4 Benefits of Digitizing Documents and Files

The benefits of digital transformation are clear. It isn’t a question of if or why going digital makes sense, but rather how and when to make the transition.

In fact, by early 2021, most businesses and government agencies had started to seriously address digital transformation, even if they lacked the necessary budgets and organizational buy-in to begin or complete it.

The benefits of digitization, though, will last long after this crisis. That’s why now is the critical time to seize organizational-wide support.

To get there though — and to build the business case for the budget necessary to support it — takes understanding the long-term, positive impact on the bottom line.

4 Bottom-line Benefits of Digitization

We’ve covered, at a high level, the benefits of content services platforms. Here, we’ll dig deeper into the specific financial effects on your bottom line.

Resource Savings

Less paper means significant cost savings from fewer consumables and lower energy costs. Once your documents are scanned, you’ll also avoid significant costs related to physical file storage.

In fact, according to the analysis conducted by Deloitte for a retail bank, eliminating paper can reduce operating expenses by as much as 30%.

When the Texas Department of Insurance went paperless, scanning over 900,000 case files, it eliminated $400,000 annually in storage and management costs.

Client after client — and across industries — we’ve seen reallocation of space previously used to manage and store paper-based systems drive measurable cost savings.

Sustainability Tax Incentives

Less paper is better for the environment. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the average office worker goes through 10,000 sheets of paper per year.

The environmental impact of reducing paper consumption in one workplace would be comparable to a 0.75-acre pine forest absorbing carbon for a year.

Using less paper and toner is direct cost savings and environmentally friendly, but it goes even further. Both federal and state governments consider sustainability a priority and offer tax credits and rebates for going paperless. The U.S. The Department of Energy offers an easy search tool to find tax credits and rebates in your state.

Staff Efficiency Improvements

Document and records requests are extremely time- and labor-intensive. Gartner reports that employees waste 30 to 40 percent of their workweeks managing documents, including searching for information. When time is wasted, so is money.

A typical process might involve an employee receiving a document request, walking to a separate and secure area to retrieve it, submitting the document for redaction, waiting for the redacted document, then physically picking it up and delivering it to the requester. With each request, the process repeats.

Once digitized, content is organized and searchable, reducing the time it takes to respond to information requests and eliminating costly and time-consuming manual processes.

Streamlining the process through document imaging positively affects productivity, and, ultimately, the bottom line. Fewer employees are needed to manage the process, and digitization eliminates the need for physical storage.

Manual processes were prone to lose, misfiling, repeat requests, and delays in response times — all of which contributed to the high cost of training staff. Once digitized, it took staff a fraction of the time and effort to fulfill requests. Digitization means staff shares, exchanges, collaborates and accesses documents efficiently.

Reallocations of workers may be achieved as a result of enhanced efficiency and production, resulting in additional immediate savings.

Beyond Costs Savings: Revenue Generation

In our always-on, digital world, consumers expect exceptional service delivered in real-time. This applies to both private and public entities, which means government agencies can’t lag behind the private sector in meeting the sky-high expectations of their clients and constituents. Paper-based documents and manual systems create customer experience deficiencies.

Paper is naturally inconvenient and prone to errors.

When it comes to paper-based papers and data, fulfilling a records request might take anything from hours to days, falling well short of expectations.

However, with the right document management solution, you get an accurate inventory of organized and searchable digital records that are easily and quickly accessible.

You can track document activity, set up retention schedules, and have secure access to records anytime, anywhere. That speed and efficiency result in an experience that builds loyalty and wins new business.

Digitizing records and transitioning manual processes to online ones not only improves the customer experience but also provides public transparency.

When California’s state government digitized the filing process for its Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), which requires a public record filing by lenders for all commercial loans, it improved both customer experience and public confidence.