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Document Scanning

Survey reveals extent of paper backlog at some firms

Why the hold-up in going digital when there’s all this paperwork?

With so much of our lives now carried out via the internet, it’s fair to assume that paperwork is becoming a thing of the past for business owners.

However, many could be holding their own firms back by failing to move important operations to digital, according to an astonishing new survey.

More than 700 senior business and IT decision makers were polled by Coleman Parkes and it was found that in 75 per cent of organisations, a fifth of data is still being stored in hard copy formats.

Half of businesses are holding five to ten years’ worth of data as paperwork, which is likely to be creating a big headache for office workers who have to work amid all those boxes.

In addition, only 13 per cent of respondents said they would be confident about accessing information that dated back between 11 and 20 years, suggesting there’s not much point in keeping it anyway.

When asked about the possibility of going paperless, 38 per cent said it would help them with forecasting trends in their industry and nearly a third thought they would be able to make better decisions.

Aside from the logistical issues paperwork can create, it could also lead to serious problems for data security. Only 47 per cent of companies from the financial services sector could say their document security is better now than it was in 2009 – and 26 per cent think it’s worse. Who knows what prying eyes could be getting in if paperwork isn’t being protected?

And don’t forget the potential for errors to creep in either – only a third of those financial firms could say they’re able to fully audit access to documents, so people could be making changes that lead to regulatory breaches.

It comes after US software firm NTP carried out a study and discovered that a whopping 61.6 per cent of file data at the businesses it surveyed had not been accessed for more than six months. Almost 20 per cent was also made up of duplicate files, which is a true waste of space.

If you need help to prevent workers disappearing in a sea of old paperwork, get in touch with Dajon Data Management to discuss your personal requirements and to have a bespoke document scanning solution implemented in no time.