Earlier today I spoke with VersionOne, the paperless office company. I was interested in discovering what motivates their customers to buy into the relatively mature document management market.
Recently VersionOne has been trying to play up the sustainability card but according to its PR, the company finds it something of an uphill struggle. Her opinion is that it might take legislation to get people wired into the idea. I disagree.
Professionals understand an economic case but I wonder how well it has been made. VersionOne claims an average ROI of sub-6 months. That’s pretty good for any significant technology investment. So what about the sustainability elements:
A typical HP laserjet printer, which uses 5.628 kWH/week emits 13.170 lbs CO2 per week
A typical photocopier uses 400 watts per hour on standby = 16kWH for a 40 hour working week = 37.44 lbs CO2 per week
Annualised for say a 46 week working year equates to 2,328.06 lbs per annum. This is for a single machine of each type. Assuming of course the machines are switched off at holiday closure times.
Persuading clients to accept electronic copies of their accounts might be a stretch but given that we’re all moving to electronic filing over the course of the next couple of years might be enough of an incentive to at least rethink how much the profession really needs paper. By taking a pro-active stance on this topic, professionals position themselves as responsible corporate citizens while opening up the potential for consulting engagements based on real life experience.
As an aside VersionOne is more attractive than other offerings I’ve seen because while it integrates with many financial packages, the data it generates is portable between systems. Unlike the usual mantra of ‘one stop’ computing, it means companies that may be considering systems migration don’t have to re=engineer their DM solution.
