Government bodies and banks are paperless leaders

Many different organizations – from hospitals to government bodies to retailers – can benefit from the convenience and protection that document conversion services provide, but some of these groups have been quicker to adopt paperless technologies than others. A new study from the European Environmental Paper Network (EEPN), which observed paper efficiency across a variety of firms, has found that government organizations and banks are the groups that best use paperless solutions to their advantage. 

According to edieWaste, banks and government bodies have taken serious measures to drastically cut paper consumption. Utility companies and retailers were the groups that made the least progress in eliminating paper and digitizing files, although the study did find that there were a few strong performers in the retail sector.

Mandy Haggith, coordinator of the EEPN study, said that she found these results surprising.

"There are quite a lot of organizations where the paper efficiency egg has yet to crack," edieWaste quoted Haggith as saying. "Utility firms have a long way to go to reap the benefits of saving paper – we thought energy companies would be pretty switched on with resource efficiency."

Haggith advised that eliminating paper usage can be one of the best ways to make a business more cost-efficient. This is partially due to the cost of paper itself, but also a result of the expenses associated with using paper, such as storage needs, printing, postage and energy consumption. She said it's estimated that 11 percent of paper use expenses are from the price of paper, while 89 percent are caused by those related costs.

Bank Systems and Technology recently reported that paperless treasury management can actually help ensure compliance, which could be why banks are leaders in making the switch to paperless solutions. But if utility companies and retailers are looking to increase efficiency, they too should adopt paperless document management.

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