The Right Time for Paper-Lite
Nigel Dews, Managing Director of Restore (one of our exhibitors at Facilities & Estates Management Live) on how paper-based documents still hold power and why combining physical storage with digitisation can be the best ‘paperlite’ storage solution.
Many businesses think that digitising their documents and leaning towards a completely digital future is an all or nothing deal, but this isn’t always the case. In fact, there are a variety of reasons why the paperless office didn’t happen.
A common reason is simply that people love paper and like to have the physical evidence in their hand. Also, going digital is not as straight forward as it initially sounds. If advised correctly, organisations do not need to digitise all paper records as they might have originally believed. Instead, paper-light is a popular approach which means digitising high priority and highly active records while still maintaining a physical presence where it’s most cost effective. Many customers still prefer physical records, or don’t have full digital access, so businesses still need to accommodate customers’ preferences.
LEGAL REASONS
In the case of legal situations, storing paper records instead of digitising is beneficial and sometimes required. UK businesses must retain financial records for at least six years and some documents, such as patient records, may need to be stored longer depending on their nature or if there are any potential legal claims associated with them. Additionally, in the case of legal investigations or audits, having the original paper documents can be crucial. If a company is required to produce these documents, keeping them in their original form ensures compliance with legal requests.
PROTECTING AGAINST DAMAGE:
Digitising important documents to protect against damage may seem to be the safest choice. However, this is not the case. In fact, Restore stores more than 22 million boxes full of important records in highly secure facilities. Storing both digital and physical documents comes with risks, so it’s important to provide the right environment, as well as ensure that proper mitigations and standards are in place to minimise damage during the digitising process, such as correct equipment, handling, and preparation procedures.
THE COSTS
For documents that are highly active and that need to be accessed by multiple people, digitising reduces costs and allows users the efficiency of accessing from anywhere, anytime. Information being used for downstream processing are often more cost effectively captured and input into relevant customer systems when stored as digital, rather than manual data. This is particularly effective when combined with technology driven decision making and the auto routing of documents (a process that automatically directs documents to the right person or department based on specific criteria) post-digitisation.
For documents that have long retention periods it will be cheaper in the long run to digitise them and destroy the original. However, documents that aren’t as important, and do not need to be accessed as often or kept for a long time, would be more expensive to digitise than to put in long term storage. This is why we suggest a smart, hybrid approach which provides the more cost-effective information management solution for customers by taking activity, length of retention and downstream processing requirements into account.
SUSTAINABILITY
In terms of IT footprint, there is no real difference between digital and physical as both require systems and servers to maintain the service. Additionally, with both options the paper will be securely destroyed and recycled – it just happens sooner in the case of digitisation.
One additional environmental impact of keeping paper records is that the documents require physical retrieval from storage facilities, which subsequently has further negative effect and contributes to a greater carbon footprint. Though one way of mitigating this is to have the document retrieved digitally. When a document is digitised, they can be accessed remotely regardless of the location . Furthermore, it is advised to digitise any documents that need specialist temperature-controlled environments, to avoid additional utility emissions.
Consequently, physical storage offers no difference to digital if a document is not going to be active and does not need returning to the customer. Yet, for any documents that are expected to be retrieved more than once in the duration of their lifetime, digital offers a more sustainable and environmentally friendly outcome.
SECURITY IMPLICATIONS
When it comes to deciding storing documents electronically is safer security wise than with paper, it is a little more complex. Both options have differing implications and depend on the security measures involved and the level of digitisation.
Although one of the main advantages of digitising is that accessing the information is a lot easier, it also means that it is likely to be easier for that information to be accessed or misused by malevolent individuals, particularly when compared to the likelihood of someone being able to physically break into a high security facility and access a specific box. Therefore, from a criminal security standpoint, physical storage is probably the safest option.
On the other hand, there is no back up when a document is kept just in physical form. If a document is lost or the box is destroyed prematurely, then that information is permanently lost.
Taking all of this into consideration, there are inherent risks with both approaches, so having the appropriate standards and measures in place is important to ensure that all reasonable precautions have been taken.
PRIORITISING DOCUMENTS
There are several factors that will determine which documents should be digitised and in what order of priority. Understanding the documents and associated relevance means we can then work with the customer to conduct an analysis and agree which would provide the most benefits by being digitised. These factors include:
- Budget and required ROI – digitisation requires an immediate upfront cost, so understanding a customer’s budget helps to determine whether physical or digital is the best option.
- Considering the organisation’s information strategy and available digital maturity – if their processes and systems aren’t set up to handle the digital content/ output then there is no point digitising.
- The number of people who need access to those documents – it is more cost effective and efficient having a digital document if a lot of individuals/ teams need access, and even more so if they are remote workers.
- Level of activity and required access – the more active documents provide faster ROI as it removes the cost and time to physically deliver the original paper document each time.
- Downstream BPO (business process outsourcing) and the impact on the next stage of processing the information- if the information needs to be available in further systems for processing or needs fast actioning by the customer’s team, having it available digitally speeds up the process and removes the need for manual data capture further downstream.
- Retention period – digitising a document has a higher upfront cost than storing it physically. Analysis of the length of time to realise an ROI of the digitisation in comparison to the document’s retention period will determine the most cost-effective solution.
- Information criticality – highly important business information may want to be digitised to ensure that it is backed up in case of damage/ loss of the original.
- Legal/ regulatory requirements – documents that must be retained physically, whether digitised or not, will require additional advantages from digitising to be needed to justify the additional cost.
- Change management – it’s about changing the culture as customers transition from using physical to digital information and the training of systems to access.
The prevailing consensus on whether digitising documents or keeping them, as physical paper is that it overtly depends on many factors. While going entirely paperless is not the best solution for everyone, it’s about finding the right balance and beginning the transition to a digital future can bring many advantages to your organisation.
Read more of Restore’s case studies here: https://bit.ly/40LhK6Q
