Can Businesses Replace "Good Old-Fashioned" Paper With Software?

March 25, 2009 - PRLog -- MHelpdesk, a provider of service management software, recently studied how businesses transitioned from a paper-based to "paperless" office.  Mhelpdesk's core business has been helping businesses in the services industry take advantage of service management software to replace their "older" inefficient paper-based systems.  The underlying goal was to help service professionals save time, reduce costs, and boost the bottom-line.  But is a "paperless system" even practical?  According to MHelpdesk, it often doesn't make sense to go "paper-less".  The most productive companies actually use a combination of both paper and software.

The conclusion is that businesses rely too heavily on paper, and for good reason.  In fact, paper plays such a big role in their day-to-day operations that workers can't even begin to comprehend life without it.  When top-level management implements "paper-less" policy with the intentions of improving efficiency, they often battle internal resistance that can lead to failure.

After analyzing several businesses in the repair, cleaning, computer, maintenance, and specialized services industry, the conclusion was that paper simply cannot be replaced in "most" cases.  Instead, paper and software must co-exist peacefully together for the best results.  Even more interesting is that fact that eliminating paper can actually result in slower performance.  And this statement is not limited to the "non-technical" population.  They observed that even software-engineers reach for paper as a first response.

The issue has nothing to do with the learning-curve of software, costs, or even the type of industry a business operates in.  Rather, this is an issue of practicality.  A "paperless system" assumes that a person is constantly in front of a computer, or has access to a mobile-computer at all times.  For most businesses, this just isn't practical.  Field-work, on-site estimates, mobile repair, cleaning services all run into the problem of practicality when it comes to a "paperless system".  Simply stated, people work with the tools that are "easily" accessible to them.

Traditional tools such as the order-pad, notepad, work-order, and invoice can never be replaced by software.  But then again, software was never meant to replace paper.  Perhaps this disconnect is the reason why so many technological implementations fail in businesses.  This is not to say that software has no value.   On the contrary, a business will not survive through the next decade without it.  And here is why.

The paper-based tools mentioned above offer the flexibility, convenience, and speed of taking down important information...fast.  Whether its a call to place an order by phone, or an estimate to begin work, paper is hands down the easiest and fastest way to initiate the business work-flow.  But paper also comes with crippling disadvantages.  As software changes the playing field, the disadvantages of paper will be magnified.

Paper's biggest disadvantage is that is disorganized.  File-cabinets, the Rolodex, and folders all sought to solve the problem of disorganization, but none have ever provided businesses with what they really needed.  And that need is a system that can "make sense" of all those pieces of paper.  Paper alone cannot drill-down, search, sort, filter and create reports that help companies identify sales opportunities, growth, and weaknesses.  Typically, paper gets tucked away in a file-cabinet and lays idle indefinitely.  Twenty years ago, this was fine since the industry operated this way.  But today, companies that are not "making sense" of their paper will be dominated by those that are gathering intelligence through the use of both paper and software.

MHelpdesk found that the ideal solution is a combination of both paper and software.  Businesses should continue to utilize paper as the first step in the business work-flow.  However, unlike the past, it should not be the last step.  Rather, a businesses should include a second step that converts paper into it's corresponding "electronic" copy.  This simply means that, at some point in the day, paper notes should be entered into a software program.  

To simplify this concept, think of software as an electronic file-cabinet.  Like a traditional file-cabinet, software does an excellent job at filing things in alphabetical order.  However, that is where all similarities end.  Traditional file-cabinets cannot retrieve records based on business rules.  To illustrate this, a common problem for businesses is figuring out where their customers are coming from.  This information is critical, as it helps them determine how effective their advertising dollars are being spent.  Software allows a business to digest this data and see exactly where each customer is coming from, thus maximizing ad dollars.

Service-based companies often have the need to generate recurring revenue.  A carpet-cleaning business may resell it's services once a year, thus needing a system to retrieve a list of customers due for their annual service.  There is no easy way to retrieve this list with a purely paper-based system.  On the other hand, software can quickly digest all the records and produce this type of list with little effort.  The result is maximizing sales opportunities.

When working in larger teams consisting of managers and employees, the need for both paper and software becomes even more obvious.  Paper-based documents are still relevant when it comes to distributing work to technicians and skilled workers.  At the same time, management's ability to get a bird's-eye view of the day becomes critical.  Software makes it possible to stay updated on statuses and priorities with less effort.  Software can also improve the communication between customers, employees, and managers, which also improves a business's efficiency.

In conclusion, management should recognize that paper will always play an important role in business processes.  Understanding and including paper as part of the business work-flow is a more realistic approach to implementing software.   A truly "paper-less" system is simply not practical in most cases.  A combination of paper and software is the ideal solution that generally leads to increased efficiency, reduced costs, and a healthier bottom-line.

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MHelpdesk is software for the professional services industry. We help you organize your customers, jobs, invoices, and marketing into one simple Web-based solution. Categories: Service Tracking, Trouble Ticket, Cleaning, Repair, Helpdesk Software.