Why Business is Growing and Greener

In-spite of advancing technology and the promise of the Paperless office, the average office worker still prints out between 22 and 45 sheets of paper per day and paper usage continues to rise at a rate of 22% per year, according to The Paperless Project.

Green Document

With businesses looking to save money and meet rigorous green targets, one Yorkshire based business has been successfully helping organisations around the world tackle these issues for the last 10 years. In 2003 technology firm, Watermark Technologies Ltd identified that, what was holding organisations back from going paperless was not the idea of it, but the thought of having to change familiar and successful work processes in order to become paperless.

We designed Volume document management software (DMS) with people in mind. We wanted a system that was simple to learn and easy to use. By making it index-free customers could set up, store, file, move, and view their electronic documents in the same way they would a paper file. This made the transition to paperless, for SME’s to multi-nationals, very straight-forward with ROI covered within months of implementation.

For thousands of Volume users the reduction in paper use and improved efficiencies have a swift, positive impact on the bottom line, and have helped organisations grow much faster than previously possible. But the reduction in the environmental impact of Volume users is also measurable and very impressive. One customer now has added 14 million documents to their Volume database and this is growing at an additional 1.3 million documents per year.

Director
Watermark Technologies

The job of filing disappeared overnight for us when we introduced Volume. The cost savings in terms of staff time, printing and storage are immense compared to when we used to hold printed documents. The system makes finding, filing and storing documents accurate and efficient. But it’s a bonus to know that by changing to Volume we have saved the equivalent of 1,680 trees without even trying.

Anthony Smith
Head of ICT, UK Wealth Management

Director Tim Boggie believes that software users have potentially saved a lot more than storage space, staff hours and postage by switching to paperless. “I am proud that by using Volume software, our clients are reducing their environmental impact every day. I estimate that, in the last year alone our clients printed up to 26 million fewer sheets of paper, which equates to 3,120 trees. The fact that the paper was never used means that their combined Carbon and Water Footprint has been reduced by up to: 884 tonnes of CO2 emissions, which equates to a 6 cylinder car driving 307,000 miles; 345,429 tonnes of Water the equivalent to filling more than 104 Olympic size swimming pools; and 624 tonnes of landfill waste.”

Watermark has an office in South Africa and clients around the world. However, with only 1% of European businesses having achieved a paperless office (according to a report in Real Business Magazine Jan 2014), the tough business climate and increasingly rigorous green targets to meet, Watermark believes that the time is right to rapidly increase their exports across Europe. They will start by exhibiting at the largest technology trade show in the world, CeBIT. Held in Hanover, Germany 10th to 14th March 2014, the event is expected to be attended by more than 600,000 business visitors. Director Tim Boggie says, “We produce world class software, which combines cutting-edge technology with ease of use. This is a powerful combination for businesses that want to become more efficient, cut out unnecessary costs and meet a green agenda. We were very pleased to receive help from the UKTI, who provided some financial support for our export drive and we are looking forward to creating new European Partnerships that will help us achieve a wider global audience.”