Paperless Businesses: What Are The Benefits

Whether they have aims to become more cost effective or play part in helping the environment; many businesses are turning to paperless solutions — is yours? With research estimating that companies are spending around $8 billion annually managing their paper use, the switch to a digital solution is no surprise.

To find out more about the benefits of turning your office paperless, we’ve teamed up with Maplewave retail management software specialists to ensure that businesses are aware of the possibilities that come with removing paper from the office whilst delivering incredible results to customers.

An insight to paperless organisations

Switching to paperless solutions is relatively new for businesses around the world; with only 3% making the transition so far — but they’ve encountered many benefits since.

Paperless alternatives can be startling at first. However, 16% of businesses are actively looking at different methods that will help them remove paper from their procedures entirely.

Most businesses will be comfortable with their current methods of working and will adopt paperless solutions at a slower rate. In contrast, these businesses actually increased their paper consumption by around 20%. This is due to three key factors; a lack of confidence in digital solutions, the need for regulations and quite simply, humans being content with paper. However, studies have found that 33% of businesses are almost paperless.

The opportunities paperless technology presents businesses with is unbelievable. One study suggests that in the first six months of going paperless, 28% of businesses gained a full return on investment. A further 59% achieved a full ROI in less than 12 months and 84% within an 18-month period.

All businesses should be considering the switch to paperless solutions; to help streamline all processes across the company. Not only will this offer a return on investment, but it will also allow companies to focus on other areas of their business and not have to think about any administrative tasks that occur when handling paper. Your consumer acquisition costs can decrease dramatically, too.

Key considerations when turning paperless

There are multiple functionalities available when it comes to paperless technology and businesses can use this to their advantage to help reduce the amount of paper coming in and going out of the premises — a key example of this would be offering employees their payslips online rather than on a piece of paper.

On top of that, more businesses will have the opportunity to use paperless contracts which can decrease costs by 60-85% — removing manual administration time too.

Paperless technologies and the General Data Protection Regulation go hand-in-hand too and enable you to remain compliant while upholding security expectations. Although this is set to strengthen and unify consumer data in Europe, it will also apply to non-EU businesses that are trading with EU consumers.

As well as this, your business will be able to identify documents more thoroughly and find out the location of where they were signed. Businesses are able to complete viable audits to conduct regular contract searches, reducing the risk of fraudulent activities.

As well as helping both your costs and the environment, paperless solutions will benefit the customer experience with your business. The beauty of a paperless contract is that it ensures that all fields that are required are filled out by the consumer and can easily be sent to the customer through email. Should it be misplaced, it can easily be resent from an administrative interface. If any issues were to occur, contracts can simply be retrieved and shown as evidence.

It’s also important for you to remember that storing countless pieces of paper can be difficult; but these pressures can be removed with paperless solutions. If you’re looking to adopt more advanced features for your paperless installations, biometrics can be utilised to create an easier flow of signing, which can again enhance the customer experience and increase satisfaction.

You can’t stand still in a world that is constantly moving forward with technology. 87% of senior decision-makers are ensuring that digital transformation is at the top of their priorities this year — are you?