The 3 Key Steps to Going Paperless

I’m just going to throw a few statistics at you to give you an idea of the current sad state of affairs in offices in Australia and around the world. Okay here we go…

• Did you know that by March 2018 only 4% of Australian offices had successfully transitioned to a ‘paper-free’ working environment? 
• A recent study in the UK showed that 40% of people describe themselves as “paper people”
• According to Clean Up Australia over 40% of wood goes toward the production of paper and we use more than 4.2 million tonnes of paper annually, which equates to 84 million trees
• According to the Sydney Morning Herald the average office worker in Australia throws an average of 50 kgs of paper in the bin each year
• Worldwide, companies spend more than $120 billion a year on printed forms, most of which are outdated within three months’ time
• Citigroup, a large financial services company, reported a saving of $700,000 per year when they merely dipped their toes into a paperless office and transitioned to double sided printing

A survey of over 1,000 Australian enterprise employees, from entry to senior management level in organisations employing 500 or more people, revealed a disconnect between worker demand for digital transformation and business investment in technology.  These sentiments have been echoed by clients we have engaged with across the SME market. Transitioning to digital workflows has shown it greatly improves staff productivity and morale.

What is paperless?

Being paperless means different things to different people. My definition of paperless is where you have removed the reliance on paper in your workflows and all document storage is digital.

Client signatures seem to be the top cited reason for a firm’s inability to remove paper from their operations. I find this odd as the Electronic Transactions Act of 1999 has allowed for digital signing of documents (except for legal deeds) ever since…well…1999 and inexpensive digital signing technology such as DocuSign has been available for many years.

Value of being paperless

In a rapidly changing environment, the value of being paperless continues to rise exponentially.  Transitioning to a paperless environment will help your business to become more efficient and streamlined long term.

Your business is likely to experience the following benefits when fully transitioned to paperless processes:

• Improved customer experience
• Flexibility to work remotely
• Standardised processes
• Increase in productivity and value adding work
• Less waste, save the trees!
• More robust disaster recovery
• Increased security
• Increased office capacity
• Reduction in printing and associated costs

Existing technology 

The Accounting and Legal sectors are still two of the most paper-heavy industries in Australia. Interestingly the technology and tools needed for these sectors to go paperless have been around for a very long time.

According to Deloitte, existing technologies that have transformed the financial services sector (FinTech) in the last 10 years are:

• Digital experiences (eg. online forms, digital signing and robotic process automation)
• Analytics (used by businesses to get the insights required for making better business decisions and strategic moves); and
• Cloud (enabling staff to work remotely)

Technologies set to further ‘FinTech’ advancement are:

• Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)
• Block chain

We’ll talk more in depth about FinTech in our next blog.

Barriers to Transition

There are 3 key steps you need to consider to start your business on a path to going paperless:

1. Map your current state processes identifying the paper steps
2. Map your future state processes and determine what your business needs to do to remove the paper steps
3. Determine what gaps exist with your current technology to reach the desired future state

Most businesses cite the following as the biggest potential barriers to implementing change in their business:

• Inability for operational staff to pick up new technology; and
• Resistance from customers.

In reality these fears have been debunked time and time again. The actual blockers that are most likely to exist are:

• Resistance to change from operational staff; and
• Lack of support from the executive

Therefore, the key to transitioning to paperless operations is to have a carefully structured change management plan. If you just try and focus on removing every single piece of paper from your business you are unlikely to succeed.

Paperless is the future

Many businesses during this pandemic have learnt first-hand what they never believed was possible. Their entire business could in fact work remotely with minimal disruption to productivity. The existence and prevalence of cloud technology has certainly put them in good stead.

As many businesses continue to adjust to the ‘new normal’ those that are not planning for a hybrid workforce and paperless transactions will be left behind. A June 2020 study conducted by Karbon with data collected from 906 accounting professionals found that only 18% want to go back to the office permanently when it is safe to do so.

Paperless working is here to stay. How ready are you?