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Document cost management:
Going digital might yield big payoffs
Shaina Luck
Deciding what printer or copier to buy takes time, no doubt. But the experts say we should be spending just as much effort, if not more, on managing the documents we output. In the past, employees were encouraged to reduce the amount of documents they printed. The suggestion is still in effect, but it's part of a larger migration to the world of digital documents. The strategy cuts paper usage, but equally important, it makes document sharing and storage faster and more reliable.
But if it isn’t properly implemented, going digital could result in a technological mess.
"There have been a whole bunch of false starts to document management over the years. I think that was because it was technology driven," says Dave Desjardins, managing principal for Xerox Business Process Services.
According to Desjardins, organizations were trying to solve business problems with technology. But they were overlooking the people aspect in the process. That led to a divide between the way employees realistically work, and the business strategy.
There was also a fragmentation of responsibility for the task—with no one taking clear, singular ownership—and a lack of standardization between software systems, says Kevin Fancey, vice-president and general manager of document imaging solutions and national accounts for Pitney Bowes (Mississauga, Ont.).
Since then, clearer standards have emerged within the industry, but Fancey thinks fragmentation of document strategy is still prevalent in many businesses. For instance, IT professionals and information officers might have different goals for what they want to achieve from their digital documentation plan. But success hinges on a centralized document strategy.
Drafting a plan requires an initial decision. "There are two ways to approach that," says Fancey. "One would be to start scanning or digitizing the current information as you use it or touch it...So as you accessed the paper information you would scan it at that point and would work forward."
The method makes sense if the department is required to hold onto the paper documents for a relatively short period of time. In essence, the approach involves scanning the paper document, and then after a short time frame, discarding the paper copy while saving the digital.
Moving backwards
The other approach is moving backwards by scanning all the stored documents at once. When Ricoh Document Management began to digitize their office files, they chose to use this "backwards" method.
"At Ricoh we had 128 filing cabinets—the big ones," says Alan Wheeler, vice president of Ricoh Document Management. He says it took several people to do the job and was very labour intensive. But when the job was done, the difference was drastic. "Now in our administrative centre, we have six cabinets. So you think about the [space] footprint," he adds.
"We had an average of six people running back and forth between the filing cabinets [before]," says Wheeler. Since Ricoh went digital, Wheeler can find and transfer documents in a fraction of the time. The greatest savings have come in the form of storage space and employee time. "If you mail something, it takes three days," he says. "If you transfer something it takes seconds."
These bottom line savings in areas such as productivity, postage and storage may then be applied in other areas. "We're seeing a lot of companies take this electronic document management as a way of funding their future research and development, or [expansion] into new markets," says Desjardins.
But he cautions against taking a project-oriented approach, where the stakeholders say, 'okay, this technology is going to save me $500 a year. Let’s implement it.' Instead, they should be taking a five to ten year view of the strategy, ensuring it fits with where the company is going.
Given it's a slow process, many organizations are still heavily reliant on paper, and that should be the case for some time to come. "I would venture to say 'yes, we are going to see the paperless office become a reality, but it's a long way away," explains Subhas Seelochand, senior manager of product marketing for Canon Canada's imaging systems group (Mississauga, Ont.)
In some cases, electronic resources can actually increase paper use.
Seelochand uses the example of mapping services such as those offered by Yahoo, MapQuest or Google. In the past, he points out, most people had one reusable paper document.
"People would take that same map with them," he says. "Now it's so easy to print out directions...So until you see improvements in handheld devices, everyone will keep printing."
Therein lies a big challenge in document cost management. The task is really two-fold: managing the print output, and implementing digital storage and transfer.
"It's very hard to separate the electronic document management from the printing management," says Fancey. This is why digital document management must be thought through as a process from beginning to end. Pitney Bowes calls this the "mail stream."
Businesses can’t assume a digitized mail stream automatically solves all the problems. "If I send a PDF out there to every employee in a company, but they each have an inkjet printer at their desk, that’s driving up the cost," Fancey says.
"User preference, I think, can be worked with, but it needs to be actively managed to move people to receiving their documents electronically.”
Printing and paper document use can be minimized, but it seems unlikely that we’ll see the 'paperless office' for many years. "I think our best hope is the retention-less office, where we’re not having to retain documents on paper, and we can retain things electronically," Fancey says. "There's always going to be a strong cultural preference for paper documents."
If that's the case, printers and multifunctional devices will continue to populate offices in the long term. The devices open up a multitude of issues around document management—cost of ownership per page, the price of consumables, efficient placement of the machines throughout the office, and so on.
Though it's tempting to buy the printer with an attractive price tag, it's more important to ensure the device fits in with the organization's overall document strategy.
"The criterion of simply purchasing an inexpensive multifunctional device is not enough nowadays if you need to spend a lot of money on software to integrate with equipment," says Carole Perrotti, solutions developer with Canon Canada’s Imaging Systems Group.
In the long run, it could be more cost-effective to purchase a printer that is compatible with your document management software, which would allow tracking and management of the documents, Perrotti says, "without having to purchase extra peripheral tracking devices, which can be more costly."
The goal of digitizing documents and reducing paper output is realizable, certainly, as long as purchasers and their colleagues take a long-term approach based on a central process that fits the company’s strategic goals.
Shaina Luck is a student and freelance journalist based in Halifax.
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