With the engineering sector starting to make the transition from analogue documents to digital, a window of opportunity has opened for smart resellers and those not already selling Adobe to this market sector should take cognisance of the fact that Adobe PDF is becoming more widely accepted as the de-facto standard for document sharing and archiving.
Hennie Badenhorst, Adobe product manager at IT systems and communications distributor Comztek, says engineers need a solution that will allow them to make the transition from analogue documents (hard copy) to digital documents (electronic files) with ease. The usage of Adobe PDF (portable document format) is booming across the globe and in South Africa, and is therefore the perfect solution.
Comztek is an official distributor for Adobe software in South Africa and provides support and technical assistance on the entire Adobe product range on a countrywide basis.
"Resellers should be looking at opportunities to entrench Adobe PDF in the engineering industry. If they don`t already sell and support Adobe solutions, they need to seriously consider it as a viable and sustainable new market opportunity.
"Through our Technical Service & Support Division, resellers can truly move up the value chain. They have access to quality, customised training workshops in sales, technical, product and basic technology. The skills service agreement gives the reseller access to support and service at a reduced cost by booking and paying for hours in advance. Resellers can then make use of pre- and post-sales support from our certified technical specialists, either telephonically or on-site," Badenhorst adds.
"Adobe PDF provides organisations of all sizes with the ability to implement new concepts in document management, archiving and sharing. The Adobe PDF standard addresses new organisational forms and business models that shape the way people work in the engineering environment," he says.
Against this background, Badenhorst believes that whatever the working environment and IT infrastructure, user requirements are the same: fast document retrieval, quick and convenient delivery to the point of use, and fast, consistent access to stored information.
Today, however, users in the engineering sector all work in different departments, and not all of them need or have access to the native applications with which documents were created.
"In most cases all they need is to `view and distribute` already released documents, and sometimes to annotate them. Access by all these users has to be facilitated, but also needs to be controlled," he explains.
One of the major benefits of Adobe PDF is that documents can be stored or archived securely. This is especially relevant as engineers move towards digital working methods. Complementary to the secure archiving of documents, Badenhorst says engineering companies need to future-proof their document accessibility.
"Documents must be accessible in the future, which cannot be achieved simply by storing application files. To achieve this demands a durable platform and application-independent document format, which will remain accessible regardless of changes in systems, applications and environments," he says.
"With Adobe PDF, documents are stored as `electronic paper` that is always accurately and consistently reproduced. In this electronic format, Adobe PDF documents are compact and secure, yet still allow individuals to browse, search and link them.
"Adobe PDF automates workflow and helps companies share corporate information across the organisation, specifically as a paper-to-digital and digital-to-paper solution that streamlines operations, improves efficiency and saves money," he concludes.
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