How to prepare for paperless process automation

How to prepare for paperless process automation
Firms must strategise to digitise their workplace and ensure successful implementation

Elly Yates-Roberts |


Have you been asking yourself any of these questions recently? Is my business processing exorbitant amounts of paper? Are manual processes interrupting the effectiveness of my business’s workflows? How much money are we spending on printing, copying, scanning, faxing and mailing paper documents? How long does it take employees to find documents? Are my processes and people working together? 

If your answers to these questions are less than ideal, it’s time to start thinking about using a paperless automation/document management system to unify your employees with your processes to digitise your workplace. There are several steps you can take to ensure success. 

First, gather staff from different areas of your organisation and identify what their pain points are when it comes to process management to evaluate where an automation solution will generate the best return on investment (ROI). 

Once you’ve decided which department needs to implement a paperless automation/document management solution, it’s important to analyse the existing processes. Automation does not fix bad processes, it only makes them faster, so you should start by automating procedures that have already been streamlined and standardised. Processes that are disjointed and involve multiple manual steps need to be updated prior to being automated if you want to maximise your paperless automation investment. 

Next, speak with various potential vendors to explain your current situation and how you would like to use the paperless automation/­document management solution to find one that can accommodate your unique business needs. Vendors like MetaViewer can offer advice and help set you up for digital success.

It’s important to set expectations and goals before implementing a paperless automation/document management solution. While it may be difficult to identify what your hard ROI will be, you can start to evaluate your soft ROI. This should include improved visibility, decreased resolution time, increased staff efficiency, reduced regulatory compliance risks and less time spent on time-consuming tasks that yield little value. 

Taking these steps will ensure that you are communicating with your teams, putting your processes and procedures in order and following a solid automation implementation strategy. This will make you confident that your employees and your processes will be able to work in tandem and put you on track to digitise your workplace. Didn’t think robots and humans could work together? Think again! 

Alyssa Putzer is marketing communications specialist for Metafile Information Systems 

This article was originally published in the Spring 2020 issue of The Record. Subscribe for FREE here to get the next issues delivered directly to your inbox.

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