The general consensus in the business world is that going paperless is the best option. People are constantly talking about how it’s a great way to save money, improve efficiency, and reduce your impact on the environment. But even though it does have its benefits, you never hear people talking about the downsides to going paperless. There are a lot of good things about doing things the traditional way, and if you want the best for your business, it’s important to find a good balance. These are some of the reasons why your business shouldn’t give up on paper just yet.
The Cost
Your office already has the infrastructure in place for doing things on paper. If you need to modernize things a bit, you just need to find a reliable printer and copier dealer to update some of your old equipment. The relative cost of maintaining your current system is very low, but making the switch to paperless can be incredibly expensive. People are always talking about the cost savings, but those won’t kick in until later on and you will need to spend a lot of money upfront. It’s likely that you will need more digital storage space if you start digitizing everything, which means paying for cloud services or installing your own local services, both of which can be very expensive. You also need to invest in good file sharing and editing software and even though there are free applications available, you will likely need paid options if you want your team to be efficient.
These costs quickly add up, so you should ask yourself whether this is really the best way to spend your money right now. Would it be better spent on marketing campaigns product development? That money could be used to further your business is if you decide to stick with paper for a while.
Data Loss Issues
Every business is aware of the fact that data loss is a huge issue. When you have everything stored as a digital copy, data loss is far more likely. If your business is hit by a power outage and you don’t have a good backup of everything, you can lose a lot of data. You’re also at risk from cyberattacks too. Naturally, you will take steps to protect yourself but it’s a lot harder to keep your data safe when everything is stored digitally. But if you keep hard copies locked away in filing cabinets in your office, it’s far more difficult for anybody to get at them.
Software Maintenance Issues
A filing cabinet doesn’t stop working for no reason at all, but computer software does. This is something that people don’t consider when they are talking about the amazing productivity benefits of going paperless. It’s true that digital document sharing can make things easier, until it stops working, and then it makes it impossible for your employees to do anything if they are completely reliant on a paperless system. Anytime your software malfunctions, that causes a big dip in productivity, which leads to lost revenue or the business. You won’t be able to get anything done until somebody can come out to fix it, and that’s going to cost you money too. You can reduce issues if you keep up with preventative maintenance and hire a well-staffed IT team, but there is always the potential for software maintenance problems. When you are completely paperless, this can quickly bring your business to a grinding halt.
Difficulties Digitizing Existing Documents
A lot of businesses are surprised when they start making the switch to a paperless system because they expected it to be quick and easy. The reality is, you will need to digitize all of your existing documents so you can use them on the new system, and that brings a lot of problems with it. Many businesses fall into the trap of quickly scanning huge quantities of documents without using any kind of labeling system for them. What they end up with is a big mess of digital documents that they can’t really use. All of the efficiency benefits of going paperless suddenly go out of the window because there is no sense of organization. There is also the potential for important documents to be lost or accidentally destroyed in all of the confusion, and that causes a lot of problems further down the line.
Going paperless does have its benefits and there’s no denying that. But the war on paper might be a bit premature because there are a lot of potential downsides. So, don’t give up on paper just yet, take a cautious approach that combines the best bits of both systems.
