The end of paper?

Rap music pumped from the speakers. Cameras flashed. Models prowled the catwalk wearing paper dresses designed by students from the Berlin Fashion School. A crowd gathered quickly.

This wasn't the launch of a new fashion line or the release of a new album. It was an event promoting the advantages of the paperless office at the CeBIT technology fair in Hanover.

The idea of an office without paper has been around since computers were invented. In 1975 BusinessWeek magazine wrote an article called 'The Office of the Future', predicting "the paperless office is not that far off" and that by 1990 the vast majority of offices would cease to use paper to keep records, track shipments and invoices, and keep the office running.

This future has not come to pass.

A persistent problem

Despite all of the apparent benefits of a paperless office, desks around the world are still cluttered with paper. Nearly every business professional has access to a computer which can display documents, but often these documents are printed anyway.

In a 2001 paper published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology called 'The Myth of the Paper Office', authors Abigail Sullen and Richard Harper said that even with technological advances, paper was an essential part of the corporate culture and that removing it would prevent an office from working properly.

A German trade group is trying to change this. An initiative calling itself 'ECM Now' (ECM stands for electronic content management), which sponsored the fashion event at CeBIT, is working to convince companies here to use paperless technologies. Dressing fashion models in outfits made of paper was the group's way of drawing attention to their cause.

Faster and cheaper

The impact that the use of paper in the workplace has on the environment is enormous. In the United States, which is the largest consumer of paper, the average worker uses 10,000 sheets of paper per year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. This amounts to four million tons of paper annually.

The use of paper also has a financial impact. Companies spend large amounts of money each year to provide workers with paper for use in the office. Proponents of paperless offices also argue that using paper hurts efficiency.

"When we filed tenders by mail it would take a day or two to reach the potential client. It's the same with faxes; someone has to print it out and take it to the fax machine, sometimes there are problems," said Markus Doerflinger, an official with EKATO - a machinery manufacturer based in Schopfheim. ''These are the kind of problems we don't have anymore.''

Doerflinger added that clients largely aren't aware of his firm's switch to paperless business.

"Our customers don't really notice any changes, except perhaps that our service has improved, and that the flow of information has become much faster," he said.

Mental obstacles

Olaf Holst, director of sales and partner management at Optimal Systems in Berlin, says that using paperless office software also helps to keep workers organized.

"There never will be processes without any paper in the office, but we can reduce the paper … so we make companies faster and reduce the space needed for storing the useless paper after printing it out," said Holst, whose company makes ECM software. "That's the main idea of enterprise content management, to make work faster and more efficient."

Despite these advantages, Holst acknowledges that convincing companies to give up paper and switch to electronic workflows is a tough sell. This is especially in true in Germany, where paperwork plays a large part of corporate and administrative life.

"I think the main obstacle is in the head of the people who should use the software because they're thinking something like 'it's my document'," Holst said.."It's not because of the technology; it's usually a thing with the people who have to use it."

Author: David Francis
Editor: Sam Edmonds