Ever since Business Week published a landmark article in June 1975 titled "The Office of the Future," we were led to believe the dream of the paperless office was only a matter of time. Vincent E. Giuliano of Arthur D. Little Inc. was quoted in that article as saying records and correspondence should be declining by 1980, "and by 1990, most record-handling will be electronic."
As anybody who has worked in an office knows, the dream of the paperless office is more like the search for the Holy Grail. It simply hasn’t happened. Almost 40 years later I’m still heading down to Costco to buy printer cartridges.
Given the emphasis on green computing, saving trees and not populating landfills with office-generated "content," are we making progress in file storage management?
I asked Ina Chang, president of Aloha Data, a Honolulu-based company that specializes in electronic document management storage, what kinds of companies could benefit from this technology in Hawaii.
Chang told me the spectrum of firms that can benefit from electronic document management storage range from large for-profit enterprises to tiny nonprofits. She said a good criterion would be "companies that are downsizing and need to reduce the file cabinets and turn it into a profit-making space."
She offered some thought-provoking statistics. A typical business might use on an average of 200 square feet for its file storage, which costs anywhere between $300 (off-site storage) to $500 (office space) per month. Thus, with a possible $6,000 savings per year, a business can get its files scanned, use an electronic document management solution and utilize space for two salespeople to generate more revenue.
It’s also a very green thing to do.
For every 1 million pages Aloha Data scans, Chang estimates, her company helps save 85 trees, which is equivalent to 5.5 tons of paper. (The company has posted a "green calculator" on its website, www.alohadata.com/calculator.aspx.)
One of its largest customer projects was a 60-year-old local business where Aloha Data has been scanning several million pages per year. The ongoing paper-to-digital conversion not only allows the company to eliminate file cabinets, but also provides access to old contracts, correspondence, invoices or proposals.
Chang emphasized that although most companies can benefit from electronic storage, not all need to buy expensive electronic document management software. Businesses that don’t need to access files more than a few times a year, such as physicians who don’t need to look at inactive patient files, might not be candidates. However, operations that access files daily (especially those with multiple users), such as insurance firms, manufacturers or distribution companies, could benefit greatly.
The bottom line: The paperless office may still be a dream, but at least document storage is no longer a nightmare.
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Mike Meyer, former Internet general manager at Oceanic Time Warner Cable, now manages IT for Honolulu Community College. Reach him at mmeyer@hawaii.edu.
