Transform Your Office – Use Your Copier to Get Rid of Paper
“Transformation” or “digital transformation” is a word and phrase you hear a lot in the IT industry. IT journalists are always looking for something new to write about – and IT providers seem to like to use the word because it sounds impressive.
It's easy to become turned off to the spin as over-hyped or not relevant for smaller businesses. You shouldn't.
Transformation isn't just limited to the “sexy” IT trends like Internet of Things or big data.
The fact is ANY technology that improves office and user effectiveness can transform your office. The other fact about transformation is older technologies can be as or more effective at transforming work in an office than the hot new IT trend.
Here's where your copy machine enters the picture.
One of the best office productivity and money saving strategies you can invest in is moving from a paper-based organization to a digital organization.
Simply put: stop using paper documents, start using electronic documents.
That doesn't mean you'll never need to print or copy or use paper, but shifting to using digital documents to automate business workflows and to store documents electronically instead of in offsite storage or file cabinets around your office are just two benefits of less paper.
Automated workflows allow you to get work done faster – faster approvals, no more lost or misplaced paper files on co-worker's desk. Digitally storing documents saves office space and enables retrieval in seconds rather than minutes (or never if the paper document is lost or misfiled).
Paper documents slow work down:
- They can be lost – forever or simply underneath the teetering stack of files on your messy co-worker's desk
- Unless you make copies, only one person can access a document at a time. For confidential records, excess copies create a risk of lost data (data breaches aren't just limited to digital documents!).
- It takes minutes – at least – to find a paper document. It takes seconds to search and retrieve a digital document.
Another way the humble copier can be used to transform your office is to outsource the management of your copiers with a managed print services partner. With MPS, your IT staff no longer have to deal with troubleshooting your office equipment. Plus, an MPS partner will help you identify the best mix of equipment to meet your business goals most efficiently.
For more detail on managed print services, read:
- The Top 4 Business Benefits of Managed Print Services
- Managed Print Services and the Mythical Paperless Office
While trends like Internet of Things and big data are “sexy” in that they get a lot of digital ink, I like to think using straightforward solutions that work and improve how your office and business operate is even “sexier.”
