Since the dawn of the first computer, businesses have been trying to go paperless.
Because this goal comes with more efficiency, better collaboration, improved savings, and a smaller environmental impact, it’s clear why so many businesses are chasing after this goal. Although most companies like the idea of going paperless, some are still hesitant. However, dragging your feet can hurt your business in three big ways –
Lack of Security
Paper storage is susceptible to a wide range of dangers. From fire and water damage to theft and loss, protecting and managing hard copies isn’t easy. Paper copies also take a lot of time, resources, and space to handle, and even then, there is no way to recover data in the event of a natural disaster. Sensitive data needs more security than paper, particularly in trades like finance, healthcare, and education, where regulatory compliance is a part of doing business.
Lack of Flexibility
Another downside of traditional paper documents is its difficulty in sharing. The only way to share a physical document is to make more copies of it. How then, do you collaborate on a paper document with multiple people? How do you manage the struggle of version control when editing multiple copies of a paper document? Digital documents are the easiest way to guarantee your data can securely go where it needs to and effortlessly be edited by multiple people at the same time.
Added Expense
The price to print, store and secure paper documents can add up fast. According to Risk Management Magazine, the average employee uses 10,000 sheets of paper per year, and businesses spend over $30 billion every year to capture and store documents on paper. In addition, tracking down a lost document can cost $122 (on average). When you consider that an estimated 7.5% of all business documents get lost completely, this cost is enormous.
From increasing security to improving collaboration, to decreasing costs, there is no shortage of reasons for modern offices to shun paper in their workflow.
