Does the paperless office have a negative impact on going green?

Durban, South Africa - 10 April 2012 - “Does the paperless office have a negative impact on going green? The answer to this question may surprise a number of organisations. If not undertaken correctly, a paperless office definitely can have a negative impact on your business and the environment,” says Vanessa Miller, MD of VM Consulting.

Over the years, document management solutions (DMS) have grown from simple file repositories to full content management solutions where all forms of content can be stored. However, the way in which these solutions are implemented is what makes the difference between a green-friendly solution and one that is not.

“Document management solutions should be designed and implemented by specialists in the field. Organisations that have grown with the technology and are focused on continually improving the journey companies have when they embark on their DMS adventure. However, we have seen time and time again that office automation companies, IT development houses and IT hardware companies will profess to be specialists in these solutions, but instead of delivering solutions that work for the client, the client ends up having to work for the solution,” says Miller.

Miller added: “The team at VM Consulting believe that without a document management framework, businesses often find it very difficult to significantly reduce paper consumption, reinforce reliable file organisation and optimise their internal processes. An understanding that paper and process go hand in hand is critical to the success of a DMS journey.”

During the past decade, going green has become top of mind for many companies of all sizes and in all industries. While few companies can truly go completely “paperless”, taking proactive measures to significantly reduce the amount of paper being used and consumed is often one of the first areas organisations focus on when instituting a green policy.

It is important to remember that a DMS solution is not just about paper; it is about all forms of content and the process associated to the content. Being able to store e-mails, faxes, voice, electronic files and paper documents in a virtual environment and initiating a workflow process to ensure the traceability and visibility of the content within a process, needs to be designed and optimised to ensure a coherent environment of people and technology is achieved, otherwise business users will start to run dual systems between the DMS and either a manual or additional files on a file server, resulting in wasting time and energy keeping the dual systems up to date, and IT managing additional hardware to cater for the additional requirements. Furthermore, office space is being used for paper instead of people.

The main drivers for using a DMS solution as part of a go green campaign are:

* Reduction in the amount of paper used;
* Reduction in the amount of print toner consumed;
* Recovery of the much-needed office space and the removal of file cabinets and paper files;
* Consolidating file servers to ensure a single repository for all content. Poor data management and duplicate files can result in unnecessarily large storage requirements, increasing the need for more hardware, electricity and cooling;
* Streamlining internal business processes, to ensure staff are working more effectively and smarter;
* Providing an environment where staff spend less time searching for the right content and spending more time on the actual task;
* Visibility into the process; and
* Visibility into the virtual file and content.

“Remember why you are implementing a DMS solution and measure your business against these key objectives during the course of the DMS adventure and continue to measure years down the line. This way, both your DMS adventure and going green campaign are kept in check,” commented Miller.