Is the Dream of a Paperless Office Gone for Good?

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A couple of years ago, people dreamed of a paperless office that no longer used any printed media. It meant that companies could take another step towards becoming completely green businesses that didn’t waste or even use paper anymore. There would be no more need to maintain a printer, no more ink to purchase, and no more stacks of paper to purchase.

But what happened to that dream? Does it no longer exist? Has it been replaced? Or is it no longer practical?

People figured out that paper isn’t easy to replace

While the idea of forever getting rid of paper reliance sounds good in practice, it ultimately wasn’t practical. You see, in order for us to switch entirely to digital solutions, we’d need everyone in the world to also adopt paperless systems. Unfortunately, this is a lot harder said than done. Many people still prefer paper solutions and documents when possible and the transition period is taking a lot longer than we could have imagined.

As such, it’s important to use hybrid solutions that can handle both sides. For instance, DocBuster is a great piece of software that can effortlessly convert and print multiple documents. This type of software has become the norm in offices that are adopting hybrid solutions that can use paper or paperless options based on what clients and customers prefer.

Paperless solutions are a lot more expensive than we thought

One of the biggest reasons for the slow paperless progress is that we tend to forget about the cost of paperless solutions. Replacing paper with something like tablets or digital documents can eventually get very expensive, especially if you need to adopt these solutions across multiple different departments and also encourage your clients and customers to use the same things.

Establishing paperless systems is an expensive investment that many businesses aren’t willing to take. So if you’re looking to save money (as many paperless advocates have been pushing for) then you might be disappointed to find that going paperless doesn’t really help that much.

Decluttering is great, but paper isn’t the problem

Many people imagined a world without paper clutter. No more loose sheets of paper on desks, no more buying stacks of printer paper, and no more paper waste in your bins. It would’ve been a great way to declutter your business, but unfortunately, many of our businesses are already disorganised and paper isn’t the primary cause.

Many of us have paper records and archives that have yet to be converted to something digital. However, the amount of space that these records take isn’t as big as most of us think. A few boxes of documents is nothing compared to space that can be wasted on poor office designs and unnecessary equipment, both of which are more expensive and cause more clutter issues than just paper.

In short, decluttering your office is a great reason to go paperless, but businesses rarely have so much paper clutter that it actually becomes a problem.

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