Well, after 20 years of document scanning, we finally got a survey result that suggests offices are using less paper! We measured changes in the use of paper and number of photocopies. Whilst it is still growing in 27% of responding organizations, in 39%, it is actually starting to fall. In the largest organizations it is still equally balanced, with no net increase or decrease, but that is a big improvement on previous surveys. Amongst those organizations with more extensive scanning and capture operations, a net 53% are seeing a reduction in paper use, reflecting their reduced dependency on paper, particularly photocopies.
Although reduced storage costs and environmental benefits are important, the survey shows that improved shareability and searchability of scanned documents is a far bigger benefit, followed by productivity savings from document-centric workflows. The full survey report is free to download here.
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