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Starting 2018 with a business case for paper-to-digital transformation

16 Jan 2018

Digital transformation has been a buzzword for business operations for a few years, and while that’s likely to still be the case in 2018, things are beginning to change.

In a Computing survey last year, 48% of respondents said ‘there are many digital business initiatives completed / under way and they are centrally coordinated’ in their business. Only 3% said they have no plans regarding digital business.

While it’s encouraging to see so many organisations embracing digital transformation, there are still a lot of companies who aren’t embracing it in full, leaving heavy, inefficient paper processes to remain in the business.

Eventually, something will have to change, and it’s possible that 2018 will be a year of change for those companies who aren’t realising the full potential of paper-to-digital transformation.

If you’re one of them, it might be time to think about what you can do to create a business case for digital transformation that will allow your back office business operations to become more efficient, less time consuming and less reliant on paper.

Digital Transformation has to be led by business value, not technology

Too often with digital initiatives, organisations use technology as the starting point. Unfortunately, this often leads to the changes being rejected or put on hold because technology is costly and at times, difficult to implement.

When thinking about digital transformation, consider the business value it will bring. For example, if a business goal in 2018 is for the company to increase sustainability, digital transformation helps meet this goal by reducing paper usage.

By leading with the business value, you have a better chance of getting management buy-in.

Getting management buy-in

For digital transformation to take place in your company, you need to have the right buy-in from the management team. The more transformative your project, and the more you’re attempting to change, the more important management buy-in is.

To get management buy-in, it’s likely you’ll need to cover these three areas: technical, business and finance.

Effectively, you need a manager from each affected line of business to support you and get a higher-level management buy-in to move the project forward. Initially, it makes sense to focus on departments or lines of business that are print-intensive and have high visibility – human resources, accounting and compliance are good examples.

Changing user behaviours and culture

As well as management buy-in, you have to consider how a digital transformation project will affect people in the business.

If the current organisational culture is to print everything no matter what, you’re going to need a great business case to change it.

One of the best ways to encourage behavior change is to give people more ownership and control. That’s not to say let everyone print what they like, but rather, make them aware of the targets they should be working towards and how to achieve them.

There will be times when you need to be more proactive. For example, you may need to build awareness of the reasons for change, as well as what will change and what the associated business benefits of digital transformation are.

Email, intranet content and e-learning programs can all help to spread the word. A simple online “cheat sheet” could summarize the “dos and don’ts” of printing, or present a decision tree or Q&A flowchart to help people resolve helpdesk-style questions, or make decisions on how and when to print.