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Moving Small and medium sized businesses towards a paperless Office with help from document scanning
Date: 02/05/2008
Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that manage information well often profit from improved productivity and reduced expenses. An important factor when developing document management processes is to use a strategy that efficiently takes care of both electronic and paper-based information.
Achieving the completely paperless office is something that is unlikely however it is possible that processes can be put in place to vastly reduce the paper flow in the office
Firstly consideration needs to be taken into the document types being used. Are they repeatable and used a lot? That should decide whether you need a designated high production-focused scanning or if you can place single data scanning points throughout the organisation."
Always consider security measures for the management of these documents, different levels of access can be assigned to staff that are able or unable to access certain files. This safeguards the documents so they are only managed by necessary staff.
An example of a small business with a process in place is Minuteman Group; an insurance company containing around 20 employees based in Nashua US who use a paperless office strategy. Any piece of paper that comes into Minuteman's office is scanned, including applications and insurance policies which are then electronically routed to the staff and ready to be used on customer accounts.
Using this strategy, Minuteman's entire service process has become more efficient. Tasks that previously took 15 minutes to do are now done in less than one minute at a desktop. Employees would no longer spend time getting up to use the fax and copy machines, or search for missing paperwork, which in turn allows more time with the customers.
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