The Paper Free Office - dream or reality?

AIIM Market Intelligence undertook a report on The Paper Free Office between November 30th, 2011, and January 3rd, 2012.
477 individual members took the survey and below are the key findings, conclusions and recommendations.

The aiim research support the long held belief that even when data is born digital and used in a digital environment, it is often produced as a paper version in use and transit for adding other documents or information.
This paper version document of the digital data may be on hardcopy to facilitate an original paper based business process. That document will require physical, handing to acquire a signature or other hardcopy attachment, such as a photograph, photocopy of qualification or copy of identification document. All of these business processes can be performed digital. In most cases, the hardcopy document is then scanned as an image (without indexing metadata) to become a new digital copy of the original data with added information. In most cases, the paper based hardcopy is kept on-site and filed for future reference, which is a very inefficient business process.

Key Findings
• There is less paper floating around the office – especially in the biggest organizations. The consumption of paper and the number of photocopies is decreasing in 35% of organizations, whereas it is increasing in 32%. In the largest organizations, the net proportion of respondents posting a decrease is 15%.

• Electronic-only filing would halve the storage space needed for paper in 5 years. The average proportion of office space taken up by paper is now 15.3%, and it would drop to 7.4% with an all-electronic filing policy, a saving of nearly 8% in overall office costs.

• On average, 45% of documents that are scanned are 100% “born digital” – just as they came from the printer. And many of the rest would be all-digital if not for the added signatures.

• 77% of invoices that arrive as PDF attachments get printed. 31% of faxed invoices get printed and scanned back in. On average, 30% of invoices arrive as PDF attachments, and 15% as faxes.

• 41% of organizations in the survey are using some form of digital-mailroom, either as a centralized operation or distributed at branch offices. 4% are outsourced.

• 20% of organizations scan half or more of their inbound mail at or before entry. A further 20% are more likely to scan at the point-of-process, and 29% scan-to-archive after the process.

• Improved sharability and searchability is the biggest driver for investment in scanning and capture. Followed by improved productivity and reduced storage space.

• On average, respondents using scanning and capture consider that it improves the speed of response to customers, suppliers, citizens or staff by 6-times or more. 70% estimate an improvement of at least 3-times, and nearly a third (29%) see an improvement of 10-times or more.

• 42% of users have achieved a payback period of 12 months or less from their scanning and capture investments. 57% are posting a payback of 18-months or less.

• A net of 13% of respondents plan to increase their use of bureaus or document process outsource (DPO), particularly in Europe (net 21%). But only a net of 1% will be increasing their offshore activities.

• 38% of respondents have employees equipped to use portable devices to capture documents or forms when not at their desks. Over 14% are using portable scanners for forms and supporting documents. 6% are using smartphones or tablets, including 4% who use OCR to capture data at the device.

• Over half of those using portable devices capture signatures, either by scanning (30%), stylus (11%) or using a digital signature app (21%).

• Speed of data availability and keeping paper out of the process are given as the biggest advantages of mobile capture, followed by better data accuracy and fewer lost or incomplete forms.

• 12% of respondents are committed to a strategy of cloud deployment of capture – rising to 20% of the largest organizations. 18% overall have firmly decided against it and 39% are waiting for a company decision on cloud in general (27%), or capture specifically (12%).

• Spending predictions indicate a considerable increase in spend on capture software, including mobile capture and as a front-end to SharePoint. A net of 23% of responding organizations indicate increased spend for the next 12 months. Spend on scanners is set to be stable, while spend on outsourcing is set to decrease.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Paper-free, paper-less, less-paper…? Yes, it seems that some progress is being made, particularly in larger organizations. We looked at the physical space savings that this can produce, and an all-electronic filing policy could save nearly 8% of office space within 5 years. And there are, of course, environmental benefits associated with less paper, less photocopying and less printing.
But the big reason to head paper off at the door is to prevent it clogging up processes and to mobilize its content. Improved access and sharability to other staff, faster response to customers, and better process productivity are the three big gains. In particular, our respondents estimated that on average their use of scanning and capture improved the speed of response to customers, suppliers, citizens or staff by 6 times or more – a dramatic improvement to competitively in a world that is only too ready to publicize poor service. Funnelling incoming mail through a digital mailroom enhances this benefit, ensuring that all customer or supplier correspondence is immediately available to help desks, sales staff and teleworkers - and this concept lends itself to both in-house and outsourced provision.

Overall we saw a return on investment of 18 months or less for over half of our respondents.
We also found many ways in which paper leaks back into the office. Apart from the inevitable personal printing of emails, we found procedural shortcomings where PDF and faxed invoices are printed out – and then sometimes scanned in again; where scanning takes place at the end of the process rather than at the beginning; where documents are photocopied before scanning; and where documents that have been successfully scanned are stored in the office rather than being destroyed, or at least, warehoused.
Finally, we took a glimpse at the impact of the explosion in mobile devices and their increasing capability to scan and capture paper forms, or to provide direct data input to back-office processes.
Recommendations
• Audit your processes to see where paper slows throughput, adds process steps, or restricts transparency and reporting.

• In particular, examine your customer (or supplier or staff) response mechanisms to see if physical mailings or paper processing are slowing things down, restricting visibility, or paralleling electronic communications paths.

• Look at how physical handling of incoming mail site-by-site might better be centralized, processed in higher volume, and distributed electronically.

• If you are already using scanning, consider how much “closer to the door” you could be going electronic, and how that might transform who does the subsequent processing and where they might be located.

• Evaluate the latest technology for capturing data from forms and invoices, and look to process a higher proportion of your documents automatically.

• Consider using a bureau or DPO, especially if you are concerned about capital outlay, fluctuating volumes and overall risk. Don’t assume that basic DPO will be cheaper, but ensure that they add value by taking on as much of the down-stream processing as possible.

• Aim to scan documents or capture data as close to the source as possible – in the branch office, on the shop floor, in the field or at the customer’s premises.

• Brainstorm how the capabilities of modern mobile devices – portable scanners, smartphones, tablets and specialist devices – could transform your processes by eliminating elapsed time, lost forms, poor data, and rekeying.

• Pick just one of these areas and test out the business case. Chances are it will show a good enough return on its own, with other applications and benefits enhancing the potential return.
The survey was taken using a web-based tool by 477 individual members of the AIIM community between November 30th, 2011, and January 3rd, 2012. Invitations to take the survey were sent via e-mail to a selection of the 65,000 AIIM community members.

Survey demographics can be found in Appendix A. Graphs throughout the report exclude responses from organizations with less than 10 employees and suppliers of ECM products or services, taking the number of respondents to 395.

Full report http://www.aiim.org/pdfdocuments/IW_Paper-free-Capture_2012.pdf