Paper vs Digital for Business Processes

For the last few decades, there has been an ongoing debate about paper vs digital for business processes. There are pros and cons to both, but ultimately the paper vs digital debate ends up in favor of digital.

Naturally, the first place to start is by going over the pros and cons. Since many businesses are wary to make the change because of the amount of time, it is important to understand why it is worth the time and cost. The paper vs digital debate may be easy, but the transition can be daunting if you don’t understand what you need to do to prepare.  

Quick Definition of Business Processes

There are a lot of different things that people mean when they say business process. When comparing paper vs digital, a business process is the plan you have in place to solve a particular business problem. Business processes are part of every company’s daily process, from shipping and receiving to billing to client communication. The number of people who must be familiar with a business process is generally pretty large because you want everyone to take a consistent approach.  

Paper vs Digital

The number of businesses who still use paper copies for their business process is actually pretty high.

Here are the four most common reasons companies choose to stick with paper processes:

• Habit – people are used to having paper copies.
• Belief that it is complicated – the processes are already in paper copy, so companies think they are too complicated to move to digital.
• Fear of time requirements – people think that it will require scanning all documentation, which would be time consuming.
• Unaware of the benefits – this issue is easily rectified by pointing out what companies are missing through paper only processes.

Here are the five primary reasons why going digital is better.

• Digital storage and maintenance is far simpler and more efficient than paper.
• It is easier to track and maintain a digital copy of a document over a paper copy. Also, you can back up a digital copy; if you lose the only paper copy, you cannot recover it.
• On average, between 7 and 8% of company documentation is lost when they stick with paper copies. If you have 1,000 businesses processes in paper copy only, that means losing 75 processes.
• Tracking the latest version of a document is much easier than trying to figure out which is the latest version of a paper copy.
• Digital copies are easier to locate and send to customers and auditors.

Transitioning

If your primary concern is the transition process, it is actually relatively straight forward.

Create a Plan and Process List

You should always begin by determining just how many documents are affected by the transition. This means both existing and needed business processes. The processes that still need to be written will be far easier to manage through the digital process if you start them there.

The plan needs to be done in phases. For example, start with documents that need to be created as part of Phase I. That will give you time to convert the paper versions.

Determine the Flow

You need to establish a flow for how to get the documentation into the system and the flow for all new documentation.

Training

Before requiring digital copies, you need to train all employees on the process. If you miss this step, it is far less likely the system will be a success. People need to know both why it is important and how it is done.