A paper free work environment is hard to imagine. As you read this you can probably glance around your space and find more than one document you’ve written, printed or scanned. It is a great theory to suggest that an office become more “green” and use less paper, but to eliminate paper all together? Is that even possible? Probably not, but you can make an effort to become less paper reliant.
Some advantages of printing less paper (and going with an online solution):
- Reduced cost in future paper purchases
- Reduced cost in printer/copier/scanner inks and parts
- Reduced cost in mailing physical documents
- Less physical storage space required
- Easier office relocation (more agility)
- More security (locked filing cabinet vs. password protected account)
- Easier auditing and reporting
- Easier access, search and retrieval
- Time saved printing, scanning, searching, filing, auditing, and sorting
- No paper cuts (ouch!)
From the white paper, The Paper Free Office – Dream or Reality?, one of their key findings was as follows:
“Improved sharability and searchability is the biggest driver for investment in scanning and capture. Followed by improved productivity and reduced storage space.”
People are moving more toward services and devices that allow for the ability to index all their files for easy access while having the option to share and send them anywhere in the world. This flexibility of file access and deliverability is becoming a crucial part to increased efficiency and lower cost in today’s business world.
Another study from YouGov in the UK found a lot of great facts about offices attempting to go paperless. The biggest gem being, 89% of companies surveyed have up to 90% of their documents stored electronically. Wow. Another big finding is that reducing the paper clutter and investing more in digital storage can be a time saver. 30% of business managers and directors would spend the time they save on business development. Time is money, and saving paper equals more money.
SmartFile is a paper friendly company. Heck, we have a leaf in our logo for a reason! That is because we know that businesses are shifting toward using more digital documents with a focus on online collaboration and sharing. We want everyone to be in an office that uses less and less paper. Share, read, store, and edit files more digitally (through SmartFile preferably) and everybody wins…especially the trees.
