Digitizing documents and processes increases business agility and efficiency

Paper usage is costly, inefficient, and wasteful. Even so, many organizations are far from fully paperless. Why? Some documents require handwritten signatures, while others must be retained for compliance purposes. Too often, old habits are simply hard to break. Nonetheless, the benefits of going paperless are overwhelming. These ten reasons make the case for a paperless future:

1. Decrease the time spent searching for information.

   Scouring paper files for information wastes time and money. When sound information management practices are not in place, employees can spend 30-40% of their time looking for information. It’s much faster to type a search term on a keyboard than to get up and go over to a filing cabinet and sift through folders to find a document. Scanning documents is an important first step. Also needed is a system of advanced search which remedies the problem of lost or misfiled papers.

2. Free up physical space.

   The space requirements of paper files can be astonishing. One file cabinet storing some 11,000 paper pages takes up 9 square feet of floor space and costs about $1,500 per year. Add to that the cost of one worker for every 12 filing cabinets. At a time when many organizations are planning to shrink their overall office space, it doesn’t make sense to rely on paper files.

3. Increase resiliency.

   Emergencies happen – the COVID-19 pandemic is but one example. Hurricanes, fires, floods, and other natural disasters are far from rare. Most organizations have disaster recovery strategies that enable employees to work from remote locations when disasters strike. Workplace flexibility is much easier when documents are digitized and accessible from anywhere. Resiliency in the face of legal and regulatory risk is also important. Finding records to prove compliance is more difficult and costly when records are on paper. And paper files that are removed from offices open an organization to compliance liability. A better approach is to digitize documents, storing them securely in a searchable file system.

4. Enhance security.

   The use of paper gives rise to many security risks. For example, a document removed from a filing cabinet can be copied, photographed, destroyed, or simply stolen. Any of these acts can have expensive consequences. The cost of finding a misfiled document can be $125; to replace a lost document can run as high as $700. What’s more, compliance violations result in expensive fines. And documents are lost all the time. By one estimate the average organization loses 7.5% of its paper documents annually. The best approach is to digitize documents and then implement security policies to protect them.

5. Improve customer experience.

   Forcing customers to perform the tedious and error-prone task of filling out paper forms undermines positive customer interactions. Information from the form must either be scanned or input by hand, possibly leading to mis-entered data. The use of digital forms increases accuracy because an electronic form can flag inconsistent or omitted responses. Digital forms are also the start of automated workflows, which give customers a more responsive and streamlined experience.

6. Enable remote work.

   Remote work, which had been steadily gaining momentum, was turbocharged by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now most agree, remote work is here to stay: 87% of people who can work remotely at least part of the time will choose to do so, according to McKinsey. And because of competition for talent, many organizations are using the enticement of remote work to attract new employees. Shipping paper to-and-from between headquarters and home offices is unwieldy and expensive. Paperless processes, in contrast, make information available to workers at their fingertips, wherever they happen to be.

7. Encourage collaboration.

   Before digitized documents, passing paper back and forth via interoffice mail or overnight delivery was commonplace – and highly inefficient. Paperless processes for finding, sending, reviewing, and editing are far more streamlined. An information management system that enables workers to comment on and edit electronic documents makes it easy to share information and viewpoints with no delay. And getting rid of obstacles such as paper encourages employees to collaborate, which in turn tends to increase the quality of the work.

8. Streamline workflows.

   Organizations seeking to break down siloed processes will find it difficult to do so if they are stuck using paper forms. Digitizing paper documents is a necessary first step, but still might require workers to re-enter information to connect one process with another. Unifying the underlying data that is shared across silos will help streamline workflows, overcoming bottlenecks and enabling data to be accessed by those who need it, where and when they need it.

9. Become more environmentally friendly.

   Sustainability is being embraced by organizations of all sizes, across all industries. Because paper and paperboard represent the largest percentage of materials found in municipal solid waste, according to the EPA, going paperless is a straightforward way for organizations to meet their ESG goals.

10. Lower costs

    Using paper is expensive: There is the cost of the paper itself, as well as printers, toner or ink, and of course, filing cabinets and storage floor space. Wasted hours spent managing, filing, and searching for paper documents add to the cost of paper. There are also the lost-opportunity costs of ineffective collaboration and poor customer interactions.

Where to begin

You can’t go paperless by flipping a switch. You’ll need to map out your journey and be persistent throughout the transition. There are five steps you’ll need to take:

First, get your house in order. Take inventory of your paper records. Shred unneeded documents; keep records that must be retained.

Second, choose a starting point. Select the workflows that will increase efficiency in measurable ways.

Third, define success. Target an outcome that is meaningful, achievable, and measurable. Establish metrics that will enable you to demonstrate success.

Fourth, build a business case. Apply the ten reasons above to your own organization as you make the budget case for executive buy-in.

Fifth, put a team together. Gathering stakeholders from several groups, including IT, legal, and operations, assures you have multiple viewpoints and a rich cross-section of talent.

The Iron Mountain edge

Turn information into insight with Iron Mountain InSight^® Digital Experience Platform (DXP), a secure software as a service platform designed to access, manage, govern, and monetize your physical and digital information. With InSight DXP, you can automate manual processes, enable audit-ready compliance, and make information accessible and useful with our unified platform that combines intelligent document processing, content management, and information governance capabilities that seamlessly integrate into your existing environment. Creating custom, automated workflows in-house is made possible by the platform’s low-code solution designer.

For more information about InSight DXP, book a free discovery and demo session.