Articles

Shared Services and the Paperless Office

Downloadable media:

Like a Connecticut street in the springtime, the road to the paperless office is
riddled with potholes. Most U.S. workers generate anywhere from 45 to 15,000
sheets of paper every day, according to the American Records Management
Association (ARMA). Federal government statistics echo this trend, finding that
the average U.S. office worker uses about 10,000 sheets of paper a year. Moreover,
the typical American office worker disposes of 100 to 200 pounds of paper per year,
other studies find.

All of this paper is taking a heavy toll on the corporate bottom line. ARMA and IDC
estimate that the average company spends between 7 and 14 percent of its total
costs on document processing in a paper environment. Look no further than paper
handling and storage for the reason. Studies have shown that the average document
in an organization is photocopied 19 times. What’s more, storage requirements
for hard copy documents double every three years, according to ARMA and IDC.
With paper storage costs averaging $1,400 per file cabinet, it’s easy to see how this
expense can add up.

No wonder the concept of the paperless office is so appealing to corporate America.

But with business processes remaining stubbornly paper-centric, companies are
rethinking the idea of the paperless office; they are discovering that the best way
to automate paper processes may be to deploy shared services centers for the
centralized capture, processing and management of documents.

By centralizing tasks such as document imaging, data capture and image and data
storage, companies can eliminate redundant processes and systems, optimize their
workforce, improve control and visibility over corporate information and reduce
costly overhead. What’s more, compared to the distributed scanning approach that
frequently goes hand-in-hand with paperless office initiatives, shared services
may deliver additional benefits, including elimination of redundant, underutilized
scanners (and the issues of managing multiple support contracts); improved staff
productivity (office staff can focus on the jobs they were hired to do); and better
quality controls and document tracking.

More companies are recognizing the potential pitfalls of putting scanners on every
desktop in their drive towards the paperless office. And they see that shared
services can deliver a much better ROI.

But don’t take our word for it.

One major insurer has reduced costs and accelerated turnaround on customerfacing
transactions by implementing a document imaging and data capture shared
services center for its new business and claims areas. Moving these functions out
of its far-flung field offices (which previously scanned documents on multi-function
devices) is already saving the insurer $4.1 million a year. And bigger savings may be
on tap. For instance, digitally sorting documents in a single electronic depository
continues to improve operator productivity and allows specialized transactions to
be placed in a priority queue for departments to review—in most cases, within four
hours of document receipt.

Even the public sector is getting into the act.

About half (48.6 percent) of the government entities that responded to a TAWPI
survey this year stated that they process another department’s work with their
own, and 19 percent of the respondents that don’t use shared services stated it’s
in their plans. County governments are leading the way, with 60 percent of those
responding to the survey stating that they process work for multiple departments.

Shared services won’t turn back the overwhelming volume of paper that arrives
in businesses every day. But, it will relieve the impact of that paper on front-line
workers while digitizing paper-based processes and delivering clear and sizeable
economic advantages. And, like a Connecticut road crew in April, that will make the
drive towards the paperless office a whole lot smoother.