A new year signifies a fresh start—a chance to dispense with old habits and processes that slow you down and an opportunity to reinvent yourself for the better. While you’re busy resolving to make more time for the gym or to read that self-improvement book you’ve been putting off, it’s also a great time to make some resolutions for your business. Namely, if you’ve been thinking about reducing your office’s reliance on paper, now is the time to act. Just like you need to make resolutions to better yourself and kick your bad habits that are holding you back from your potential, your business also needs help to kick its inefficiencies to the curb and become a more productive, cost-effective enterprise.
Here are 3 great reasons to consider a document capture and management solution for your business:
- Save money! You might look at the cost of a ream of paper and think you’re saving money by buying paper instead of investing in a paperless system. But what you’re missing in this equation is the underlying cost of continuing to run a paper-reliant business. Going paperless will save on labor, as the average office employee spends roughly one hour per month searching for or replacing files. Additionally, 7 percent of all paper documents end up lost permanently. The dollars continue to add up when you consider the cost of storing paper files. A file folder costs on average $25-$50 to create, and a lost file can cost anywhere between $125 and $300 to replace. An average four-drawer file cabinet can cost around $25,000 to fill and $2,000 annually to maintain. To sum it up, The Gartner Group reports that between 7 to 12 percent of a business’s total revenues are spent on—you guessed it—paper documents.
- Go green. Switching to a paperless or reduced-paper office is better for the environment. And while this might not be your business’s primary concern, it’s an issue being watched closely by the people who matter most to you—your customers. According to a recent survey by Do Well Do Good, “more than 88% of consumers think companies should try to achieve their business goals while improving society and the environment.” With the Internet and social media being constant watchdogs over businesses, now is the perfect time to let your customers know you care about the things they care about.
- Provide better customer service. Your business thrives on customer satisfaction. This should be your main concern and the area where you are focusing your employees’ time and talents. But how can you have employees who are focused on customer service if they are spending up to 40% of their time searching for information they need to perform their jobs? Chances are you didn’t hire your employees to be document hunters. Implementing a good document management system allows for easy search and retrieval of documents on a digital platform, eliminating the lengthy wild goose chase for physical documents that is eating up your employees’ valuable time.
So there you have it! Going paperless is an investment in your business, the benefits of which far outweigh the costs. Learn about how PSIGEN can help you go paperless and read real-world case studies at psigen.com.
