Too Much Paper? Jump on the Paperless Trend

As the world becomes more digital, and technology continues to expand our horizon with opportunities that can benefit our business’ productions — more organisations are turning paperless in a bid to become more profitable while playing their part in helping the environment. With research estimating that companies are spending around $8 billion annually managing their paper use, the switch to a digital solution is no surprise.

Maplewave, telco retail experts take a look at how your office could be benefited by paperless technology.

A corporate overview of paperless solutions

Implementing paperless processes into your business could take some time, but it might be worth knowing that 3% of businesses have already removed its use in every area which has allowed them to prosper in more beneficial ways.

The change is often heavily debated among those in managerial positions – questioning whether the transition will be worth it. However, 16% of businesses are actively looking at different methods that will help them remove paper from their procedures entirely.

It’s inevitable that any of these solutions that do come into play for businesses will be adopted at a slow rate; as employees are often unfriendly to change. In contrast, these businesses actually increased their paper consumption by around 20%. This is due to three key factors; a lack of confidence in digital solutions, the need for regulations and quite simply, humans being content with paper. However, studies have found that 33% of businesses are almost paperless.

The direction that paperless technology is heading in is only looking positive. One study suggests that in the first six months of going paperless, 28% of businesses gained a full return on investment. A further 59% achieved a full ROI in less than 12 months and 84% within an 18-month period.

If you’re not already considering this move, you could be losing out big time financially. Not only will this offer a return on investment, but it will also allow companies to focus on other areas of their business and not have to think about any administrative tasks that occur when handling paper. Your consumer acquisition costs can decrease dramatically, too.

Key considerations for paperless technology

From delivering payslips online to utilising the digital contract options, there’s nothing that you can’t do with paperless technology which in turn will help decrease the amount of paper used throughout your office space.

For example, if businesses were to adopt the digital contracts they could see savings of around 60-85% which would remove the administrative objectives that accompany paper usage.

Not only that, going paperless could allow you to become more compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and reduce risks of data breaches — as paper can often go unaccounted for. Although this is set to strengthen and unify consumer data in Europe, it will also apply to non-EU businesses that are trading with EU consumers.

As well as this, it will make it easier to authenticate documents and key information like location and time of signatures. Businesses are able to complete viable audits to conduct regular contract searches, reducing the risk of fraudulent activities.

There are many advantages to going paperless, including the enhancement of the customer experience which will drive retention. The beauty of a paperless contract is that it ensures that all fields that are required are filled out by the consumer and can easily be sent to the customer through email. Should it be misplaced, it can easily be resent from an administrative interface. If any issues were to occur, contracts can simply be retrieved and shown as evidence.

With more paper being produced, it’s becoming a huge storage problem; but this can be counteracted by paperless solutions. If you’re looking to adopt more advanced features for your installations, biometrics can be utilised to create an easier flow of signing, which can again enhance the customer experience and increase satisfaction.

You can’t sit still in a world that is constantly moving forward. 87% of senior decision-makers are ensuring that digital transformation is at the top of their priorities this year — are you?

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paperless_office

https://www.maplewave.com/paperless/

https://www.docusign.co.uk/blog/5-reasons-paperless-puts-money-in-your-pocket/

https://www.gonitro.com/resources/ebooks-infographics/paperless-office-statistics-how-to-go-paperless