Why do people print and what's the digital alternative?

“Most organisations are looking to take paper out of their business.” (Kevin Conder, Driving Organisational Performance - Understand) With the smart advancements in technology, this probably doesn’t come as a surprise.

It should come as even less of a surprise when you consider that “around 50% of printed pages get thrown away and 20% never even get picked up.” (Seven simple hacks for smarter document workflow, Xerox)

If you had any other business function where 50% of what you do is thrown away, you would look at your operations and process, so why not with paper?

When it comes to digitisation, “analytics is the insight that is going to give us the ability to actually form, to actually transition documents.” (Marc Ueckermann, Why Digitise)

The trouble is, everyone is interested in digitisation but everyone’s struggling on the same thing - where do I start? What are the practical steps forward? How do I help my organisation change?

For the past decade, there has been a radical technology shift that has and is changing the way we work - in many senses, it’s all happened so quickly with the introduction of smartphones, tablets, smaller, more powerful computers and of course, the cloud.

But what’s interesting, as Andy Jones, VP Workflow Automation, Large Enterprise Operations at Xerox, states, is that it’s actually taken over 60 years to shorten the past decade. Without those years of development and new technologies, including the internet, the shift in technology over the last 10 years couldn’t have happened.

So why is this important for digitisation?

“The cloud is going to take over what we’re doing, it’s only a matter of time.” (Andy Jones, VP Workflow Automation, Large Enterprise Operations at Xerox, Why Digitise)

As is already happening, the cloud will accelerate the uptake of digital. The millennial generation and beyond are already adopting a digital lifestyle and tomorrow’s workforce will be born into a digital lifestyle, so the natural progression is that business follows suit.

But despite this fast move to all things digital, many people are still printing, and whilst analytics can show us what and when they’re printing, it’s important to consider why people are printing.

It’s possible for some that their business processes dictate that they print certain documents (expenses, invoices etc.) but for others, it comes back to a few different reasons, not least, familiarity and culture.

Why People Print and the Digital Equivalent: (A few examples)

• To Store  - Secure cloud storage that allows backup copies

• Annotate - Many word processes allow comments and tracked editing to annotate documents. If you really like the handwriting effect, there are tablets on the market that you can use a stylus/digital pen for handwriting.

• Develop thinking - Using document programs, presentation programs and even just notes, there are plenty of ways to develop thinking and store ideas

• Read - This is actually one of the tricker things to digitise as some people just prefer reading a physical paper copy. The digital alternatives are there, but this is more of a culture change and finding a solution that's suitable for all.

• Print for others (collaboration, signing) - Digital documents can easily be shared via email and even signed using many programs and apps. Collaborative working on live documents is also possible with tracked changes and amends.

• Notes for others - As with the above, there are plenty of options that allow notes, comments and collaboration on a digital document.

Digitisation - A Cultural Change

Digitisation isn’t a new concept - think back to the 90s when scanning came to end the world of paper. It didn’t, because paper has become engrained in every business process, making it frustratingly difficult to digitise everything.

It only takes one person in a document workflow to print a document because they ‘prefer writing physical notes’ and the process is broken down and has digital gaps.

Cultural change isn’t easy but by introducing new ways of replacing paper documents and using printing and document analytics to sell your idea to the board, digitisation is a reality.

Organisations are now thinking about which parts of the business can benefit from digitisation and bit by bit, they can digitise all of their document workflows and processes.

The drivers for doing so actually include:

• Growing revenue
• Reducing costs
• Improving overall profit and loss statement

Learn more about digitisation from Xerox’s Andy Jones and Xenith’s Marc Ueckermann in our video ‘Why Digitise’.