Subscribe

Paperless office boosts operational efficiency

Admire Moyo
By Admire Moyo, ITWeb's news editor.
Johannesburg, 15 Aug 2014

As the world goes digital, adopting a paperless office can go a long way in improving the operational efficiency of an organisation.

So said Paul St Quintin, manager at Deloitte, while addressing the Ricoh Managed Document Services Executive Forum at Montecasino yesterday.

According to St Quintin, by streamlining processes and adding technology to eliminate paper from these processes, operating expenses in the processing divisions can be reduced by 25%. He also pointed out that a paperless office can result in a 60% to 70% cost reduction in costs associated with record management.

For financial services providers, St Quintin believes a paperless office ensures record management is run more effectively; is more transparent; and they are able to provide more efficient reporting.

"The cost of transporting, storing, recalling and managing documents end up costing the customer," St Quintin revealed.

In a recent flash survey conducted by Deloitte, he noted, clients from various banks indicated that they only wanted to supply the bank with copies of their ID once, unless there has been a change in these documents.

However, 50% of the clients surveyed indicated that in the past 12 months, they had to re-supply the bank with copies of their ID and proof of residence documents.

"Some 97.4% of the clients indicated that they are not willing to queue for more than 10 minutes, as they want to minimise time spent in the branch," he said.

To open new accounts, 67.5% indicated that it took in excess of 10 minutes, with as much as 22% of the clients indicating that it took more than 30 minutes, said St Quintin, adding that account maintenance, queries and closures had similar trends.

Also, 57.5% of clients indicated that they are currently not satisfied with the service received at the branches, while 80% of the sample indicated that their perception of services is directly related to time spent in the branch, he noted.

"Through improving records management processes, all these customer satisfaction drivers can be improved.

"By embracing the current evolution and doing things smarter, financial service providers have the prospect of being able to reduce processing costs and free up resource time to focus on revenue-generating activities," he concluded.

Share