Whatever happened to the paperless office?
Whatever happened to the paperless office?
September 1, 2005: Way back in 1975, the vision of a paperless office was first touted around the world as an ambitious and achievable dream. Thirty years on, although there is plenty of technology around today that can convert paper documents into an electronic format, we still seem to be surrounded by paperwork in our offices. Rodney Appleyard examines how far we have travelled towards establishing the true paperless office and what challenges need to be faced to finally make this a reality
Ian Birks, the CEO of analysts firm Ideas International, recalls that the idea of the paperless office was first announced in Business Week magazine in 1975, and it was driven by the idea of PCs being used on everyone’s desktop.
“There was a belief that if everybody had a PC on their desk, then there would not be the need to use paper anymore. However, although parts of this vision have come through, the wide use of PCs has not really been the catalyst for the complete paperless office.
“Ironically, the use of the Internet has actually brought more paper into our lives. Although it has increased access to information electronically, people still want to print out a web-page of interest, which increases the use of paper.”
Birks adds that the idea of the laptop was another step towards ridding us of using paper, but that has not worked yet either because we do not see workers sitting outside everywhere using their laptops.
“I’m afraid that we will be still chasing the dream of a paperless office until a technology is invented that is as light and convenient to carry around as paper is.”
Sarah Kittmer, a U.K.-based senior analyst for Ovum, agrees with Birks as to why the paperless office has not yet become a reality.
“There are a number of reasons. First, there is so much paper out there, which is stored as historical records - organisations literally have warehouses full of the stuff. The cost of converting that paper to electronic files via scanning is prohibitive, plus there is a concern that the electronic file would not be accepted as the original, evidential record in the case of litigations.
“Secondly, we are so used to paper as a medium that many people prefer to read documents on paper, plus it has the benefit of being more portable - you can stuff it in your bag and take on the train, for example. The use of paper is so embedded in each organisation’s business processes, for example, sending orders to suppliers etc., and there is a cost and cultural change associated with moving away from this.”
This view is also shared by John Lambrick, the General Counsel at RMIT University of Public Affairs, who says that lawyers prefer to use paper for cultural reasons.
“Lawyers feel much more comfortable thumbing through paper in a cosy environment of choice instead of scanning through a computer screen. Paper is much more user-friendly for that, and it allows them to work in an environment of serendipity. Even young lawyers prefer to use paper to read and scribble on.”
Birks backs up this theory. “It is hard to change working habits when you have been dealing with them for say the last 10 years. The problem is even worse in Western countries, were old legacy, paper-based systems have been working efficiently anyway. People like to fall back on tradition and don’t see the point in changing a system if it already works.
“However, the idea of a paperless office is probably more possible in other countries, such as India and China, where an electronic system would probably be much more radically efficient than any processes they currently use. Therefore the paperless office is likely to be more achievable in greenfield nations who are eager to experiment with electronic paperless systems because they do not have historical paper-based systems in place.”
But many companies within Australia remain optimistic about the possibility of the paperless dream being achieved still in Australia.
In fact, Esker Software believes that it has already created a paperless reality at Visy Industries, an Australian company that specialises in packaging, including container production for dairy farms and Coca-Cola.
Through the application of Esker Software’s DeliveryWare Platform, Esker Software claims that it has tackled the problem of 24,000 invoices being manually distributed each month by 35 accounts retrievable staff, who found that they were spending too many hours on paper intensive processes. The company believes that its solution has automated invoicing now to make its paperless office vision a reality.
Visy has even equipped its drivers with PDAs, which the customers sign once goods are received. An electronic receipt is then automatically sent to a central database so there’s no chance of any Proof of Delivery documentation going missing.
Sava Trifunovic, the national credit manager at Visy Industries, is thrilled with the way things have turned out for the organisation.
“We have truly achieved our paperless office vision. A great accomplishment for our accounts team who are now alleviated from the time consuming paper based processes which slowed down payments.”
Although this seems to be a genuine example of a true paperless office, it is in the minority at the moment. Kittmer has some theories on how this could change in the future so that most organisations can meet this reality too.
“We need more portable, readable devices in use; cheaper high-speed scanning; evolution of the law towards acceptance of an electronic record where a paper original has been converted and then destroyed and more infrastructure in our organisations to support receipt of electronic content, which could trigger business processes based on it. This should happen within the next 20 years.”
Kittmer believes that future generations are going to feel more at ease in an electronic world and may not be so attached to paper. Birks is optimistic too that technology will eventually evolve to one day to meet this decreasing need to rely on paper. But inspiration has to be taken from Visy Industries, which had the bravery to really make a huge step towards embracing the culture of a paperless office. Maybe their example shows that making this vision a reality has more to do with an organisation’s bravery to make the cultural switch and the leap of faith as a unit. If one company has made it a reality already, surely this must show that at the end of the day, much of the change is down to force of will.
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