The idea of going completely paperless has been in discussion for quite some time now but there are a handful of companies and organizations from all over the world who have adopted this concerted and completely eliminated paper from their offices for good. Since the COVID pandemic started, research has revealed that printing and scanning have decreased drastically because most of the workers and employees have been working from home, however, still more than 50% of the employees have been printing documents even while working from home.
The time and need for digital transformation have never been more evident than this. Although many companies have adopted different digital initiatives to stay in the competition and keep up the pace with their competitors, there still persists many gaps, especially in document productivity. Most of the workers consider that their companies need to make improvements on document management.
Completely eliminating paper from your business might not happen overnight but it can be done slowly and gradually to change the way your company operates. There is no better time to make this transition to not only preserve the environment but also to make your business grow. If you are still hesitating to make this transition then these reasons might help change your mind:
Increased Productivity And Efficiency
Productivity and efficiency are both increased by going paperless. Paper in the office creates a lot of bottlenecks and inefficiencies. Research suggests that employees waste over four hours every week just to complete paper-based tasks. With a paperless environment, employees don’t have to spend their time pushing paper, chasing down files, and filling out forms. When all of these tasks are switched over to digital documents then they are done in almost no time and it leaves time for more important things to be done.
Paper-based processes also come with limitations and liabilities. For instance, more than one person can not work on the same physical documents and at the same time keep a record of everything. At this time, digital documents come into play because of their efficiency and productivity.
Digital documents such as PDF or Word make it much easier for the whole team to create, share, edit, track versions, and sign documents without having to print or scan a single page. Plus, since most of the digital documents are compatible and interconvertible such as you can convert PDF to Word in no time and convert Word to PDF back as well in an instant, making these documents much easier to handle.
Cost Savings
Cost savings are also involved when you will be going paperless. An average worker uses over 10,000 sheets of paper every year and with hundreds of employees working in a huge office or firm, it can result in a lot of sheets of paper being consumers.
PwC or PricewaterhouseCoopers recently found that an average company spends about $20 in labor to file paper, $120 searching for a missing document, and $220 to recreate a lost document. Now, let’s compare these figures for companies who have over 1000 employees, which can result in millions of dollars being spent on paper and its resources.
If a company is low on budget or the budget of the company is strained because of the pandemic then cutting paper and all its related resources can be one of the fastest and easiest ways to save up on costs.
Environmental Sustainability
Environmental Sustainability always comes with going paperless because a lot of energy and water are consumed in producing paper. Over 11,000 kWh is consumed to produce one ton of paper and it is the same amount of electricity that an average household uses over the period of 1 month.
Not only this, there are other factors involved with paper such as the ink which can also increase the cost significantly and if not disposed off properly, can cause pollution.
By reducing the use of paper and minimizing the printing of documents in every possible way will result in the environment getting cleaner and greener. With this move, companies can also label themselves as ‘green’ which will be a good strategic move.
If any company is thinking about going paperless then now is the right time. Our working world has changed completely and it is the right time to make this transition. The only thing that stands between going paperless is our collective will to make this move possible.
