A common myth is that technology has not yet advanced enough to deliver a paperless office.  Nothing could be further from the truth. The major obstacle is not computer systems, but people.  Overcoming traditional paper/manual processes requires everyone from the CEO to clerical staff to be “on board” with the organizational need, benefits, and competitive advantages associated with transitioning to a paperless environment.

A paperless office (a.k.a. a content-management system) doesn’t mean the elimination of all paper.  Rather, a paperless office is an office that has digitized information that traditionally moved throughout the organization as paper.  Once digitized, the information can move throughout the organization via an electronic workflow.  Of course, this does not prevent users from obtaining hardcopy outputs, if needed. 

Replacing paper with an electronic workflow positions your business to realize competitive advantages: cost savings, increased turn around time, reduction of labor (specifically, labor to “handle” paper), improved disaster recovery, and improved security.

One of the greatest benefits of reducing paper files relates directly to the bottom line. If it takes five minutes to retrieve and replace a paper file and an employee works with ten paper files per day, the employee devotes 216 hours a year, over five business weeks, literally “walking files around.”   Assuming the employee costs your business $20/hour (hourly rate includes benefits), the cost of “walking files around” equates to $4300/year.

Even if this estimate is overstated for your business, savings are still to be had.  Merely replacing traditional paper-based processes with paperless workflow will lead to increased efficiency, elimination of redundant activities, and even staff reduction, allowing you to maximize your workforce investment dollar.

Executive management should recognize that the necessary technology is available today and is proven to be successful; it is not bleeding edge or experimental.  For instance, the cost for the infrastructure to support a paperless environment (PCs, storage media capable of mass storage, scanning devices, printing devices, etc.) has become so affordable that even the self-employed can justify the investment.

Regulatory market forces also provide an impetus to migrate to a paperless environment.  For instance, Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) mandate affected businesses to turn to paperless to achieve security and audit trails.

Even if your business is not quite positioned to eliminate paper entirely, there are intermediate steps you can take. Here are four:

1. By implementing mptime, your business can begin transitioning to paperless via electronic timesheets and automatic routing for approval and timesheet processing. 

2. Leveraging mptime’s routing capability expedites the handling and entry of timesheets by your administrative and billing and payroll staff, and delivers time savings because timesheets are automatically routed instead of manually routed. mptime’s routing is hierarchical and personalized to your business workflow. 

3. With mptime’s document management feature, your business will have a central repository for housing and versioning documents of any form: charts, images, pictures, documents, video, presentations, memos, or even emails.  

4. With mptime’s document management feature, you can begin deploying a knowledgebase. By using mptime’s knowledgebase security, you specify a sensitivity level for each document, media, or file, therefore controlling access to the information contained in the document.  Authorized users can access the information, 24x7, from anywhere, without worrying about special software to un-encrypt or access the documents themselves.  All they need is Internet Explorer and an Internet connection.

Instead of sharing documents, mptime centralizes them within the mptime Document Repository allowing 24x7 secure access via , without requiring special software to un-encrypt the documents. 

Any file type can be stored securely in mptime, a few examples are:

                 

About the Author
Mo Osman is President of Mega Technology Group.  Mega Technology Group’s business is labor and time management – how to capture labor, manage time, analyze labor and time, share information by leveraging best in class technologies for automation and protecting the associated information .  For nearly three decades, Mega Technology Group has been providing services in time accounting and the paperless office, making Mega uniquely qualified to deliver a time management product that enables organizations to get the most up-to-date and accurate information about their workforce.

Today, Mega Technology Group is helping businesses across the country become truly information driven.  With its flagship product mptime, businesses can now collaborate and measure labor and time results for continuous improvement and achieving superior competitive advantages.