As organizations look towards new ways of enhancing their corporate social responsibility, quite often, one of the most obvious areas of improvement is over-looked. Not only does paper scanning and electronic document management help companies achieve their sustainability goals it also helps reduce costs and improve efficiency. It’s common to see companies over-looking the financial and environmental benefits of document management which will offer them a competitive advantage, while decreasing their ecological footprint.
Will the paperless office we were promised back in 1975 happen in our life-time? Probably not. However, the efficiency and environmental benefits of such a concept can be obtained today.
With the third wave of document management upon us the days of multi-million dollar solutions are quickly becoming nothing more than a memory. With electronic document management well within the budget of any organization, clients are expecting faster response times. Financial departments are finding ways to reduce over-head through the automation of manual business processes. And most importantly the environmentalist in all of us is looking for ways to reduce paper consumption.
Sustainability and corporate social responsibility extend beyond industry imposed regulations. They are concepts that I feel we have a responsibility to voluntarily adhere to, in order to help improve the quality of life for our employees, clients and society as a whole. By managing our records electronically we can drastically reduce our paper consumption and office supplies which will have a beneficial impact on our consumption of natural resources.