Local start-up document scanning company, Paper to Digital Storage Solutions (P2D), is confident about cloud computing and started the national roll-out of its services this week.
P2D CEO, Dawid Jacobs, says the company is driving the paperless office. “P2D has been a four-year project which we've based on international standards. We've already created strategic alliances in this space and now we are ready to go national.”
According to Jacobs, P2D uses software-as-a-service technology to differentiate itself from its competitors. It allows a company to access electronic records from wherever they are in the world for zero capital costs; which would have been spent on scanners and servers.
Jacobs says P2D's target market includes both small to medium enterprises (SMEs) and large corporates. He points out the solution is particularly suited to SMEs, as not having to worry about scanning documents means they can focus on their core business.
Tough legislation
One of the biggest challenges in document management, according to Jacobs, is failure to comply with legislation which dictates that 52% of records must be kept for three years, 25% for five years, and 7% must be kept from 30 years to indefinitely.
In some instances, organisations are not allowed to destroy certain financial records, which must be handed over to a curator or regulator if a business is liquidated or ceases to operate. Jacobs explains: “If a PDF is not compiled under correct ISO standards, the document becomes worthless when it stands in a court of law as being an authentic copy of the original.”
Jacobs points out that even though a business will never be completely paperless, future legislation will require companies to become carbon compliant.
“South African companies, generally, are not educated on how they can reduce their carbon footprint. One of the biggest benefits of cloud computing is that business users can access their documents from wherever they are without spend huge amounts on travel costs and the high electricity costs associated with IT equipment.”
According to the IDC, companies spend as much as 10% of their revenue on managing company documents and their distribution. “The problem of scattered, inaccessible information is costly for today's organisations. The estimate is that the inability to find information costs an enterprise with 1 000 knowledge workers R6 million per annum.”
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