The Paperless Office: Reality And Potential

A local hairdresser who goes to customers' homes and manages their hair cuts and treatments might not need paper (or any other kind of) documents (and might indeed have a 'paperless office'). Any businesses of larger sizes cannot do without documents to satisfy tax and other authorities, to manage their businesses, and to keep track of their dues.

The Reality of The Paperless Office

Even in this age of computers, paper documents are still used in large enough volumes to raise ecological concerns (you have to cut down trees to make paper). There are several reasons for the continuing popularity of paper:

• Many people are not comfortable with computers and prefer to work with paper rather than computer screens.
• In design work, paper can provide a more relaxed and practical option to do prototyping and do rough computations, compared to the awkwardness of a computer screen.
• Even other kinds of work, such as studying a topic seriously, might be better with a paper printout that allows comments in the margin and other such functions.
• Where a document is of top confidential nature, the persons concerned may not like putting it on a computer.
• Paper documents are more readily accepted as evidence in courts of law (even though this is changing with the times) compared to digital documents that might need additional proof about their genuineness.

In a scenario like the above, the paperless office is still quite a distance away (say, when the present computer-savvy, younger generation takes over).

The Potential of The Paperless Office

It's difficult to visualize the full potential (and pitfalls) of a completely paperless office. Consider a possible scenario where paper passports have disappeared, for example. Biometric data about citizens are recorded and used to identify them. Some hidden sensor might scan their retina and authenticate their identity as they pass through the entry gates.

A similar revolution can take place in many other areas. Sensors in machines control production, others in warehouses keep track of merchandise receipts and shipments, voice recorders and identity sensors authenticate the terms of a contract (provided we can do away with legalese), and so on.

These kinds of scenarios are still far away. The next section illustrates the things we can do now to minimize the use of paper.

Moving towards a Minimum-Paper Office

The following steps can help us move towards an office that uses a minimum of paper:

• Record all transactions online, as sales are presently recorded using POS (point-of-sale) terminals in retail establishments.
• Record field data (occurring in inhospitable field locations) on handheld devices that can transmit them directly to central computers.
• Use sensors to capture data and transmit them similarly wherever possible, as in computer controlled machines and warehouses.
• Install scanning stations that can scan and OCR all incoming paper documents, and index the resultant digital documents into electronic databases.
• Implement systems and procedures that authenticate all digital documents (in a way that will satisfy courts of law), thus enabling the shredding of paper documents once they're scanned and transferred to the electronic workflow.
• Integrate vendor and customer systems so that orders and communications can flow online instead of through paper documents.
• Use a content management system that can handle all kinds of content and make them accessible online from anywhere with an Internet connection.

Even smaller businesses can implement at least some of these measures to move towards a paperless office (a journey without end!)

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