Go Paperless – Digital Transformation Tip

FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) on digital transformation is haunting businesses that are lagging behind because they find it hard to get on the train. Start thinking of a paperless office and you’ll know how to get aboard.

Going paperless is the act of eliminating paper from your business processes. When you implement systems such that from customer acquisition to customer invoicing all processes are online (without paper forms or Excel sheets), then you would qualify to be a digitally transformed enterprise.

In 1987 while getting my Master’s degree, I wrote a paper titled – Paperless Factory, after visiting a manufacturing facility of a leading computer company. They had begun to adopt barcodes through the different stages of manufacture to track the work in progress. They were building systems to eliminate the physical job card that was used earlier. Going paperless required that from the stage of design, procurement, manufacture, and assembly to final dispatch, there was no job card to fill.

Most enterprises already have two islands already in place, one for accounting and the other for payroll, perhaps. A paperless enterprise has no islands. The first task is to connect the two systems in use or buy a single system.

Starting with customer acquisition you need to implement a CRM so that all incoming leads are captured in a single system and as it moves to an order it is tracked. Customer communication via email, phone, and WhatsApp can also be facilitated and stored in a single system. Order capture, execution and other service operations can flow through a bespoke system, and ERP or a cloud solution that offers connectivity to standard solutions.

The CRM, the Operations and Customer Service would connect to the Accounting system for invoicing and financial updates, thus completing the goal of Going Paperless.

On a piece of paper draw out the components of your Paperless Enterprise and start the journey. This perhaps would be the last piece of paper you’ll ever need.

You are now Digitally Transformed.

Mohammed Sutarwala, Managing Director, emQube