6 Benefits of the Paperless Office... and Yes, You Can Achieve It!

The average office worker still uses 10,000 sheets of paper a year. It’s hard to break old habits, but there are a lot of advantages to reducing and even eliminating the use of paper. With modern technology, the steps to get there are very obtainable for most businesses.

Who Manages Your Printer or Copier?

If you’re like most businesses, your printers or copiers are ‘just there’ - forgotten about until they need toner or paper or stop working. Often they are legacy devices, inherited from other organizations or departments, or purchased to fulfil a short-term need without considering how they fit with the future needs of your business.

While the cost of consumer-grade printers has reduced significantly over the years, business-level printers and copiers can still require a considerable investment. Not just in hardware and ongoing maintenance, but also consumables like toner, ink cartridges, and of course paper. It is in a business’ best financial interest to manage their printers or copiers, which requires more than shaking a toner cartridge to get one more print out of it.

We help you control the printer and copier costs by:

• Monitoring, optimizing, and managing your organization’s total print output
• Assessing and creating a plan designed to reduce costs, while providing your staff with the solutions they need to succeed
• Managing your organization’s printing resources (ink, paper, etc.)
• Solving potential print/copier problems proactively to keep downtime to a minimum
• Providing live support and on-site support that includes training

Our technicians are trained in the installation and support of copy, print, scan, and fax solutions, providing your staff with the skills it needs to take control over machines that often seem to have minds of their own.

While Datalyst brings our wealth of knowledge to your business by designing and implementing a company-wide plan to meet the printing and copying needs of your organization; we’re always looking towards the future and the future is paperless.

A word of warning: Nobody really associates a printer with a security risk. That said, over the last few years, many exploits and vulnerabilities have been found starting at an offices’ network printer. Just like any device on your network, these devices need to be audited and kept updated. If nobody is handling your printer management, it’s time to start that at the very least.

The Paperless Office In Practice

One industry that has embraced some aspects of the paperless office is the Healthcare industry. Strict rules of privacy have made using paper records not only practically obsolete, but a security risk. HIPAA and HITECH compliance standards have been the driving force for reducing the dependence on paper in the medical industry. 

However, despite the embrace of digital records, medical offices - like most businesses - are still printing at an incredible pace. It’s not uncommon for a medical office to print out the results of a patient’s visit, print their next appointment, print labels and forms, and so on. As you can imagine, that is a lot of paper still being generated, ironically as paper records are being phased out as the advantages of digital data are recognized.

Other medical offices have gone further, handling most communication online unless they otherwise have to use print when a patient requires it.

6 Benefits of the Paperless Office

While we understand many businesses still rely on paper and print technology, we would like to take a moment to discuss the advantages of digitizing as much data as possible. Some advantages of digitalization include the following. 

1.  Ease Of Access

Have you worked with a person who had a “system” for filing? You know, the system that only they could understand? While it might be mind-blowing to watch them find any document in what seemed to be a total chaos of folders, papers and boxes, if they aren’t in the office and you need something, you’re going to have a tough time.

Digital documents, such as Electronic Medical Records (EMR) can be accessed with the click of a button. You can search, sort, and share documents with team members. This gets even more convenient when the documents are stored in the cloud, as they can be securely accessed from anywhere.

2.  Effective Collaboration

As noted, cloud management allows the ability to share documents, which in turn allows for greater levels of collaboration. Most productivity suites (G Suite and Office 365) offer multiple people the opportunity to contribute to the same document simultaneously. By encouraging team members to communicate on projects in real time, it is easier for everyone to understand the message or goal of the project.

3.  Cost Savings

The 20 reams of paper per year being used by each office worker translates to spending $400 a year on paper costs, per employee. This expense doesn’t include toner, ink, and printer and/or copier maintenance expenses as well. Going paperless removes the bulk of these expenses by reducing the need to purchase consumables and wear and tear on the machines.

4.  Better Security

IT Security is top of mind for most businesses today, and while the news seems full of stories of cyberattacks, the reality is with good practices you can significantly reduce your exposure. Best practices such as two-factor authentication, password management, and having an access control policy can ensure only persons authorized to access your data will be able to.

When it comes to protecting your paper documents: you are limited to locks on doors and how careful your team is when it comes to securing paper documents. Whether it’s an office or a file cabinet, security often comes down to who has access to the keys.

5.  Efficient Backup and Recovery

With paper documents, the only way to make a backup is to make a copy, which of course uses more resources: paper, toner, and storage. Then of course you make a copy of the copy, “just in case” and eventually you have multiple copies of the same document. So much for security.

Disasters happen: While any business can have a difficult time bouncing back after a disaster, a business with a proper backup and recovery solution and ALL of their data backed up will have an easier time than one whose critical information is stored on paper. Water, fire, and most any type of elemental damage will likely render your paper documents unrecoverable, regardless of how many copies you have.

6.  Smaller Carbon Footprint

A sheet of paper is easy to store; a ream of paper (500 sheets) and weighing 5 pounds, not so much. If each office worker uses 10,000 sheets of paper, that’s 100 pounds of paper for each worker you need to either store or destroy and that’s just one year’s worth of paper. It compounds every year.

When you migrate to the cloud, you may find you’re freeing hundreds of square feet as you eliminate the need for physical storage. Finally, don’t let your already-stored documents keep you from moving forward. You have the option to scan your existing documents and transform them into digital records.

If You Don’t Go Paperless, Don’t Skip Printer and Copier Support

While the paperless office is achievable for most businesses, you might not be ready to take the leap right away (we promise you though, it’s not as arduous as it sounds). 

Still, if you are opting to stick with traditional methods, ensure your printer and/or copier is being managed and maintained. When your printer or copier isn’t working properly, the most common result is wasted paper, a mess of toner and a loss of productivity. Our Printer and Copier Support Services can reduce your printing cost, increase your efficiency, and improve your document security. The modern office is here, are you ready to embrace it?

If you have any questions about how our Managed Print Services, Managed IT Services, or our Cloud Computing solutions can help your business build efficiency and cut costs, call us today at (774) 213-9701.