Trend Watch List

The dream of the completely paperless company is not new. We imagine offices free of paper clutter, neatly organized shelves and desktops...the vision is quite attractive. For the large majority of businesses, however, it is not even close to reality. Today the evolution of multi-media and internet security is making the completely paperless office a distinct possibility...and eliminating some organizations and business models through this digitization. The question will be, is there sufficient reason for your organization to go paperless, how to estimate the costs in time, effort and more intangible resources, and when to make the jump. Reduced printing and mailing costs are key for many organizations. Increased efficiency is also a great reason to go paperless. Beyond all of that time saved you are even more likely to save some serious real estate in terms of storage and the need for an office in the first place. Those seeking to go paperless are confronted with challenges that mark an abrupt stopping point for companies not prepared to address them. Major challenges include resistance to change, employees or clients (gulp!) that cannot receive, read, edit or annotate the document, security of proprietary or other critical information and making sure your contracts and other agreements are legally binding even though they are electronically or digitally signed. Modern paperless operations include a number of components to address all manner of these and other challenges including: multimedia, clickwrap, electronic signatures, digital signatures, biometric signatures, authentication and computing devices. Software capabilities such as those from Adobe, NFi Studios, Alfresco, Ademero, Knowledge Tree Echosign, Docusign and others solve the remainder of these issues with ease. To turn this trend into a competitive advantage, understand that not every paperless device or method is right for your business. To develop the right strategy for your organization, do your homework on needs, capabilities and issues before you dive in. Once all of your homework is in place, estimate the cost and benefit in time, effort and more intangible resources such as morale, corporate image, and the like. Make the jump when and only when all of these planning steps are in place.