Paper Document Data Drains Productivity and Profits

“What’s spilling out of your file drawers?”

Papers filed in four-drawer cabinets located on several floors was a problem for EO Johnson customer, Eau Claire Energy Cooperative. “It was taking our employees time to find files,” said IT Manager Rob Weber. “And that was unproductive time and often caused employee frustration — two things any business can no longer afford.”

Weber’s frustrations with paper was well founded. Research by PricewaterhouseCoopers, shows that business data increases by more than 65% per year — wasting $8 billion annually managing paper. Breaking it down even further, the average cost to file a document is $20, finding a misplaced document $120, and $220 to reproduce a lost document.

In spite of advanced technology to secure data, only 18% of companies consider themselves paperless. What happened to theBusinessWeek 1975 prediction that offices would be paperless by 2013?

Skepticism on internet security remains high.

News covering breaches in Internet security often dominates the news — added to that is the mind-boggling growth of all aspects of the Internet. It’s not easy for most people to wrap their heads around the concept of 6 billion devices now connected to the Internet. By 2020, that number will reach 50 billion.

Organizations intuitively know, the greater the volume of data and range of use, the more financial risk of data loss to business. While most managers agree that moving to a digital workflow has many benefits, many still have reservations about the technology’s ability to protect sensitive documents like health and insurance records.

Attitudes are changing.

Eau Claire Energy and many other EO Johnson customers made the switch to electronic documents and never looked back. “The files they need will always be there regardless if another employee is also retrieving it. And there are no more frustrations or slowdowns over missing files,” says Weber.

Going paperless is giving impressive results including:

• Significant time saved retrieving electronic documents
• Increased security from document destruction by fire or other disasters
• Prevention of human error from lost or misfiled documents
• Cost savings from a significant reduction in paper printing

Proven results.

Motivated by the member and vendor file efficiencies, other department employees at Eau Claire Energy took notice and put in place document management systems for accounts payable and receivable, operations for work and service orders, and HR for employee files.

As the process continued to unfold, Eau Claire Energy also reviewed and updated their document retention policies and removed information they no longer needed — a house-keeping job that lightened their data load.

Of course, every organization and company is different. Analysis and a real understanding of the environment done by a process expert is key. Even if companies choose not to go 100% paperless, they can go mostly paperless with a properly designed plan — resulting in helping end the drain on productivity and profits, increasing staff satisfaction and solving the problem of overstuffed file drawers!