These days, oil and oil-related costs are generating a buzz everywhere.  Although some companies tapped into automation to reduce their carbon footprint prior to the skyrocketing prices, today’s higher costs provide a good reason for more companies to seriously consider it.  Effective technology use delivers a solid return, including considerable savings on oil-related expenses.  As you look for ways to improve your revenue stream as a dealer, consider how you can improve it for your customers.  Quicker delivery of revenue-producing paperwork and reduced costs are a double win. What company can say ‘no’ to helping the planet when it also improves the bottom line? 

Minimize the Need for Storage Facilities
Paper production and storage requires fossil fuels; from felling trees to building and heating storage facilities.  Rising oil prices mean costly paper, space, and heat, not to mention expenses for off-site retrieval.  Duplicate paper copies result in added costs of toner and ink cartridges.

Document imaging of existing files doesn’t eradicate past paper production, but it helps businesses minimize storage costs.  Better still, on-line capture of data via e-forms eliminates the need for paper production. Digital information means faster, more secure, and less expensive access.

Reduce Shipping and Mailing Costs
Many documents are still created as hard copies (especially contracts) and travel extensively, like circulating dollar bills, being copied and sent through the mail to branch offices, remote staff, and customers.  Paper documents and contracts are sent out for signatures and returned, doubling the fuel expenditures used.  Items subject to deadlines and service level agreements require prompt attention, adding stress along with priority shipping costs.  Even when an imaging system exists, too often it ends up an electronic filing cabinet to archive PDFs of the original documents instead of additionally using the electronic “send” functions as well, failing to abolish the initial shipping of the original paper copy, resulting in related costs that could easily have been avoided.

Although some regulations mandate specific documents must be printed, most files can be sent to simultaneous parties for processing, approvals, electronic signatures, and other actions without printing (and subsequently mailing) a single piece of paper.  Web-based document imaging, or a capture system integrated with document management and process automation software, eliminates costly delivery.  Companies in document-intensive industries (such as finance and insurance) have eliminated 90% of paper production and shipping costs and more, generating five- and six-figure savings.  Fossil fuel demands and oil-related expenditures fall dramatically in tandem. Processing times improve, often decreasing from days to minutes, and satisfying customers more quickly.

SLICK WAYS TO GET STARTED

Businesses that are ready to take full advantage of automation need to set aside time to manually optimize business efficiency. Document inventories, indexing plans for diverse organizational needs, and streamlining of manual processes for consistency are all vital.  Poor organization of information and inconsistent handling of routine processes do not improve with the best office equipment, hardware, or software solutions.  The same chaos results – only faster.

Take time to understand the document process, from the creation of data – regardless of its form – to its eventual archival as a record.  Consider your customers’ itinerant files and the costly adventures they take throughout the document lifecycle, as varied as a circulating dollar bill (but far more expensive).  Use the rising cost of oil to your customers’ advantage. By helping them to optimize, image, and leverage their data with technology, you will help them to offer better and faster service while engaging in eco-friendly operations.  That’s pretty slick!

Cut Courier and Staff Deliveries
Despite commendable service, the luxury of fast and dependable delivery offered by companies such as DHL, FedEx, and UPS has a cost to businesses and the environment.  Cars, trucks, and planes expend significant fuel.  Rising oil prices mean increased delivery costs.  Your customers will reluctantly pass the costs on to their clients, but an informed reseller can offer them an alternative.

A business that has converted to digital capture – whether through a multi-function device, scanner, bar code reader, or digital imaging system – experiences real savings when process automation is added.  Offered by many vendors either as part of an integrated document management system or as an add-on option to existing software, process automation leverages data your clients own, putting electronic courier service and control at their fingertips.  Time-sensitive documents requiring expediency ( some requiring action within a day or even hours of receipt)  are no longer subject to the challenges of fuel-based delivery.  Documents missed in daily pickups can be sent digitally within seconds, surpassing even the service of the best courier companies!

Laurel Sanders is the Director of Public Relations and Communications for Optical Image Technology, Inc., developers of the DocFinity suite of imaging, document management, and workflow products (www.docfinity.com). She can be contacted at lsanders@docfinity.com.