Why You Should Choose a Cloud-Based Intelligent Document Processing Solution over an On-Premise Alternative

“Will our confidential and sensitive data really be processed securely if we choose a cloud-based Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) solution?” This might be one of the questions you ask yourself when evaluating a modern extraction solution. While this concern is understandable at first glance, it is largely unfounded with today’s vendors.

In this article, we address these topics:

• Comparing on-premise IDP vs. cloud IDP,
• what are common concerns of enterprises regarding cloud-based solutions,
• what the limitations of on-premise IDP are,
• what the biggest advantages of cloud IDP are, and
• how to choose the right cloud IDP provider.

1. Overview On-Premise IDP vs. Cloud IDP

On-premise IDP: With on-premise, the Intelligent Document Processing software is physically installed, operated and maintained within the architecture and infrastructure in your organization.

Cloud IDP: With a cloud solution, the software is not operated and maintained by you, but by the IDP provider. You rent the software, usually on an annual basis. This service is called software-as-a-service (SaaS).

Before we go into what the concerns of many companies are in the context of the cloud, we compare the two alternatives:

On-premise Intelligent Document Processing:

• You are in control of the security measures
• You host the IDP solution on your servers
• Your data remains in-house at all times
• You are in control of the data

Cloud-based Intelligent Document Processing:

• The IDP provider takes control of the security measures
• The IDP provider hosts the IDP solution
• Your data is transferred to external servers
• The IDP provider processes your data on its servers

2. Common concerns around cloud-based Intelligent Document Processing

Just a few years ago, the question of whether to use cloud or on-premise did not even arise for companies. The cost of cloud storage was too high and the choice for on-premise was therefore clear. But with the advent of new technologies, the cost of cloud computing has fallen sharply in recent years. As a result, SaaS became more and more important.

However, some companies are still hesitant to implement cloud-based systems because of concerns about data privacy and security. These worries are unfounded. Data stored in the cloud is now more secure than ever thanks to advanced cloud computing.

Moreover, for serious Intelligent Document Processing providers in the cloud, data privacy, data security and compliance are among the highest priorities. Secure management of sensitive data is the name of the game.

So too for Parashift: Parashift’s modern cloud infrastructure is fully EU GDPR compliant, customers worldwide use Parashift for their most sensitive data and documents. EU GDPR and data security are therefore two of Parashift’s most important features.

The platform runs in ISO27001, ISO27017, ISO27110, ISO27018, SOC 1/2/3, PCI DSS, CSA STAR and HIPAA compliant data center. This makes Parashift a secure provider for IDP in the cloud. Additional information regarding security and compliance can be found here.

3. 4 Limitations of On-Premise IDP

We’ve gotten the privacy and data security concerns of the cloud out of the way. Now let’s look at the limitations of Intelligent Document Processing if you want to run it in-house and on your own server:

1. High initial costs, slow implementation: For an on-premise IDP, the costs for licensing, setup and configuration alone shoot up very quickly. In addition, depending on the scope of the project, the implementation of the IDP solution may take weeks or even months, which is hardly in your interest.
   
2. High maintenance costs: However, the high initial costs are not the end of the story for you. The maintenance costs of the on-prem IDP are similar. For software improvements and configurations, you are henceforth dependent on the (expensive) support of the IDP provider. An on-prem solution requires constant technical support and updates, which further drives up costs.
   
3. Potential security vulnerabilities: On-premise solutions always have potential vulnerabilities that you must continuously monitor and protect. You need enormous IT resources to meet the numerous security standards and compliance requirements.
   
4. Poor scalability: If you want to scale your on-premise IDP, you need to plan ahead because it often requires upgrading hardware. This always involves a lot of effort and high costs. The flexibility for scalability when document volume increases is completely missing.

Tired of high licensing and deployment costs? Time for an easy-to-use and secure SaaS solution. Time for the Parashift Intelligent Document Processing platform in the cloud.

4. 5 Advantages of a cloud-based Intelligent Document Processing solution

The limitations of an on-prem IDP are obvious to the vast majority of organizations. On top of that, a cloud IDP with AI holds some clear advantages for your business. These are 5 advantages:

1. No high initial costs and fast integration: With cloud IDP, no expensive projects are needed to get started with advanced document extraction. Moreover, the solution can be easily integrated into your existing system landscapes. Compatibility with other software is critical.
   
2. Transparent costs: With a SaaS solution, you know from the start what the costs are that you have to expect. Ongoing maintenance costs are completely eliminated since they are already included in the annual pricing.
   
3. Enhanced security: Cloud-based IDP solutions use state-of-the-art security measures to protect sensitive data. Stringent data protection and compliance requirements coupled with state-of-the-art cloud infrastructure ensure the highest level of security for your business. Your data is stored on secure, off-site servers, reducing the risk of data breaches and ensuring compliance with privacy regulations.
   
4. Unburden IT: With a SaaS solution, your IT is unburdened. At the same time, it eliminates the problem of having to cover all know-how and IT resources internally. This not only gives you function-oriented advantages, but also the possibility of cost savings.
   
5. Easily scalable: For you as a growth-oriented company, one of the key requirements of an IDP solution is the ability to scale business processes at any time. The agile cloud infrastructure leaves exactly this room for scaling. In addition, software updates are realized without any problems, which guarantees your company maximum flexibility.

Quadrant Knowledge Solutions positions Parashift as a “market leader” in the SPARK Matrix™ for Intelligent Document Processing 2022 due to its innovation capabilities, among other factors

5. 4 Features to look for in a Cloud IDP Provider

So what you want for your business and your cloud IDP solution is: work with a reputable provider that brings experience in delivering a secure, advanced IDP solution and meets your AI automation needs. As a reputable provider of Intelligent Document Processing in the cloud, Parashift covers these points as a matter of course. These are 4 more features that should make your choice even easier:

1. Modern AI technologies and cloud-first: Parashift uses state-of-the-art AI technologies to ensure best-in-class extraction performance. With a cloud-first approach, Parashift provides you with a globally scalable service with the highest level of security and continuous software improvements.
   
2. Focus on four core areas: Parashift focuses exclusively on document separation, classification, extraction and validation. This gives you a state of the art cloud Intelligent Document Processing system.
   
3. Global learning: With proprietary Document Swarm Learning, Parashift achieves global, platform-wide learning. The innovative approach enables cost and effort sharing with all users. In doing so, technological advances are continuously achieved through all documents processed in the cloud and immediately shared across the network (learnings only).
   
4. No-code platform: In addition to the hundreds of pre-trained and ready-to-use standard document types, you can easily create individual ones yourself. Thanks to the no-code platform, you don’t need to hire IT experts to do this, but can click together new document types using drag & drop.

The Parashift platform is cloud-first, AI-first, and fully GDPR compliant, making it secure for any business and supporting agility in document processing. – Analyst Quadrant Knowledge Solutions, SPARK Matrix™ 2022 Intelligent Document Processing