A few weeks ago I reported that I could sense a new, much more determined mood across the UK business community to embrace electronic channels to overcome the postal strike. You can really see the aspiration in the eyes of sales executives to turn a major disaster into a business opportunity. So what has the response been so far?
My contacts in Mimecast, a leading vendor of cloud-based email security services, tell me that they noted a 20% increase in the volume of email on the first day of the Royal Mail postal strike. In fact they've seen this level of increase before during previous strikes. So is this just a routine knee jerk reaction? Or is it something different?
In fact I believe we've hit a tipping point. Things are different this time around. One of the main characteristics of tipping points, as articulated by Malcolm Gladwell in his groundbreaking book on the subject, is the 'power of context', the particular conditions and circumstances of the time and place.
In this case we have several factors coming together. Firstly, there is a greater recognition that electronic channels are now the norm, rather than the exception, for many forms of business. Secondly, there are now plenty of easy-to-implement security products to help companies make the transition from snail mail to secure email. And thirdly there is less fear of deploying complex technologies such as encryption to solve business problems.
But above all, there is a new confidence that a paperless business environment is now a viable, as well as a desirable objective. Years ago, we used to joke that the paperless office would come after the paperless toilet. Perhaps we were mistaken...
Comments (2)
Well, David, many SMEs have been running 99% paperless offices for years now. Take our operation, for example. We virtualised our company about 5 years ago; all our staff run (large) twin TFT monitors, so they've got paper-quality screens to gaze at and plenty of virtual desktop to spread applications over; all our admin and mail systems are web-based, so they can be accessed from anywhere (using our SSH-based VPN; no, we don't trust SSL). We ask suppliers to invoice us by PDF, and we invoice our clients (and send them all order-related paperwork) by PDF. Our printers sit on their desktops all day doing very little at all - we print one or two pages of hardcopy a week. All our data is backed up locally, to a remote site a few yards down the road, and to a cloud server. And from conversations with colleagues, I honestly don't think we're particularly unusual in the SMB sphere. In our experience, it's the larger companies that still insist on churning out hardcopy, for mystic reasons that probably have to do with the natural caution of corporate man rather than any lack of appropriate technology.
We do still use paper in the toilets, however...
Posted by MadaboutDana | November 9, 2009 12:58 PM
Posted on November 9, 2009 12:58
There are some others issues driving migration away from paper, too. Gartner estimates that most corporates spend 3% of their turnover on office printing and copying, and with the Carbon Reduction Commitment looming many organisations are also conscious of the energy consumed by their myriad imaging devices. Canny organisations are realising that by reducing their reliance on hard copy - they can reduce costs, cut energy consumption and optimise workflows. Progressive suppliers of imaging devices are working with their clients to achieve these goals.
Posted by Tracey Rawling Church | November 11, 2009 5:00 PM
Posted on November 11, 2009 17:00