Going paperless may sound like a leap into the unknown – especially if your business so far revolved around traditional means of communication with clients and partners.
But today, NOT going paperless means falling behind those of your competitors who decided to go digital.
That’s why today, we’re coming to you with 13 benefits of going paperless in your business – and every one of them is a good reason to get started today!
Going Paperless Is Eco-Friendly
Using less paper in your office is better for the planet. Period.
An average American office can produce as much as 10 000 sheets of paper in waste. Oftentimes, this is a complete waste of resources coming directly from the trees around the world.
So, if you care about going a little bit more green, going paperless is the first step to take.
Reduced Operational Costs Of Your Office
Using less paper means paying less for it as well. This directly translates to spending less on all expenses related to paper-using machines: printers, copy machines, or scanners.
Furthermore, going paperless means working with more efficient, electronic means and solutions. These will automatically decrease the time spent on leafing through archives and boost productivity levels.
Collaboration Is Easier, Faster And More Efficient
A centralized workplace in the cloud, rather than one revolving around notes and whiteboards, is going to be the change your company needs.
Collaboration between your team members will be much faster and much more efficient when everybody has easy access to everything they need. Like a database that they can access anywhere and anytime, or in the form of easy-to-navigate visual workflows.
In times when remote work gains more and more popularity, paperless collaboration is the core of success – from project management, to contract signing, to sales.
Going Paperless is Remote Work Friendly
By eliminating necessary physical papers (such as work contracts) and replacing them with their digital equivalents, you open your business to remote work.
You don’t have to hire professionals from around the world. Doing as much as allowing your employees to work from home and communicate online is something that your team might be interested in.
Paperless Archive Is Easier to Organize
Physical archives take space and can be a hassle to organize. Putting the physical room they occupy aside, sorting them has to be done manually. What’s worse, it often has to be redone from scratch if the order is even momentarily neglected.
With paperless archives, you don’t have that issue.
There’s no physical space to occupy unless you use a local server that will take space in your office. Even then, it can contain a vastly larger number of files. And these files can be automatically organized – sorted, separated, and filtered however you need.
Easier Search and Access
Imagine you want to find a phone number of a client you’ve been in touch with three years ago. If you still run physical archives of your customer data, then – depending on your company size – you may have to manually sort through multiple paper logs.
This can take quite a while.
Meanwhile, online, paperless archives allow you to search your database within seconds just by putting in a query and waiting for the results to come back at you.
In a similar manner, OCR technology allows you to search uploaded digital files and document scans by putting in phrases and words you remember they contain.
Safer Physically
For some people having a physical copy of something creates an impression of it being secure – you feel like you have control over where it is stored and how.
But is it truly safer this way?
Think about it: from something as common as coffee spills to disasters as great as fire or flood, there’s plenty of danger to your physical archives.
Meanwhile, what you store in the cloud is never subject to such physical damages. And even if the server undergoes some issues, there’s always a backup to rely on, allowing you to access impeccable digital copies of your materials.
Automatic Backups
Backups work well not only when it comes to preventing the loss of archives, files, and materials. They also allow you to keep your work always up to date and in the latest, more relevant state.
If your backups are also automatic – which they often are when it comes to cloud storage – it’s even easier.
Automatic backups do the work for you. They save your files and data in the latest form, according to a given schedule. Thanks to this, not only don’t you have to worry about doing the backup manually but the freshness of your materials is also no longer your concern.
Going Paperless Improves Customer Service
With cloud storage comes easy access to customer data that you can swiftly update and get back to. This directly translates to an improvement in your customer service, as everything you need to stay on your toes is right where you need it.
Being able to access the latest data about your customers, their deals, issues, and requests is the best way to understand them better and deliver exactly what they expect from you – sometimes even before they ask for it!
Enables Self-Service
One of the biggest benefits of going paperless is enabling your customers to be more independent. Instead of booking an hour with you on the phone, they can do it via a website widget.
In a similar way, they can fill out online forms, files, and documents – and either submit them through your website or email them to you. All without the need of using regular mail or showing up in person.
Expands Your Business Geographically
If you don’t require your customers and partners to sign contracts in person, then you’re able to expand geographically – in a global manner at that.
Replacing physical documents with digital ones allows you to quickly communicate with anyone around the world. Rest assured, when properly prepared, they remain as legally binding as their classic, printed equivalents.
Saves Office Space
It’s simple: if you don’t have to store physical copies of your mails, contracts, and administrative documentation, you save space. This space can be used in a number of more productive, creative, and employee-friendly ways – from purchasing the equipment they actually need to designing a better working environment.
Manage Less Physical Email
Managing digital email is easier than receiving, sorting, and destroying actual paper waste. Filtering and auto-delete options are a real time-saver, and whenever you need to get back to the sender, all it takes is to hit the reply button.
Benefits of Going Paperless in Your Business – Over to You
And how’s that? Are you feeling at least slightly more convinced to give going paperless a try?
You can start today with small things – little steps make transformation easy. Before you know it, you’ll enjoy every and each of the benefits we’ve listed above.
Good luck!
