MANAGING PAPER PROCESSES IN A DIGITAL WORLDWHY SOME OF THE BEST OPPORTUNITIES FOR WORKFLOW EFFICIENCY CAN BE FOUND WHERE PAPER MEETS DIGITAL

STREAMLINING

We all know that ...

DIGITAL PROCESSES STREAMLINE THE FLOW OF INFORMATION

THEY ENABLE PEOPLE TO WORK FASTER AND SMARTERBut we also know that ...

MANY ORGANISATIONS STILL HAVE PAPER DOCUMENTS IN THEIR WORKFLOWS.And that can cause unnecessary problems ...

of information workers’ total time is spent dealing with problems and time-consuming tasks that arise with paper documents1.

7% 1 Bridging the Information Worker Productivity Gap,

IDC Whitepaper, 2012

25% A quarter of that time is wasted due to fruitless searches and document duplication1.

1 Bridging the Information Worker Productivity Gap, IDC Whitepaper, 2012

WHEN WE THINK ABOUT WHERE AND HOW THIS HAPPENS,some of the following may sound familiar …

You need to file or submit hard copies for compliance or regulatory reasons – policies, procedures, contracts, financial supporting documents and receipts.

Or ... You need a physical signature – on-boarding documents for new employees, time sheets, sick notes, holiday forms, staff records.

Maybe you need to fill out forms by hand – expenses, service reports, customer contact details, questionnaires.

Or perhaps you’ve simply always used paper before …

OUR WORK WITH OTHER ORGANISATIONS SHOWS THAT PAPER DOESN’T HAVE TO BE A PAIN.

?Here are five questions to help you pinpoint areas where you might still be suffering ...

ACROSS YOUR ORGANISATION …

Mailroom

Customer Service

Logistics

Distribution

Finance

HR

Sales & Marketing

1. How much time is wasted on processing paper documents or manually entering information?

Think of all the situations where people are still typing in details from printed forms or from one set of electronic documents to another. Where are the highest volumes and where could those people better use their time?

2. How many errors result from rekeying data?

From supplier payments to customer billing and contracts, this is a major productivity and compliance challenge. Are you currently measuring how many queries, revisions and rejections occur across your business processes?

3. How many documents are lost in your processes?

Not easy to monitor but you can get an idea by measuring and following up on third-party queries, approval delays and rejections in your business processes. Pay close attention to any areas where you use hard copy documents and handle them manually.

4. How difficult is it to track, share and retrieve paper-based information?

Look for symptoms like some areas of customer service being less responsive than others. Remote and mobile workers may be taking more time to approve critical documents like contracts and budgets. Management, finance and admin staff could be wasting time chasing queries, confirmations and sign-offs. Stressful and costly audits could also flag up difficulties checking back on who changed what, and why.

5. How much valuable space is taken up with paper archiving?

Review which areas of your organisation still store paper and how long it’s kept. Could this information be stored in other ways and still meet regulatory requirements? Could you digitalise and centralise storage? What could you do with the space (and time) you’d free up?

e.g.And here are six examples of how you can make a positive difference ...

1. Capture information from paper quickly and accurately using intelligent scanning technology – and integrate with your electronic document management

This is a key stage in process automation – in most cases, this technology means your people won’t have to retype information from one document to another anymore.

2. Share the right information with the right people, in the right places

Put in place policies that ensure information can only be sent to the right people, and will be stored securely. Automation can help enforce these policies and strengthening compliance.

3. Easily monitor and track the progress of documents through your processes

Use robust, user-friendly information management software in conjunction with smart scanning to speed up invoice processing, customer on-boarding, HR approvals and all sorts of other admin tasks. People can see at a glance where documents are in any approval or editing process – and what’s slowing things down.

4. Instantly find and retrieve the relevant information you need

Once you’re digitising and processing documents effectively you can speed up access to all kinds of information. Intuitive search (through meta data, not just filenames) can be applied to areas like:

• Supplier contracts and payments• Employee records• Company policies• Customer communications, deliveries and agreements.

5. Eliminate unnecessary paper storage

Filing cabinets still take up large amounts of space across organisations. By automating the digitisation of critical documents you can reduce or eliminate the need for hard copy storage and free up significant space and resources.

6. Improve transparency and reduce business risk

Digitisation and information management software can make a big difference to the transparency of many processes. Consider supplier payments: being able to easily track any changes to an invoice throughout its history, and quickly access the supporting documentation, strengthens the audit trail and cuts Finance team workload.

WE’RE HELPING ORGANISATIONS OF ALL SHAPES AND SIZES TRANSFORM THE WAY THEY WORK …and we can do the same for you.

We seamlessly integrate paper and digital workflows, automating information capture, storage and distribution to accelerate operational performance.

WHEREVER YOU ARE ON YOUR JOURNEY TO PROCESS MODERNISATION, WE CAN HELP YOU GO FURTHER.

The following five customer testimonials show how small changes can have a big impact …

“ Any document or electronic file can be instantly captured. From personnel records and property documents to student loans and education records, we have a one-stop-shop for information, in most cases eliminating the need to keep paper records. ”

MICK COOKPROJECT MANAGER, NORTHUMBERLAND COUNTY COUNCIL

“ Now we know at all times where a document is and where it came from in the process. Moreover, we can assign permissions on the category level and down to a single document. This has resulted in greater agility and control of our work reports and invoicing. ”

MICHAEL WAGERFINANCE DIRECTOR, ASTILLEROS DE MALLORCA

“ Our customer service representatives can email the customers the information they’re looking for straight away, without having to go through the hassle of first finding it in the archive, scanning it, emailing it and then filing it away again. ”

KEITH WRIGHTGENERAL MANAGER, TEAM GLOBAL

“ Thanks to Canon, we now have a firm grip on our accounts payable system and are processing the invoices 40% quicker than before. By reducing the processing time by 40 hours, we have saved around €25–30,000 a year. ”

BERT RIJKMANSINFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS EXECUTIVE, VAN DILLEWIJN GROUP

“ Canon transformed our key paper-based manual processes into highly efficient and accessible digital data that any of our designated staff could retrieve at any time. ”

MAURICE MCCRACKENGROUP ACCOUNTANT, WHITEMOUNTAIN QUARRIES LTD.

© Canon Europa N.V. 2014

HOW CAN WE HELP YOU? If there are any areas of particular interest that you would like to discuss further, or to set up a meeting, call us on <000 000 0000>.

Or ask one of our experts to get in touch about how we can help you across your information and document management processes.

BE EXCEPTIONAL and visit <canon-europe.com>