Paperless office routine

Is it possible to go completely paperless in the office? In many industries, communication between business partners nowadays takes place largely by e-mail, but "yellow mail" and fax communication are also anything but "dead".

PDF attachments to e-mails are increasingly replacing letter mail and fax - but what does the follow-up processing of these documents look like?

Media disruptions are inevitable

Even 25 years ago - at the beginning of my personal IT time with SAP R/2 - paper in the office was predicted to have only a short lifespan. At that time, IT business also worked - without e-mail, without smartphones and without iPads. So: There's life in the old dog yet again.

But even in 2015 with the "e-mail PDF attachments" in daily business, I often enough experience with my customers how outgoing documents from ERP systems (mostly SAP) are sent digitally, but are also printed out again at the recipient, sorted and stored in parallel as e-mail, then circulated and manually re-recorded (and often enough re-scanned).

"What nonsense", some readers may think - but just often enough reality in German offices - across all industries!

Whether it is a question of order confirmations, which one prefers to compare as "paper" then item by item against the SAP outgoing order, in order to recognize deadline, price or quantity deviations; whether it is a question of outgoing orders created by oneself, which one still provides with paper flags or stamps in-house for release and obtains all signatures in the paper circulation before everything goes to the supplier (scanned or as "yellow mail"); whether one prints out a sales order and manually enters and checks item by item in the ERP Sales & Distribution system; whether one copies applicant letters in order to distribute them from the HR team to the specialist team concerned.... Examples are numerous.

Why are these B2B processes still so "analog", but private communication is advanced "digital"? Legislators have already followed suit in many places and, for example, laid the foundations for electronic invoice exchange in 2011 with the Tax Simplification Act - the elimination of the qualified electronic signature upon proof of a suitable procedure. And the digital agenda also gives cause for hope.

And haven't the technological prerequisites also been created? There are often dual screens at administrative workplaces as well; documents can be displayed on the screens in their original size - the costs for this are moderate.

Even the argument of "expensive storage for keeping the storage-intensive formats" has fallen away more and more due to the decline in costs in recent years.

The arguments in favor of digital processes are obvious: maximum transparency of the entire business process from receipt to filing, from creation to dispatch - for all parties involved, access and information at any time.

Costs are demonstrably reduced by up to 80 percent (according to a study by Deutsche Bank Research, this was determined for completely electronic invoice exchange, for example). File folders and basement rooms full of paper documents are eliminated. The purchase-to-pay and order-to-cash process is massively accelerated.

Typical transparency opponents

Since the companies' administrative processes are not part of the value creation, they are often only considered downstream. It simply takes time for the "change" to set in here - and it is not done with simply installing software at one or more workstations.

Often, entire work processes are fundamentally questioned and changed. Jobs may be eliminated completely, the works council may be consulted...

And then it also needs the in-house resources. In-house IT, for example, must test, create and later operate hardware, software and infrastructure.

Specialist teams have to test and approve new processes - and they have to do this in addition to their day-to-day business. But it is precisely these in-house resources that are often in short supply. Cloud services may relieve the burden here, but they raise other critical questions.

There is also always the question of "am I compliant" - is it also "safe and permissible" how we will then work digitally? Who advises on this, who certifies these new processes? Where does the liability lie? And this goes far beyond the question of "data security" and attacks from outside ("CIA fears").

A sword of Damocles... Is it the people in the departments who are being deprived of their beloved "paper"? Probably not - because in the evening, private life continues digitally... at Amazon, on YouTube, on WhatsApp.

It is rather the people who fear for their jobs! "Will the software then take over my work, am I still needed in the digital office routine?" How is meaningful participation and acceptance by all those affected achieved?

Digital maturity?

Our legislator declares the "digital agenda" - but continues to deliver a multitude of new laws and in addition but only conditionally thought-out instructions on the procedures. One might think, for example, of the confirmation of receipt, the minimum wage law, the reverse charge procedure...

And then there is the uniform "non-uniformity". It is true that industry and trade associations or manufacturer-driven associations are repeatedly trying to create "digital standards.

But is this successful? The powerful corporations impose "their" standards, individual (and thus heterogeneous) portals are created to capture data and documents - everyone cooks their own "soup".

Possibly the standardization of an industry succeeds once (VDA, Swift etc.), rarely whole Germany (DIN etc.), how often in the EU? The latest attempt: ZUGFeRD - the Forum Electronic Invoice Germany. Here the "D" already bothers me personally - for authorities in Germany because of me. But for internationally operating companies? Well...

And last but not least, the software is often not yet as interlocked and haptically excellent and intuitively usable as one would like it to be! For example, e-mails are often stored in customer folder structures and an ERP system is used in parallel, along with a network directory.

Will the completely paperless office become reality after all? The advantages are obvious and the framework conditions are in place. There are a number of software providers on the market that offer correspondingly sophisticated solutions.

The German government has also recognized the signs: The digital agenda offers hope:

"Digitization offers great potential and enables synergies. It is therefore the task of policymakers to actively accompany structural change and set the framework conditions for living, learning, working and doing business in the digital world and to enable everyone to participate in the digital transformation."

Edward Gower-Isaac, VP Business Process Services at Ricoh Europe, says: "Digitization is undoubtedly a key factor in the growing adoption of e-invoicing in Europe. Companies are realizing that digitization is no longer just a differentiator, but a prerequisite for any business that wants to continue to exist in the future.

Seventy-three percent of CEOs said achieving digital maturity directly led to revenue growth, and 62 percent agreed that digital maturity made their company more attractive to potential investors and new owners."

Where is their profit in the company if not only, for example, incoming and outgoing invoices, but also upstream and downstream processes such as requisitions, order confirmations, customer orders, delivery bills, payment notifications, material certificates, certificates of origin, application folders, etc. are processed electronically, digitally and, above all, automatically.

You achieve maximum transparency and efficiency, saving cash on a daily basis. The ROI is usually achieved in the short to medium term (12 to 48 months).