海角社区

The DocuWare cloud application enhances efficiency and drives paperless operations by centralizing document management and automating workflows. Since 2024, 海角社区has further strengthened the platform with artificial intelligence (AI) technology from natif.ai. To explore how 海角社区is shaping the future of work through the ongoing evolution of DocuWare, we spoke with Kazuhiro Tsuruta, Director of Process Automation Business Promotion, Hayato Aoki, Manager of Process Automation Promotion, and Ryuta Aomori, Manager of Process Automation Engineering.

One 海角社区business driving Fulfillment through Work is Process Automation, which boosts organizational productivity by streamlining business processes. Kazuhiro Tsuruta, who oversees Ricoh’s process automation business, shared his insights on the state of corporate document and workflow management.

Tsuruta said, "Japan lags the rest of the world in digital transformation. Just 50% of companies here have embraced digital processes, compared with around 80% in Germany. Workplaces here still seem to rely heavily on paper documents. Japan must urgently adopt digital processes to overcome the challenges of a shrinking workforce, enhance productivity, and increase employee engagement through remote work. Ricoh’s process automation solutions can help companies overcome these business challenges."

Ryuta Aomori from the Engineering Group, which provides technical support for DocuWare services, is confident that 海角社区can leverage its expertise in document management to deliver value through document-centric process automation. He says, " 海角社区has long supported businesses with multifunction printers, print centers, and scanning services. We can tailor solutions that help customers seamlessly integrate scanned documents into their workflows, improving efficiency."

DocuWare manages digital documents and content, automates workflows, and integrates with accounting systems. More than 19,000 companies in over 100 countries use this platform, mainly small and medium-sized businesses. 海角社区helps customers improve efficiency by combining DocuWare with its multifunction printers and cloud platforms.

DocuWare supports diverse corporate documentation tasks. In Japan, many companies use it to digitize purchase orders and invoices they receive in various formats and streamline document workflows.

Tsuruta explained that, "In wholesaling, manufacturing, retailing, and other sectors, many companies still manually enter purchase orders and invoices that they receive by fax, the post, or email into their systems. DocuWare automatically scans, digitizes, categorizes, and integrate these documents into existing systems to streamline workflows. Many of our customers use it to automate order and invoice processing."

DocuWare supports an array of document-related tasks, so the ability of sales representatives to listen to customers and propose solutions is vital to successful implementations.

Tsuruta says, "DocuWare can do a lot depending on how it’s set up. It can extract data from documents, streamline approval workflows by identifying the right recipients, and verify totals in accounting documents. Listing all these features at once can overwhelm customers and make it hard for them to see how to use them effectively. That’s why we start by learning about their business processes. Once we understand their challenges, we show how specific features can improve their workflows. A demo at this stage helps them see the benefits, leading to successful adoptions."

Process Automation Group leader Hayato Aoki says, "DocuWare sales staff are more advisors than salespeople. We aim to be go-to experts that customers trust to find the right solutions to their document and workflow challenges. That’s crucial for the success of our process automation business." This consultative approach is difficult and requires great expertise, but Tsuruta considers this an opportunity for 海角社区to grow as a digital services company.

DocuWare adapts to diverse needs not by adding features but by recalibrating settings. Sales representatives conversant with customer workflows work closely with Aomori and his engineering team to maximize this flexibility. Engineers test the effectiveness of proposed solutions and suggest ways to tailor DocuWare even further to match specific business needs. Tsuruta noted, "DocuWare delivers value by bringing consultants and engineers together."

Another benefit of the DocuWare platform is that it can support the operations of entire companies. Companies typically deploy it at one department, such as accounting, then roll it out to other areas.

Aomori says, "When customers start using DocuWare for a specific type of document, they often realize its potential for other tasks and expand its use to other departments. DocuWare drives broader adoption and creates even greater value as they understand its benefits and ease of use."

Some companies have taken the opportunity presented by compliance with Japan’s Electronic Bookkeeping Act to accelerate digital transformation by implementing DocuWare. One such entity was M.M. Bridge Co., Ltd., a bridge constructor that won a JIIMA Best Practice Award. That prize program recognizes organizations with outstanding achievements in document information management. That company’s materials unit digitized paper-based workflows while retaining existing operational rules as much as possible. It thereby reduced working hours, balanced workloads that were concentrated at month-end, and paved the way for further digitalization and operational improvements.

One DocuWare strength is that its interface closely resembles handling paper documents. For example, its approval workflow lets users intuitively review and stamp documents like with paper. DocuWare is easy to implement even at sites resisting digital transformation amid workflow changes.

DocuWare’s advanced user interface runs on AI-driven optical character recognition (OCR) technology to accurately extract text from scanned documents.

According toTsuruta, "Unlike conventional AI OCR solutions that require pre-registration of specific document sections, DocuWare’s AI continuously learns from real-world usage, gradually improving its accuracy over time. This eliminates the need for customers to preset things, which benefits them considerably."

That said, AI cannot guarantee perfect accuracy, and manual corrections can hamper AI adoptions. DocuWare overcomes that challenge with its Intelligent Indexing feature, which streamlines post-scan corrections.

Intelligent Indexing enables users to quickly compare scanned images with extracted text and apply corrections with a single click. Aomori says, "Many customers struggle with digitalization because they find it harder than expected. When we demonstrate it, however, they realize that adjustments are easy enough for frontlines adoption. This feature gets the best responses during demos."

Even customers already using document management tools often choose to implement DocuWare because of its data utilization capabilities. According to Tsuruta, "By structuring information, businesses can harness data as an asset. Analyzing data companywide aids decision-making, and many executives appreciate that benefit."

Since 2024, 海角社区has enhanced DocuWare’s OCR capabilities with Intelligent Document Processing technology from natif.ai, a German software subsidiary. The technology is widely used in Germany, and 海角社区is currently in the process of adapting it for Japanese-language processing. This will enable more precise text extraction from documents and automate document sorting by content for distribution to the relevant people.

Tsuruta says, "In Japan, handwritten documents such as purchase orders are often still the norm. This technology significantly increases the accuracy of handwritten text recognition. Also, our setup can extract specific data for each task. I think this will contribute to freeing more businesses from time-consuming manual work."

海角社区wholly acquired DocuWare in 2019 and natif.ai in 2024. Messrs. Tsuruta, Aoki, and Aomori explain the contributions DocuWare and natif.ai are making to Ricoh’s process automation business.

According to Aoki, "Bringing a company with advanced AI technology into the 海角社区group was a milestone for our process automation business. Many companies leverage AI today, but you can’t get expertise just by using AI technology from other players. With natif.ai under our umbrella, we can integrate its AI development capabilities and ideas into our operations. I believe this will drive Ricoh’s transformation from a hardware provider into a digital services company."

Aomori explains how bringing software and AI technology companies into the fold has transformed engineering at Ricoh.

"Relying on technologies from other companies often limits how fast we can develop digital services to match customer needs. With DocuWare and natif.ai now in the 海角社区Group, we can communicate with them daily and develop solutions with the agility of a startup. As society and our customers evolve, we engineers seek to stay ahead of the curve, creating more value by meeting changing needs."

Ricoh’s process automation aims to reshape the world of work. Aoki added, "By streamlining document processing with DocuWare and natif.ai’s AI technology, we can free up time people previously devoted to manual tasks. That empowers them to redirect their energies to new business challenges and more creative, motivating work. At the end of the day, we want to help customers expand their businesses and experience greater fulfillment through work."

Messrs. Tsuruta, Aoki, and Aomori have themselves found fulfillment working alongside the DocuWare and natif.ai headquarters teams. Tsuruta also noted, "We can take 海角社区to the next stage by uniting as one global team. It’s exciting to be able to spearhead this transformation. Our days are busy and a lot of fun."

The immediate challenge is to launch natif.ai’s technology in Japan. Messrs. Tsuruta, Aoki, and Aomori are keen to accelerate rollouts to support business process improvements. By collaborating with DocuWare and nati.ai to transform document workflows with digital technologies, 海角社区will continue to shape the future of work.