UN-CLUTTHERING THE OFFICE

[Anonymous]

Un-cluttering the office
Canon India presented their view of paper-covered offices and document management.With the advent of the PC, the perception was that people would stop banking on pieces of paper and start keying in things. One thought that a scenario where stacks of paper lie in a corner of the office with dust settling on them would be a thing of the past. But Alok Bharadwaj, Vice-president Canon India, presented a different view of things. “We have loaded ourselves with paper,” said Bharadwaj. “There are two main dimensions of document management. Increasing productivity and reducing costs,” said Bharadwaj. Bharadwaj explains that according to a study that was conducted in 2001, printing has increased by 40 percent. The use of paper, he said, is now expected to rise at the rate of 21 percent per year. “Earlier, the sole cause of paper clutter could be attributed to copying,” said Bharadwaj. Applications that require employees to print a large number of documents are many. Printing of e-forms, e-manuals, brochures, flyers, direct mail, booklets, directories, manuals, catalogues, packing, and bar codes will contribute to the proliferation of documents in any organisation. According to Bharadwaj, some of the largest sources of documents are invoices, statements, direct mail, centralised letters, reports, manuals, the Internet, call centres and voice mail. Bharadwaj presented a finding by the ALL Associates Group & Intro Trends on the industry’s document spending. This stated that the expenses on documents by the transportation vertical was the least at about 2.36 percent, while government spends the most at about 15 percent. Speaking on the scope of document management, Bharadwaj listed some common document management functions: “Retention or archival, creating and capture, storage and organisation, review and synthesis, control and access version are some of the common functions.”

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January 4, 2007 at 12:39 PM