The entire World has gone paperless, or has it?

 

In the 1940’s recycling was critical to the war effort. Huge landfills became popular and the need to recycle became apparent to most folks. Plastic, metals and even paper were sent off to recycling centers to conserve our resources. It spawned the first group of ecologists, and they became very active. Not withstanding these efforts, as our population grew with the baby boomer generation, more and more trees were cut down just for paper. It was not until the 70’s and 80’s did ecologists start proclaiming the need for further conservation as forests throughout the world were disappearing at alarming rates.

No coincidence that new technologies emerged via the computer and digital age that could stem the tide of paper usage. E-mail, text messaging, scanners all contributed to a declining need for paper. Unless you have been living under a rock, you've seen the boom of electronic book readers like the Kindle and Nook. Book publishing in the US topped $28 billion last year but at the same time the digital share of the market hovers around 10% or almost $3 billion. That is OVER 600 million fewer paper books being printed these days. Now add to that recent innovations like Smart phones that allow you to scan your boarding pass while flying, read barcodes at stores for coupons, the download of magazines, newspapers and most periodicals, etc.

As a society it would 'appear' that we are going paperless. That said, it is certainly interesting to go into most any Lawyer, Accounting, Doctor or Dentist office and see walls of paper files. This has been the standard for these practices BUT that will be changing rapidly in the next 5 to 10 years. Electronic document management programs like Scan123 are becoming the new standard. They not only offer the ecological benefits and help you comply with federal and state mandates dealing with sensitive personal data, but create significant efficiencies and cost savings. That's what I call a 'win / win' situation!

 

Saving money and Improving Office efficiencies

 

Efficiencies can be gained in a variety of places throughout your business. Given the complexities of running a business you may not know where to start. Here are five areas that you can assess to decide if these can be streamlined in your business.

Reduce Paper
One of the quickest ways to streamline your business is to look at the paper usage in your business. Paperwork can quickly pile up Just take a tour around your office and see the stacks of paper on everyone’s desk and the 'full-to-the-brim' filing cabinets. Maybe a good start is to ask everyone the following questions:

What information do you add or take from this paper and is this paper essential?

Is the majority of this paperwork important for you to perform your job?

The most popular answer is usually "because it's always been done that way." Also, if each piece of information cannot be justified, it should be eliminated from the form to reduce the amount of work necessary to process the paperwork.


Filing and storage is another area to evaluate as a process and cost center. File cabinets and storage boxes take up VERY valuable office space ('TYPE A' office towers are often over $100/Sq.ft.!). Use an electronic document management system (Like www.scan123.com) to archive paperwork for long term storage and retrieval. Free-up the office space that is being occupied by paper storage. (If you really want to see how much all this can cost use this Cost Calculator.)

Save money on cell phone charges
Saving money on business cell phone can be done quite easily. Competition in the general cell phone market is great and even more so for business cell phone customers. You can request bids from multiple providers, aggregate plans and commit to monthly minutes via a specific carrier to lower your bill.

Give your Employees autonomy
Employees on the frontline by and large know their jobs better than their supervisors. Most companies have long term employees and they know the corporate systems and processes inside out. Each time you can take a decision/interaction from your supervisors and hand that to your rank and file employee, you improve the process efficiency and save time and money.

Consolidate Software
Do you have one piece of software for accounting and inventory control and another for order entry and/or invoicing? You probably employ several people to key into your system and another to transfer it to other employee user interfaces. You like many other corporate managers could use an integrated software platform. There are a variety of packages available today that can meet your needs and save money.

Outsourcing
Most companies pay for outside janitorial support, phone and data transmission, maybe even IT or computer software programs. All of these constitute outsourcing of your services and probably save your hard-working employees time giving them the ability to do what they need to do. This story can be told over and over again through various other outsourcing options like: 24/7 IT options, CRM systems like automated phone and messaging programs, accounting and legal services and many other corporate functions that are NOT core to your main business. Take a good hard look at what you should and should not outsource.

 

Office efficiency- 5 steps to improving your office

 

Many of us have worked in or run an office as our primary job. There can be a lot going on day to day and we often have tasks, goals and the ever pressing monthly financials to balance. What often gets lost in the shuffle is the need to take a step back and evaluate the day to day processes that our staff conducts. The tyranny of the urgent has us chasing our tails and we never get a chance to look at what and how we do our "work."

All of us work at differing levels of efficiency in a day. I am a multi-tasking fool and am not productive unless I have 6 things on my plate. Many others in our office need total peace and quiet and no interruptions or else they cannot finish the simplest of tasks. So let’s look at those critical areas of work that can transform any office into a fine tuned machine or a wheel spinning out of control;

Technology - Is your office stuck in the dark ages and working on computer systems and programs that were created 10 years ago? The technology world is very dynamic, constantly changing and creating newer and more exciting office tools and processes. If you are not networking your computers, installing off-site viewing software, utilizing CRM software like salespro.com or housing your files on the “cloud”, you are behind the technology curve!

Organization - This word can mean a lot of different things to many of us. Is the office layout smooth and conducive for working? Are your filing systems and operating systems in line with how your staff interacts with your customers? Does your staff understand the corporate hierarchy and who they report to?

Corporate Strategy - One of our key employees asked me the other day why she was doing a certain task that I had asked her to get done. I was shocked, as we were putting together sales brochures and books for our clients following our sales meeting. This seemed to be quite obvious, at least to me and yet here a key employee did not understand the importance nor understood why it helped facilitate the orders from our best customers. Share the what, where and why of your work sometime and see the enthusiasm of your team grow exponentially!

Simplify - It goes without saying that in these economic times we are all striving to increase revenues and lower our costs. That means we are exploring new channels of sales, working harder, implementing new programs, lowering overhead and in general adding A LOT to our plates everyday. I would suggest you evaluate doing just the OPPOSITE! Do what you do well, increase revenue with existing customers, tighten your fiscal belt BUT do not let your need for increased profits out weigh your need to run a happy, productive work environment!

Paper Reduction - In the technological world we live in now, it amazes me everyday to hear from office executives that they are drowning in paper. Copies, filing cabinets, manila folders and storage units of file folders that must be maintained for years given IRS and government compliance. The (nearly) paperless office is a reality, storing encrypted sensitive documents on virtual servers, accessible 24/7 and eliminating the most unproductive job any staffer could ever have; filing! Scan123 has been providing paperless solutions to 1000’s of customers every year.

 

The Paperless Office: Can it be Done?

 

Consider this: As of this writing in 2011, almost everything we generate comes from a digital system, eg. word processing, accounting systems, digital copiers, email, etc. Nearly all of those documents are already stored digitally on the system that created them. You are most of the way there!

We live in exciting times

We have just quietly passed a milestone in the last few years that allows us to say "Yes, it can be done. We can go nearly paperless!" I say nearly, because, inevitably, someone is going to hand you paper with information on it. But back to the exciting times. Think about it.

For the first time in the history of man

there is now available to us truly mass storage, (terabytes!) for a very low cost. Do you remember when a 10 megabyte hard drive was as big as a brick and twice as heavy. We thought 'Wow, I'll never run out of space now!' My PC used to shake violently (spinning up the hard drive) when I saved a file.

You add to that widely available, inexpensive broadband

that provides for the transfer and storage of large files. I may be dating myself, but I remember my first modem. It was 14.4 kb. It made a screaming sound that woke up the whole house if I was working in my office late at night! But seriously, folks, we now have available to us very, very fast speeds by standards just a few years ago. It's not uncommon for businesses and households to have 3 gigabit throughput. If needed, you can stream movies to your home. That's data transfer!

There's just one thing missing.

Back to that 'paper' problem. You still have tons of paper around you. You look around your office and see reams of various paper documents. You think, there must be a solution to this. There is. Enter the new generations of high speed, light weight desktop scanners. Throw 20 documents into a high speed, duplex scanner and watch in amazement. These little gems have a footprint about the size of a tissue box, and are incredible work horses. The stars have aligned. That's what I'm talking about! Sweet.

Time to admit it. I wasn't totally truthful with you.

There's actually one more thing needed. If it was that simple, why isn't everyone paperless now? Well, you need a strategy. There are some REALLY important considerations when you talk about 'Electronic Document Storage'. Let's talk about some of them. If you did actually have all of your documents stored electronically, what would you do with them? You could store them on your hard drive at home or work, but you miss one of the greatest features of Electron Document Storage. You now essentially have a backup of everything! Why not store it off site, where it's secure from fire, flood, and disaster? Oh, but security is paramount. You don't want your documents available to anyone but authorized viewers, so you'll need a secure place to store them. How should you organize them? Just dump thousands of documents on top of each other in some repository? You need to think all of these things through.

The average PC user doesn't usually have the technical knowledge and falls down hard, right here.

Fortunately for you, there are companies that have thought all of this through, and have created truly affordable systems, available to you as Software As A Service. To find out more, check out www.scan123.com. Yes, you can have a paperless office (nearly). Be encouraged. It is now affordably within your reach!