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To fully understand the concept of the "Paperless Office",one must understand what it conceptually was supposed to mean,as well as what it has evolved into as its current form.Early forms of the paperless office would have concentrated around word processing documents and the ability to create,store and manage their existence electronically.However,you were limited in scope as to what you could do to"manage"these documents.Most of the management revolved around viewing and perhaps sharing it with other users in the organization.There were no automated programs that handled workflow,scanning,tagging and management of these documents effectively.Scanners were (at a cost-effective price)too expensive for the average office to acquire based on the return on investment.At the corporate level,there was no direction as to handle workflow and to analyze where paper came from and where it had to go internally and if there was a process in place,the tools were not mature enough or existing to handle it.
In the last few years,technology has finally been catching up to the needs and requirements of the office environment.Scanners that previously cost tens of thousands of dollars now can be acquired for hundreds.Digital copiers/printers now incorporate high speed scanning and OCR capability,even at the lowest levels.The technology initiative has now been transferred to the IT and MIS departments of corporations as well as law firms.Clearly,the tools necessary to transform paper-full to a paperless office are now widely available.What then,is stopping the widespread adoption of the concept of the paperless office?Cultural issues are probably one of the largest obstructions to the implementation of the concept of the paperless office.Plainly,people feel comfortable doing what they know how to do best(shuffle paper around)and modifying theirhabits requires a focus that makes them feel that they are,in fact,doing things better and more efficiently.Implementing a paperless office environment that introduces processes that are more difficult and technologically challenging than the previous environment is doomed to fail from the start,Keep all processes simple,introdu ce technology that is easy to learn and use,and document the workflow.
