In terms of internal staff, when creating a paperless office, this is relatively straightforward to manage with training and support. Paperless Concern #3: Supporting PaperĪnother significant challenge facing process digitisation is those who don’t want to give up paper. With AIIM research finding that the majority of digital signature adopters report a return on investment in less than one year, this should be an easy concern to address and move forwards from. This can be a big step towards reducing reliance on paper. Understanding how digital signatures, or advanced electronic signatures, can provide a legally valid replacement to printing and signing documents. Doug Miles, head of AIIM’s Market Intelligence Unit explains “The laws on this have been standardised in most jurisdictions for ten if not 20 years.” Digital signatures can replace ‘wet ink’ signatures, being legally valid, and are arguably more secure, through the fact that they can be made tamper-proof (invalidated if the content of the signed document is altered). Pen-to-paper signatures are rarely a legal requirement. In a recent YouGov report it was found that 80% of UK businesses are printing documents just to get them signed! This figure rises to an alarming 90% in financial services and public sector businesses. Paperless Concern #2: Signatures on Paper This is a requirement of European Commission framework for VAT – see Directives 2001/115/EC and 2006/112/EC. In these circumstances, it’s important that the PDFs are signed with advanced electronic signatures in order determine sender authenticity and integrity of invoice content. When moving to electronic invoicing, many businesses attach PDFs to emails. The answer lies in careful planning, and ideally partnering with an expert in delivering paperless solutions that meet the requirements of regulations. finance) successfully roll out paperless processes. However, plenty of businesses in strictly controlled industries (e.g. These statistics imply a mismatch between compliance with regulations and the paperless paradigm. 33% of this group stated that they were restricted by regulations in their industries. They found that in 2015, of the businesses falling short of their paperless adoption targets, 37% had compliance concerns that impacted their ability to go paperless. One source that sheds some light on concerns is InfoTrends annual survey of 250 businesses, conducted each year in the US. Do these ring any bells for you? Paperless Concern #1: Compliance with Regulations So the benefits are clear, but let’s dig into the reasons why businesses are holding back. The implication here is paper-based processes don’t just hurt efficiency, but actively restrict the growth and development of businesses.ĭespite this, only 35% of UK SMEs have actually successfully created a paperless office. Whilst this is just a UK statistic, we see the same story told across the globe. And in this same survey it was noted that 31% of the respondents said that if they weren’t looking for documents, they would be spending time on business development. In the YouGov survey 65% of UK SMEs still have yet to take this step. With these levels of inefficiency, it’s staggering to consider that so few businesses are on their way to becoming paperless to address this. Recent figures from a YouGov survey in the UK (for SMEs) tell a similar story, with a combined wastage of over £42.2M per day for SMEs across the UK. This figure drops significantly when considering an enterprise with less reliance on paper. According to the IDC an enterprise employing 1,000 workers wastes $48,000 per week, or nearly $2.5M each year, on finding and retrieving information. It’s no great surprise that the main motivation for businesses to go paperless is the potential for cost saving. So taking your organisation into the future and embracing the benefits of paperless processes requires a deep, and realistic, understanding of benefits, challenges and best practice in making the paperless dream a reality.
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