How Long Until We Are Paperless?

A reporter called me the other day to get our company's perspective on the "paperless office." I guess he figured that our company's 49-plus years in the business qualified us to predict this.

After a few moments of trying to figure out how to break it to him gently, I let him know that it is really not about everything being electronic. Can you imagine always having to look at a computer screen or your "smart phone" to get what you need? I just got the new Treo 700W phone, and while it has many great features, the one feature it doesn't have is a screen that's about twice the size and a font that is at least 14 point bold. Naturally, it would be great if the screen folded back up in my holster, but that's another article. The point is that it is not paperless we are trying to get to; it is improving your business processes.

Business Process Improvement, or BPI as it is referred to, is essential to increasing productivity. Document Imaging and its several modules, such as Workflow and Email Management, are just some of the tools we use to improve these business processes.

This probably doesn't happen at your place of business, but I have seen several cases where the accounting department goes through the whole year, closes out the year, has audits, and then wants to do something with the paper. All of this while they tell me that their current system doesn't cost anything. Want the solution to improving this business process? Move the capture part of this "workflow" to occur at or near the point of receiving the paper.

Let's face it, until everyone, and I mean everyone, has the latest and current technology (that would be a PC and a fairly current operating system) we will still be using paper. Think that everyone already possesses current technology? I'll take you to several places that still have to fax their documents because the other end doesn't have email (which is how you got this ezine).

I said this before in a prior article but if you want to find out how much your current system costs, find out how much time you actually spend filing and retrieving your documents. Don't forget to add in the lost documents you and your company spend time looking for.

If you would like ideas on how to improve your business processes, reply to this email and in the subject line, put "tell me more."

Mark A. Zecy