% drop in hardware requirement along with roughly 15% drop in printing volumes as

well. None the less, the overall printing market would remain the same as one of the major contributors - the home printing segment has seen a significant surge. While people are slowly but surely adjusting to the new normal and printing at home is witnessing a higher demand, multi-function devices that can print, scan and copy while having in-built cloud connectivity for document storage will become one of the important must-haves for fully functional home-office. In offices with multi-function devices/copiers being connected to the network – printing from ones seat is the norm. Printing is also possible from mobile devices or via a USB drive. To collect the document users simply have to scan their id card against the card reader and therein you have contactless printing.

In terms of managing the document workflow of an organization, there will be an increased demand for adapting to technologies and solutions that will be a boon for remote working and aid in operational efficiencies as well

In terms of managing the document workflow of an organization, there will be an increased demand for adapting to technologies and solutions that will be a boon for remote working and aid in operational efficiencies as well. Leaders who in the past may have been apprehensive in adopting office automation technologies have now realized its importance in the working from home period wherein in access to documents (documents in physical form left at the office or lack of cloud based solutions to access and share documents) has proved to be one of the biggest pain points. They will now look to adopt solutions that will provide them with workforce efficiency, cost reduction, improved turnaround time and serviceability without having significant investments. They understand that adopting office automation today will surely pave the way for a better and profitable future tomorrow.

With the changing times, even office automation is becoming more nuanced. For instance, today in hospitals when there is so much dearth of workforce during testing times, the automated workflows is providing an error-free service while reducing the wastage related to worksheets and other paper related works. The banking sector, which is known to be one of the most conservative sectors when it comes to change, was one of the first ones to transform its back-office procedures. Automation has also proved to be a real game-changer for them. Earlier, they had many people processing customer requests which are both costly and slow and led to inconsistent outcomes. Now with swift ways of archiving data, managing data and exchanging data, back-office processing has become error-free and less time-consuming.

Going ahead, the role of futuristic technologies in office automation like Robotic Process Automation (RPA) will be of immense importance in organizations across sectors. Instead of halting services due to unavailability of staff in these troublesome times, organizations can look at adopting intelligent automation. Beginning with day-to-day repetitive activities, automating the manual intensive rule-based processes can enable in reducing the burden on the available staff. Hence, they can be re-assigned for more creative, strategic and value-adding jobs.

With the world being at the apex of next digital revolution, it is safe to say that, office automation provides us with excellent tools to redefine the new normal in a post-COVID world. We have just started to see the foundational innovation that will rejuvenate the future of work, with organizations exchanging slow and manual processes with fast and scalable ones. Office automation exists to empower us to do the creative, strategic, and compassionate work which we do the best, all while making the world a better place.