Very interesting study from AIIM, called “The Paper Free Office – dream or reality?”, contradicting many of the beliefs we have around PDF and other electronic document formats killing the paper document.
As you know, one of my big beliefs is the Less Paper Office – we are thriving to reduce paper for many good reasons, but it is not so easy, and paper will continue to be used for many years to come. This report confirms this belief with many key points.
One of the key points is this study, based on a survey conducted to 395 AIIM, shows that the paper reduction induced by PDF usage in e-Invoicing is very minimal, if not a total illusion. Indeed, 77% of electronic invoices received… are re-printed right away, sometimes more than once (10%). And in 16% of cases, those are re-scanned as PDFs again… and potentially re-printed by others down in the business process. Only 23% of the respondents process e-invoices electronically in their capture system.
This study, which can be downloaded from the AIIM web site, lists a number of other very interesting key points. Although paper usage is decreasing,
- 45% of the documents that are scanned are 100% digital – coming straight from the printer, no human alteration – so could be processed fully electronically.
- An electronic-only filing policy would halve the storage space needed for paper in 5 years, reducing office costs by 8%.
This report also contains many key facts about the Digital Mailroom:
- 41% of respondents are using some form of digital mailroom. 13% of respondents (21% in Europe) are planning to outsource this mailroom activity to specialists like Xerox Services.
- On average, scanning and capture is considered to improve response time by a factor 6x.
- Their Digital Mailroom has paid back over a period of 12 months or less for 42% of the respondents, 18 months for 57%.
- Mobile capture is increasingly used – 38% of respondents have equipped their employees with portable devices to capture paper documents.
Anyway, a very worthwhile read.
