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Though we are well into the 21st century with countless technological advances at our fingertips, we seem to be nowhere near the paperless society that Frederick Wilfrid envisioned in 1978. Till today, we hear stories of offices having trouble keeping up with all the paperwork in their physical storage, increasing with each passing day. It is a shame that we still shy away from paperless solutions.

Some may still prefer to have physical copies of documents (like bills, statements, invoices, internal paperwork) on hand for reference, but does printing them out really add to efficiency? Getting rid of these and implementing documentless systems not only reduces the headaches of your managers, it can also help to decrease the company’s environmental footprint.

Going beyond just administrative paperwork, documents are also required for many other interventions, including for guest identification, security access, facility booking – and many other aspects of your businesses. By adopting the technology required to drive the validation and storage of these documents and going documentless, your business will be able to transcend to that of a smart, interconnected space.

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Still sitting on the fence? Here are 3 other reasons you should embrace a paperless office:

Paperless solutions reduce costs and increases security measures

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With so many documents printed daily, it’s only a matter of time before they get buried under a pile and end up missing. Here are some stats on why this isn’t just annoying, but also wasteful on an organization-wide level: on average, 7.5% of all company documents get lost completely, and the efforts and resources required for finding a lost document can also cost your company - $122, to be exact.

Paper is hard to keep track of, especially when there’s a large volume of them. On the other hand, digital documents can be filed easily and can be easily searched for when needed with electronic tags and unlimited cloud storage.

Going electronic also means that your documents are covered by improved security measures, such as configuring passwords on confidential documents, or locking user access permissions through biometric measures. Since most actions performed with these electronic devices would be traceable, this would reduce the risk of tampering or information leakage.

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Paperless solutions improve the technology skillset of your co-workers

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For a company to advance in the world of business, they have to keep up with the times. Businesses that go paperless ensure that their employees are all kept up with the technology that supports such efforts. This, in turn, will drive improved tech training and an overall increase in capabilities and skillsets. In this day and age when employees seek new challenges and constant improvement, the deployment of advanced technological infrastructures hits two birds with one stone.

By catching up with technological advancements, along with understanding and embracing the need to use such tools, your office will be able to reach its full potential and achieve greater efficiency.

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Paperless solutions give you the ability to access data anywhere, anytime

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In an age where everything is expected to be instant, the demand and norm in today's business world is to access, receive and use information within seconds. This is certainly made possible with electronic documents and automation – through this, data can be accessed anywhere on your smart devices, without having to look through paper documents (which takes up a lot of time).Being able to access information quickly also aids in increasing internal collaborative efforts. With collaborative online office tools like Google Documents, different team members are able to work on a document at the same time, without having to go back and forth with multiple versions and getting stuck in bottlenecks and delays in the process.

We’re not saying that you’ll have to go all-in and ditch all forms of documents from the get-go. Start slow, and only start from those that make sense. It helps to always examine your own goals and not just go paperless for the sake of it.

Going paperless is just the mere tip of the iceberg in upgrading your office, to reduce deadweight and improve efficiency. What other tips do you have for going paperless, or improving overall office efficiency? Let us know!