Survey Says: Going Paperless Pays For Itself

Whether going paperless is inevitable, beneficial, or is just never going to happen is all debatable, the truth of the matter is that many companies are moving in that direction regardless of the ongoing discussions that currently exist.

The transition to an electronic and digital based business will continue to rise while the overall dependence on paper will continue to lessen.

The amount of paper consumed remains an issue.

The most recent Government Printing Report by Lexmark and O’Keefe and Company shows that federal employees print 30 pages every work day on average, which means that there are 7,200 pages printed per year by each employee.

The bulk of employees — 92% — said they probably print more than they need to each day, with 35% of the paper simply being discarded.

Even though the use of paper can be taxing on the environment, the bright side is that a new study, The Efficient Agency Report by O’Keefe and Company and CDW-G, shows that local and state governments can achieve significant savings by going paperless.

The report found that these agenices realized returns of 134 percent locally and 269 percent for state governments with investments in technology including document management and virtualization.

“Agencies have a solid case for reinvesting their savings in technology solutions that drive further savings and operational efficiencies,” said David Hutchins, director of state and local government for CDW-G. “The invest, save and reinvest cycle should help agencies conserve limited IT dollars.”

The new survey spoke to 303 respondents, 93 percent of whom said their agencies had invested in server virtualization in some form.

The average investment was marked at about $289,512 and the average savings was about $406,368, equalling a 140 percent return.

Eighty-two percent of the organizations implemented document management solutions at an average cost of about $495,926, which brought back a 139 percent return at $688,493.

While the report doesn’t say exactly where the savings came from, a post on InfoWorld believes that the reduction in cost after going paperless came from office supplies, server equipment, storage and lowered energy bills.

There is also less man power and fewer work hours needed when content management is installed, meaning instead of spending long hours worrying about where a certain file is, a company can simply pull it up electronically and not have to worry about losing it.

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