Your Key to Success: A Less Paper City

In an ever-developing technological world where cars now drive themselves and robots explore the surface of Mars, it’s remarkable that companies are still using paper-based processes on a daily basis.

A recent survey by Quocirca revealed that as many as 73% of organisations believe that printing is critical for their business processes. This reliance on paper continues to hold back the progress of many organisations.

It’s certainly been a long road to digitisation when you consider that the idea of converting to a paperless office was popularized in a 1975 Business Week article, which framed the benefits of a paperless office in terms of potential productivity gains and reducing financial costs, quoting a prediction that most corporate records would be handled digitally by 1990.That dream never transpired and this could be partially because the options to change were perceived to be too costly, disruptive and daily maintenance of a complex document management system not to be right for the business.

40 years on and we have integrated technology into our everyday lives – who would leave home without their mobile? And yet the printed document continues to thrive.

Bradford based business Commerce Business Systems has just launched a series of seminars aimed at getting local businesses to embrace technology solutions and help Bradford become a ‘Less Paper City’.

Sales Director Anthony says, “CBS are on a mission to save local businesses time and money by helping them to invest in the right technologies to improve their work processes and reduce waste. It’s a fact that every office worker creates around 10,000 sheets of A4 paper each and every year. That’s the equivalent to a four drawer filing cabinet per office worker per year – that’s a lot of paper and a lot of filing cabinets.” Anthony has calculated that it would take just 5,920 filing cabinets to fill an Olympic size pool. With thousands of office workers in Bradford alone, it’s easy to see how wasteful and inefficient paper is.

Anthony continues, “Regulations about record management, security of information and data protection means that every business needs to take its document management seriously. We want to help local business improve their processes, reduce waste and costs and get the most from technology.”

We joined a number of suppliers, including Samsung, Olivetti and F-Secure for CBS’s first showcase.

Anthony says, “Like snail mail, I believe the days of paper processes are numbered.”