In the modern world, paper is becoming something that’s viewed more and more as archaic. As most businesses complete the transition towards digital workspaces, paper looks like it could go obsolete in the near future.
If you’re considering whether it could be beneficial for your business to go paperless, there are definitely a number of advantages to it. From cutting costs to dramatically increasing the efficiency of your operations, let’s explore some of the benefits you could stand to experience from making the transition with the assistance of a document scanning service such as Pearl Scan.
Cut your costs
One of the most obvious benefits of going paperless is that it’ll allow you to cut your costs. By going digital, you get to cut the costs associated with printers, paper, ink, and even with sending documents to stakeholders by post or courier.
Paper documents are also a hassle to store – you need to dedicate space just for that specific purpose. Digital documents on the other hand can be stored in hard drives or the cloud, both of which are far cheaper than paying for physical space.
Optimise productivity
Sifting through paper documents is incredibly inefficient; one study by McKinsey found that the average worker spends 19% of their work life looking for information – going paperless can massively decrease that number.
Digital documents can be stored in highly accessible online locations, shared or searched for in a few simple clicks. Looking for data within documents is also made a lot easier; you can often search for keywords or phrases within digital files, allowing you to find crucial data in just a few seconds.
Improved sustainability
Businesses and individuals alike are becoming more and more aware of their environmental impact on the world, looking for innovative ways to minimise that impact. Using paper has a number of negative environmental impacts, from cutting down trees to make paper to the energy needed to physically move those files around to share them.
By going digital, you eradicate most of these environmental concerns. Digital files require barely any energy to create or store, and can be shared with a simple email instead of a courier.
Enhanced security
Finally, going paperless is a great way to increase the security of your business’s sensitive information. Paper documents are difficult to protect – you typically need a secure space, and even then, they’ll still be susceptible to fire damage and unauthorised access.
Digital documents can be protected in a number of ways, through encryption and two-factor authentication methods. Also, digital files can be stored on the cloud, meaning that they’ll still be safe in the event that your business premises are damaged in an accident such as a fire.
If you were on the fence about your business going paperless, we reckon those few benefits might just have swayed you towards the digital world. From the positive effects of cost reduction all the way to the security benefits, there are little to no negatives to going paperless. Do it right, and you’ll save your business a whole lot of bother in the coming years.
