Road to Paper Light Office

Since 1970’s technology Gurus and visionaries predicted an “office of the future” – a paperless office, however, despite the slew of technology advancements in the field of electronic communication and record keeping, the business world still heavily relies on the generation and exchange of paper to consummate business transactions and to run the day-to-day business operations. Our Government is now driving “Digital India” with a great vision and vigor, and the key question is: When will the paperless office become a reality for you and me?

Our offices are still stacked with papers, research estimates that in large enterprises on an average office worker uses over 10,000 sheets of copy paper each year (which is around a tree per worker). This means a lot of important information about the business is documented on paper, this poses information security risks besides siphoning off employee and business productivity. . Although reliance on paper contracting is significant, it is obvious to most astute business observers that digitizing business processes enhances the ability of an organization to achieve business goals. Information is the life source of business and finding ways to cut down on wasted time filing and searching for documents will ultimately increase collaboration and workplace productivity. Also, one of the crucial objectives of transforming into an e-office or paperless office is to clear the files without delay increasing speed to market and reducing the time taken for documenting the work. By exchanging information electronically with vendors and customers, a business can make information quickly accessible -- and conversely more private and secure through the use of encryption, passwords and other security measures. At the same time, a company can create more room and reduce off-site storage costs.

Then why aren’t the businesses taking any steps to paperless office? It is obvious that there exist barriers between digital and print. There are instances in which paper is genuinely difficult to replicate digitally, or it may be the preferred method from a client or vendor perspective. Though it is difficult to completely eliminate the use of paper, but there can be ways to print less and become a paper-light office which will help is boosting productivity as a result.

If you look at enterprises today, each year improper document management costs them millions of dollars in liability, reduced efficiency and lost productivity. These costs will only increase in future with expansion in business operations. Thankfully, workflow automation and document management can play a critical role. The disruptive force of new technologies within this space are opening up opportunities to change behavior in today’s workplace, allowing businesses to strive for a more efficient, productive, collaborative and sustainable world of work.

How we get work done is changing just as rapidly, driven by cloud access, mobility, social media, virtual collaboration and other digital technologies.

According to a recent Quocirca study, 72 percent of organizations indicated that they are planning to increase their digitization efforts. New innovations have significantly changed the ways of the past. With faster, more sophisticated technology and a mobile-centric workforce, businesses can readily welcome the transformation of paper-based documents to electronic files.

The next wave of technology advancement in the sphere of Document Management focuses on Digitization. Digital Transformation is NOT JUST replacing analog processes with digital processes through the use of digital technology (e.g., digitizing paperwork in an existing process).

Here are three ways document management technology will assist you in this evolution:

Analyze document workflows: When embarking on a transformational journey, the first step is to take stock of the current situation and understand how current work environment operates. Assessment of current state can spread wide and go deep, covering your office print infrastructure, understanding a documents journey through a business process, understanding the workers pain areas in executing such workflows and managing documents etc. Once the current state is available, an organization -- while keeping cognizance of their strategy and business environment -- can know exactly which workflows or printing services could be the transformation targets.

A lot of paper is generated by printing from digital sources and from incoming communications. Let’s consider analyzing workplace hardware, including print and document workflow, for insight into how assets are used throughout the office, for a complete assessment we also need to understand the processes and users expectations. By analyzing how and why devices are used by employees within an office, companies can revamp and optimize processes to help increase efficiencies. It’s also essential for employees to look at their own work behaviors and fine-tune old habits in order to drive the necessary change from the ground up.

It may not be easy to understand one’s own (print) behavior and even more difficult to change it. Being a though leader, Xerox understands such nuances and has come up with some innovative means to assist such changes. Xerox uses gamification to motivate workers for printing more efficiently, Xerox’s Print Awareness Tool monitors and analyzes print history and wasteful habits. Using gamification technology, employees can voluntarily track how their efforts support company-wide print reduction and print smarter goals.

Automate business processes: As output of the assessment, we now know which process needs to be transformed. Paper-based business processes are complicated and expensive. When a company can cut down on paper-based documents for core business processes, savings can be dramatic -- not only in terms of cost, but also productivity and security of enterprise information.

Xerox researchers wanted to understand what are the core reasons driving Print or use of paper in workflows, and found that people print/use paper at work to read, annotate, share, sign/authorize or save. In pursuit of a paper light office, one can look at solutions that enable workers to perform these tasks while removing the physical paper from the process.

Xerox’s Digital Alternatives is a simple desktop and mobile assistant technology that automates paper-based workflows that exist within any large organization. Users can easily sign, annotate, share, save and read documents from one interface, eliminating the need to print documents, convert files or toggle between different programs and digital versions — a time-saving and efficiency gain. Digital Alternatives can also integrate with document management systems like DocuShare and electronic signature applications like DocuSign.

Intelligent Capture: Journey to a paper light office has multiple facets, with the above two approaches we understood how we can look at moving from paper to digital within the office, however, organizations today send and receive a lot of information in form of paper based documents (remember besides printing inside office, a lot of inbound documents are in form of paper?). So while we are preparing internal processes for a digital transformation, how do we enable digital inputs to these processes? Intelligent Capture is the answer.

Getting legacy content into enterprise systems and processes is one of the biggest obstacles to digital transformation. Intelligent Capture Services provides a scalable and flexible platform for accomplishing this. From basic walk-up MFP scanning, to process-governed intelligent capture, to mobile capture and fax scanning, Intelligent Capture Services reduces paper use in general office applications, helping remove cost from all areas of operations. It also provides easier access to digital technology and automates processes for greater organizational agility and provides multi-format and consistent capture and access to digital material.

Intelligent Capture leverages Xerox Managed Print Services (MPS) capabilities and the distributed scanning capacity of MFPs to deliver a fully integrated solution. It includes advanced capabilities like intake normalization, OCR and document conversion, data extraction and validation, metadata addition, and integration with repositories and business process applications.

With change comes risks and unknowns that can be disruptive; but businesses that take on the challenge have much to gain and move one step closer to a more digital, paper-less work environment envisioned decades ago.

Printing less isn’t just about using less paper – it’s about working smarter, improving productivity, connecting with clients faster and using data to bolster business.

(Image Credits: Thinkstock)

(About the Author: This article has been contributed by Abhishek Sarda, GM Marketing - Global Document Outsourcing at Xerox India.)