The Paper Dilemma

Most business information is in the form of paper documents. Industry analysts report that about 94 percent of business information is on paper and 2.7 billion new sheets of paper are filed into folders every day. Paper has obvious advantages, such as portability, ease of use, and cost. So while there will be a rise in the use of digital business documents (word processing, spreadsheets, and electronic memos), paper will still predominate for many years.   However, paper also has its drawbacks. At any given time, between three and five percent of a company's files are lost or misplaced. The average cost of recreating a document is £120. The annual loss to a large corporation with 1 million files exceeds £3 million. A second, and perhaps more serious drawback, is that paper does not integrate well with computer systems; paper is best used and managed by manual business processes, not automated ones. For example, computers can track large amounts of customer data. Computer-based data can be used to easily locate customers' account profiles and shipment records, while signed, paper-based, bills of lading are often misplaced when most needed. Paper documents and information reside outside of the computer, separate from other data and companion documents in the information base.   In today's increasingly information-based business world, paper represents a serious dilemma. Paper is the major information base of a business, but because it cannot be easily automated, it remains outside of the business information system. A paper-based manual process makes it difficult and costly to obtain "information at your finger tips" or "the right information to the right person at the right time."   When users are unable to join paper information with computer information, they lose the ability to treat it as a valuable asset. In fact, investments in computers and technology to date have addressed only a scant four to six percent of the information in today's office. New investments based on re-engineering and process automation are less effective when information appears only on paper and cannot be incorporated into an automated process.   ExeScan Document Management can help you survive your paper dilema. Call today on 01395 224141.