Organizations face many tough choices in today’s business world. The struggle to keep up with new advances in technology and reduce carbon emissions is difficult. There is always pressure to cut costs and increase productivity. The positive news is that your document management system can be environmentally friendly whilst still being cost effective.
Whether you believe that global warming is an issue for the planet or not, it’s everyone’s responsibility to do all they can to minimize the impact their business has on the environment. Typical offices waste a lot of paper and power needlessly. This can easily be rectified by making some smart business decisions.
The First Step – Standardization
The first change should be to implement an intelligent document management software system, like The Paper Tiger Document Management Software and Filing System, that can eliminate the need for waste, save money, reduce power usage and increase productivity. If such a system is put in place, your current method of filing would change completely. Standardize the way that all files are labeled and that will avoid unnecessary duplication. Once individual documents are finished with, they can be added to the appropriate file.
Reduce Paper Usage
Because millions of documents are in different formats, they can be actioned without first converting them to paper. This immediately reduces the need for such vast quantities of paper to be used. A recent study calculated the additional costs associated with a single sheet of office paper, discovered that you have to multiply it by a factor of 30. This means that a $5 ream of paper would cost around $150. The average office worker uses around 10,000 sheets a year. One company calculated that if each of their workers saved one sheet of paper a week, they would save $700,000 per year.
If people start becoming smarter about their paper usage, the savings would be incalculable just for the paper alone. This means such signs as “think before you print” and “recycle that waste paper” should start appearing all over the office.
Documents can be edited electronically and saved on a CD or DVD for filing instead of printing because the files now have the ability to contain all formats. Paper won’t ever disappear completely, but a heavy reduction is vital.
Save Money and Boost Productivity
All staff will have access to the same filing system software and can instantly locate relevant files and documents at any time. This reduces filing and retrieval times and so decreases your overall costs while increasing productivity.
To decreases your power bill and carbon footprint at the same time, all staff should get into the habit of turning off all printing equipment when not being used. Of course, this is even more important at the end of the work day.
Once your document management system is in place and working smoothly, you won’t need as much room for file storage because everything will have been categorized in one of three ways; action, archive, or destroy. You won’t have desks overflowing with documents and files that haven’t been actioned or are just put in the “too hard” basket. And how to archive is simple with Paper Tiger. You would have a Location named ‘Archives’ in Paper Tiger, then simply conduct a Transfer Move of the file or files being moved to the Archive Location within your database. Paper Tiger will assign a file number in your Archives file to move the file to in the physical location. Files being destroyed or recycled can simply be Tossed in the Paper Tiger database, opening the item slot for another file to be inserted.
Staff will become more productive and office morale will be higher because they are able to work on more productive tasks. Proven statistics say that 20% of the work produces 80% of the revenue and 80% of the work only produces 20% of the revenue. Clumsy filing systems are time and money eaters. Now you can improve the percentages. Because of this increased efficiency and the smarter use of paper and all office equipment, your power bills should decrease as well.
The Impact on the Environment
If you stop to consider the ramifications of utilizing a more efficient document management system on other associated industries, it makes no sense to stick to the old methods. The paper industry uses vast amounts of pulp, energy and water and pump out tons of greenhouse gases. If the need for paper decreases dramatically, thousands of trees can be saved, more water can be conserved and less energy will be needed. If the number of trees being cut down is reduced, the result will be cleaner air and a healthier environment.
The Big Picture
It’s also vital to think of the bigger picture in terms of the next generation. You may not live to see the long-term effects of these necessary changes, but your children will. Should they have to live on a sick planet because their parents and grandparents badly damaged the environment through carelessness?
It doesn’t matter if you’re a small business owner or the CEO of the largest corporation. If you have filing to do, remember that your document management system can be environmentally friendly while being cost effective.
Tags: document management software, document management system, filing software, The Paper Tiger 'Finding' Filing System
