The Datamax Thinking Blog

Any business whether it’s healthcare facilities, legal firms, financial services or educational institutions, has to deal with an inordinate amount of documents.  When digging through a dusty file cabinet for a case study or client information, at the back of any file clerk or assistant’s mind is the question “Isn’t there a better way?”

By Jamie Bsales, Associate Editor, October 1, 2009

I was recently browsing the internet when I came across a website claiming it could tell me exactly how much my life was worth as a human being.  Intrigued, I filled out a survey that asked questions about my physical, mental, lifestyle and personality factors.  Once completed it broke down every aspect of my answers and gave me an exact number of my life’s worth—$2,327,896 to be exact. 

In today’s society everyone strives to become the boss whether it’s the manager, president or CEO. People tend to discount the little people like the secretary, assistant and file clerk. These employees are essential for making sure every-day tasks are completed smoothly and efficiently, yet businesses insist on making life harder for them by keeping with a paper-based office.

In 1975 a Business Week article discussed how the personal computer revolution would ultimately lead to a paperless office. In 2009, thirty-four years later, the information contained in paper form has changed, but businesses are increasingly inundated with paper records.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) has made great progress in the fight for paperless offices. It’s become a staple component in just about any document management software.

The average office worker spends up to half of their workday searching for simple information! No wonder it’s hard to increase production. A digital document storage system will not only increase worker productivity, but also reduce company costs.