The "Paperless Office" Myth
Are paper documents on the rise?
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In the last 20 years, working from a screen has become the norm in offices; however, clubs still receive and furnish large volumes of paper documents every day. The trend is the same colse to the world: A steep increase in paper received by companies. In the Uk, it is estimated that 73% of all documents received by clubs are paper documents (62% from mail and 11% from faxes). Electronic documents still describe less than a quarter of the bulk of documents (16% as e-mails, 8% as web forms). On average, clubs today receive 3 million items per year and the cost of by hand processing of incoming mail is estimated at 0.15 to 0.25 per item.
Furthermore, the use of electronic mail has not lead to a discount in the volume of paper circulating inside companies. On the contrary, the trend is an increase in the volume of documents printed by companies. Research carried out by Idc Consulting Group in 2006 estimated that Us clubs printed 1,840 billion pages and agreeing to Lexmark, the typical firm will print more than 1,000 pages per worker every month. Therefore, the boom in document printing is directly associated to the amelioration of electronic facts exchange. The use of e-mails has lead to a 40% increase in the volume of paper documents! In 2007, 32% of clubs still reported a rise in their paper mail volumes.
As a result, paper still represents:
79% of management Information
53% of industrial Proposals
80% of Technical Reports
70% of Incoming Invoices
Obviously, implementing new technologies did not lead to a decrease in the volume of paper documents circulating within the company. What changed is the time and place at which a piece of facts is converted into a piece of paper.
Preference for paper
One of the most basal values of a paper document is to reassure its owner. For many people, having a paper copy of a document is more convenient and reduces the risk of losing the information. Printouts and copies of documents are still perceived as the easiest way of to circulate facts within the company. Electronic documents are often not seen as offering the same level of reliability and security as paper documents do.
Many clubs still believe that they are legally bound to archive some documents as paper for a confident time, such as accounting documents or contracts. However, the reality is that these rules only apply to a small minority of documents. Most digitized documents are now legally admissible in a court of law. The new British Standard, Bs 10008 "Evidential weight and legal admissibility of electronic information" covers this in detail. The culture of 'avoiding risk at all cost' is what compels clubs to print and archive thousands of documents every day.
Even if clubs are aware of the critical benefits offered by new technologies to dramatically sell out the volume of paper documents, resistance to convert can still limit their impact in the short-term.
Cost Analysis
A old study provides the following figures: The costs associated to the proliferation of documents are far from being anecdotal. Therefore, most clubs can advantage by tackling those costs seriously.
Activity and Estimated Cost
Cost of classifying and archiving a document =
Cost of searching for a document = to 0
Cost of a mis-archived document = 0
Proportion of mis-archived documents = 3% of the volume of documents
Total cost of managing mis-archived documents = 3% to 8% of the firm turnover
Reasons for Implementing a Digital Mail Room
More than 70% of clubs believe that a digital mailroom would play an important part in expanding the efficiency and success of their organisation. For 20% of them, the implementation of a digital mailroom is regarded as critical.
Mail volumes continue to grow exponentially, stimulated by firm increase and movable work forces. For example, medium-sized clubs now process 100,000 pieces of mail a month and service over 200 departments. In addition, the corporate mailroom, a vital link in the corporate facts system, is struggling to keep abreast of this paper flow.
Meanwhile, today's organisations query instant, literal, information; Us businesses spend over 300 billion annually turning the facts on the documents they receive every day into beneficial data that they can use to run their business.
The need for corporate compliance and accountability has also forced large corporations to invest heavily in facts backup, warehouse systems, and compliance solutions. Some corporate mailrooms have benefited from the amelioration of high-speed automation equipment designed for curious physical mail more efficiently through the system.
However, the challenges are daunting, considering that most mailrooms are using one-piece-at-a-time optical identification and by hand sorting methods developed over a century ago. At best, these mailrooms operate at an efficiency rate of 200 to 500 pieces-per-hour to achieve basic mail sorting. Identification, sorting and physical delivery of inbound mail relies in most cases on human memory.
By digitizing the incoming mail process, and indexing the documents on the fly, clubs will not only gain operate of their mail processes internally (no more efficiency losses, gaps in document operate and loss of critical mail data), but will have the opening to join electronic mail formats (e-mail, fax) in the same document processing flow. By implementing a digital mailroom designed as a central platform for information, the organisation will bring rationality to mail processing and critical gains in productivity and customer service.
For more facts on Digital Mailroom solutions go to http://www.datafinity.co.uk/digital_mailroom.html.
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