Most European offices are still wasting an outstanding amount of material. An independent research, whose purpose was to analyze the problems connected to the document management system, proved how the problem related to the waste of paper and the resulting financial damage connected to the infrastructures and the environment, is still far from being solved. The research, carried out over 5676 employees working for 13 European companies, demonstrated how new printing policies were able to enhance the efficiency of those companies who set them in to action. Also, the research proved the fact productivity can remain unaltered withstanding a 30% decrease in the individual printing amount.
An analysis on the "Digital Document", carried out in Italy on behalf of InfoCamere, focused instead on the overall costs (often "undercover") of the traditional document management. In Italy, every year, 115 billion pages are printed, 19.5 billion of which remain unused, this giving rise to a burden equal to 287 million euros per year. In general, every paper document is reproduced in between nine to eleven times, this meaning a cost equal to 18 Euros per document. As for the document filing, out of twenty documents, one ends in being lost, three percent filed incorrectly (the cost for the recovery of the document is more or else 120 Euros).
They seem impressive amounts, but it is easy to fully comprehend the situation if considering the statistics. All you need to do is evaluate all the factors connected to the traditional document management. Firstly, if the information research results in being complex for the person responsible for its management, it will be completely inaccessible for anyone else. Also, the reliability needs to be taken in consideration in order to avoid serious errors: omissions can be committed due to the fact that the documents are muddled and can miss in being updated, this being very serious for those documents that necessarily need to be up to date. Furthermore, the documentation often tends to be duplicated, this due to the fact that it really should be accessible to various company services (staff, purchase office, manufacturing...): very rarely the documentation is updated in all of its copies. Also when the documents are acquired in electronic format (via e-mail for example), their reliability is at risk. In fact, the documents are integrated by the paper format, yet the latter can follow different filing and delivery paths. As a consequence of these redundant processes, the impact of the traditional document management on the environment can be quite significant. In Italy, for example, we are dealing with 4 million tons of CO2 generated and over 20 million trees being cut down.
The feeling is that still too many company resources are wasted within an information management system that is still slow and unclear. A rationalization is hence necessary, able to ensure the filing, accessibility and safety of the data besides a precise eco-friendly direction.
Fortunately, something is changing: the SMEs have undertaken an innovation process while the document management system is experiencing a period of deep change, this also due to the financial crisis that carries along the need to reduce inefficiency and waste, as well as new specific legislation. Also, the tools provided by the European Union, concerning environmental aspects, brought the companies towards integrating, within their strategies, sustainable development in order to optimize the IT environments and reduce operative costs. The latter can be achieved by reducing the consumable material waste, which can then give rise to a lower energetic consumption in terms of devices disposal.
Information management is a crucial resource for the company operations given the fact it strategically able to generate competitiveness and benefits that objectively can be quantified: savings in terms of space, paper and storing costs, lower time needed in searching and transmitting documents, increased productivity and reduced risks in accidently losing data.
One of the conditions necessary in order to enhance clarity, reduce time laps and simplify the administration is given by the presence of a groundbreaking document management system: the Microarea ERP Mago.net provides you with the strategic solutions able to optimize your work in a simple, reliable and eco-friendly manner.
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