Since the early days of computers, the “Office of the Future” has been speculated in many varying forms and predicting trends for the workplace has become a fascination of our culture. In 1969, the BBC aired “Tomorrow’s World – Office of the Future” in which James Burke becomes an executive in a futuristic office where the role of a secretary has been usurped by an automated robot. Incidentally, it looks nothing like the offices we see around us today.
Now, we predict holographic bosses, robot assistants and virtual water coolers for as soon as 2030 but what is remarkable is that, despite all our bold claims we seem unable or unwilling to take the small and simple steps towards achieving them.
Each day, one billion photocopies are made (Source: Forrester Research) and the amount of paper produced is growing by 25% each year (Source: Gartner). This adds up to over four trillion paper documents…in the US alone (Source: Coopers and Lybrand). Not only is this highly dangerous for the environment, but it is unnecessary and costly for business.
Imagine all those four trillion paper documents across offices in the US. Even the best filing system can’t keep track of that amount of information and, with remote working on the rise, it becomes time consuming and frustrating for employees to have to search for the information they need; especially when they are so used to having the world’s knowledge at their fingertips the moment they unlock their phone.
Filing, working on, signing and sending documents electronically allows you to share information with those who need it, when they need it while securing it from those who don’t need access. This leads to improved customer service as finance and customer service teams can respond more quickly with everything on screen.
Ultimately, moving to a paperless office saves time and costs- whether that be printers, ink, storage units, floor space or employee time to retrieve documents. Our Microsoft Dynamics NAV solution includes document capture and delivery features as standard, discover more here.
