Scissors beats paper, paper beats technology

In 1993, American advertising mogul Jay Chiat had the kind of brainwave that bosses tend to have when they`re getting steadily rat-faced after a hard day`s skiing: he would "free" his employees from paper.

What`s more, he reasoned, he would make that freedom mandatory, by eliminating desks and filing cabinets. The bold new world of the paperless office was upon us, and he would be at its head.

His attempt backfired pitifully. Bewildered employees started storing paper in the boots of their cars. Some even bought toy wagons to stealthily haul their files around the office. Thankfully, the company was sold, and normality - or large piles of paper, at any rate - soon returned.

Chiat was not the only one to be left bemused. Like many trendy companies in the late 80s and 90s, he was seduced by technology`s promise to permanently change the way people do business, and ended up demanding "paperlessness" way before it was practical.

So, are we any closer to attaining the mythical paperless office? Microsoft`s head, Bill Gates certainly thinks so. Last year, he boldly told The Times of London that "we are nearing a paperless world". Problem is, precious few people agree with him. There is no doubt the technology exists, but the bottom line is that in 2006, the average office worker is drowning in more paper than ever before.

"The paperless office? It`s about as likely as the paperless toilet," says Val Watt, who heads up HP`s multifunction printer business. "Despite technologies that are designed specifically to reduce the amount of paper being used, the staggering amount of data and information being generated today means we simply can`t take it all in through a screen."

For all technology`s good intentions, the advent of networked printers and e-mail on the desktop has just made it easier for people to print out their documents in new and better ways. As Willie Viljoen, a product manager for Oc'e SA, puts it, people print information that they find on the Internet. They print their e-mails. They print their electronic bank statements.

It`s one of the anomalies of our age. As soon as companies introduced e-mail, their printing costs went up 30%. "Old habits die hard," says Paul Mullon, an executive with storage company Metrofile. "The inescapable fact is that people like paper. It is far easier to read, especially with long documents. Also, people trust paper more than backup."

If technology has failed to reduce paper use in companies, it has certainly succeeded in other ways. It has dramatically simplified modern archiving processes, for instance, and streamlined the way that most businesses store data and transfer information internally.

The paperless office? It`s about as likely as the paperless toilet.

Val Watt, manager: multifunction printer business, HP

"The real paradigm shift may be in the way paper is used," says Ashley Groenendaal, Xerox GM, channel operations at systems integrator Bytes Document Solutions. "The focus must shift from plotting the demise of paper in organisations to using, managing and storing it as effectively, efficiently and cheaply as possible."

In other words, when companies take the time to design how employees create, share, store and access documents throughout the business, they save time and money. Research by Xerox reveals that for every dollar spent on printing in the business environment, another six is spent on the rest of the workflow - that is, the how and why the document is created, and what it needs to be used for.

This means the modern organisation should be looking to promote smarter paper use and effective document management. It should try to save costs by planning document output. And instead of banning paper, it should be implementing security measures that ensure the protection of sensitive information and prevent consumables theft and device abuse.

Even if the paperless office never becomes a reality, an office that uses less paper is very possible.

Hans Horn, MD, Lexmark SA

Is the paperless office possible? From a technology point of view, certainly. Apart from the myriad networked multifunction devices available today, many companies have been working to combine digital and paper capabilities.

For example, Xerox is developing electronic paper: thin digital displays that respond to a stylus, like a pen on paper. Notations can be easily erased or saved digitally. There is also "intelligent paper", which allows writing on a page printed with a special magnetic ink to appear simultaneously on a computer screen.

""If we look at the office environment and the processes within that environment, there are some ongoing transactional processes - like applying for a credit card or processing an insurance claim - where people don`t have to use paper," says Metrofile`s Mullon.

"But you must look at the broader value chain. Where do documents come from? Who must handle them? Where do they go? In SA, in particular, there are millions of people in this chain who simply don`t have computer access, and won`t for generations to come. That is a reality we must manage."

Because humans are humans, there will always be paper in an office, says Lexmark SA head Hans Horn. "People are more comfortable with the printed page. The challenge for us as vendors is to make it easy and natural for people to engage with a device`s paper-saving features. So, even if the paperless office never becomes a reality, an office that uses less paper is very possible."

Others believe the move to an electronic age will come one step at a time. Local Internet software company Cambrient talks of the "paperless marketing revolution", in which the marketing community changes internal planning and work systems, and reaches out to consumers in a completely new and paperless way.

And that, really, is the point so often missed in debates about paperless offices and the power of the Internet to change the way we live and work. Paper will be around for some generations yet, but that shouldn`t blind us to the power of modern technology.

It is not about increased efficiencies and decreased costs. It`s all about doing something that would have been impossible before - whatever the medium we use.