Go Green with Document Management

5 Tips for Going Paperless

The History of the “Paperless” Concept

As long ago as 1975, the paperless concept was being discussed.  In fact, in June, 1975, Newsweek Magazine published an article called “The Office of the Future.”   It was touted as an “in-depth analysis of how word processing will reshape the corporate office.”   In the article, Vincent E. Giuliano of Arthur D. Little, Inc. was quoted as saying that “1990, most record-handling will be electronic."

Fast forward to present day, and what do our offices today look like?  Is most of our record-handling electronic?  And can there really be a completely paperless office?  Or is the truth of “paperless” somewhere between row upon row of paper-crammed file cabinets and the sleek concept of the paperless “office of the future?” 

Video:  How to Get Rid of Paper in Your Business

Paperless Solutions for Government Agencies

State and local governments are rife with paper -- from records to processes, paper dominates the landscape.  This paper-based system often leads to government agencies being demeaned as inefficient bureaucracies. It doesn't have to be this way.  In fact, some argue that the bureaucratic structure of government constitutes the most efficient and rational way in which one can organize the human activity and that systematic processes that are necessary to a civilized society. What mucks it up is paper!  Maybe it's time to look at a paperless office.

Many employees in state and local government, spend as much as six hours a day managing paper. With this much time dedicated to printing, filing and searching for information, mission-critical tasks often fall by the wayside.  And government bureaucracy is blamed!

Why Companies Resist Going Paperless

Despite endless articles about the benefits of paperless offices and regardless of ROI proof shown in charts and diagrams, many businesses resist the move to paperless processes.  Often the resistance starts the top -- many business owners are used to seeing paper on their employees' desks. To them, the paper stacks from faxes, invoices, memos and other documents are tangible proof that work is being done. 

Because business owners are removed from the daily tasks their employees dom they usually underestimate how much time it takes to read, handle, file, copy or scan, send or retrieve paper documents.  In truth, the stacks of paper are less a symbol of work being done and more a symbol of inefficiency and an inflated cost of doing business.

Is Your Business Ready for Digital Transformation?

It seems that everywhere I turn, I hear the phrase “digital transformation.”  This seems to be the latest catch-phrase in strategic trends for business, having supplanted "paperless office" in popularity.   It’s important to note that digital transformation is not one technology, nor is it a one-time update or tweak to your current systems and processes.  Digital transformation is a sweeping customer-centric trend that promises to transform the way businesses do business.

Why Businesses Must Transform or Perish

Forrester summed it up this way in a recent report:  “Customers’ power in the marketplace continues to ramp up, so…business leaders need to transform digital customer experiences…The ability to align products, operations, and business models to what we call a “customer-obsessed operating model” will determine firms’ ultimate success. To digitally transform both experiences and operations… professionals (need to) apply technology to these facets of the business, ensuring that they are customer-led and insights driven.”

A Lesson from Wall Street About Back Office Paper Work

In the late nineteen-sixties, much like today, the stock market was booming.   By 1969, daily trading volume had hit 12,000,000 shares a day.  While that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the 1,786,805,986 shares that the NYSE traded on the last day of May, this year, there is one big difference.

Today trades are done via computer.  But, back in 1968, the NYSE was all about paper.  And the late sixties boom lead to a lot of unfinished paperwork.  In the period between 1960 and 1968, trade volume quadrupled, but work processes didn’t change.

So, what should have been great news for brokerage houses, ended up wrecking many of them because they just couldn’t keep up with the paperwork.  They literally died from being buried under paperwork.  In the words of the New Yorker Magazine “—offices were full of stock certificates, and trade documents were stacked halfway to the ceiling. Amid the chaos, dividend checks went unsent, trades were credited to the wrong accounts, and fraud spread; hundreds of millions of dollars in securities were stolen. And since the firms often didn’t process trades quickly enough, billions of dollars’ worth of transactions a month were simply cancelled. In 1968, the stock market started closing one day a week to let firms catch up on their work, but the brokerages’ bookkeeping woes caught up to them first, and more than a hundred firms went under. It took years—and the passage of an investor-protection bill—for the crisis to abate.”

Paperless Solutions at the NY State MWBE Conference

We’re excited to be heading to the NY State MWBE Conference on October 5^th and 6^th in Albany, New York.  This is the largest statewide forum on Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprise (MWBE) government contracts.

Since Paper Alternative was granted a Women Business Enterprise (WBE) pursuant to New York State Executive Law, Article 15-A on April 7, 2016, we’re now one of the state-recognized organizations that is eligible to take part in this conference.