Will 2021 be the “year of killing paper”?

The paperless factory is an old dream, often promised, never fulfilled. In 2020 however, the COVID-19 pandemic, the lockdowns and people being massively hindered to go physically to work revealed all the drawbacks of paper-based processes.

Never before probably, so many companies faced acute problems because of their dependencies to paper at literally the same time. Therefore we can expect a real shift from a somewhat vague concept of paperless processes to a real need to get rid of paper.

Learning from the pandemic

Most people in charge of crafting Business Continuity Plannings (BCP) did not imagine a scenario in which all technical assets remain fully functional but employees are massively held back from coming to work.

This is typically a ‘black swan’ as described by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book. The black swan has become something that is believed impossible or non-existent because it was never seen or experienced. Europeans long believed swans can only be white, as they never saw a specimen of another color, therefore a black swan was presumed not to exist. At least until European explorers spotted black swans in Australia, around 1700.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory 

From 2020 on, this black swan of people massively being held far from their workplace is now a proven possibility. Ironically, in most countries, lockdown was not a one shot but happened several times in short intervals. Thus cannot be disregarded as a highly unlikely event anymore.

For unprepared companies (and how could they be prepared for this unprecedented event?), not ready for remote work and still relying heavily on paperwork, the nightmare began with the lockdown and/or many people sick, unable to find child care or frightened of contamination and staying home.

Even for companies operating partly from remote, access to some information and data was simply not possible because those were printed on some documents kept in the company or locally stored on computers in the empty offices.

Those who didn’t know the meaning and implications of digital discontinuity discovered it the hard way. And they are numerous! According to Forrester’s Q1 2020 Global Digital Process Automation Survey, 76% of responding companies admitted their dependence on paper to some degree for running their processes. Worse, two-third of them discovered broken processes revealed by the pandemic-related unusual situation.

Digitize and transform

“Killing paper” calls for digitizing. But digitalization does not automatically imply digital continuity. Scanning invoices creates a digital version of the paper document, but if it is stored on a personal workstation or an off-network or non-shared storage space, the digital version will be as useless as its paper version in the cases described above.

When many locked-down restaurants and shops turned to take-away and click-and-collect, they displayed their menus or products on their Facebook page or a website, but this did not turn them into digital companies.

Henceforth, in order to take full advantage of digital, a true digital transformation must be undertaken. This means reconsidering the purpose of existing processes, their value and how they contribute to client satisfaction. Processes may be reengineered, discarded or created, depending on what the mandatory in-depth analysis reveals. During this introspection phase, new offers or services may be created, requiring new processes and maybe new competences.

The click-and-collect solutions setup in a hurry by many stores for instance is not sustainable as-is. Many customers stayed loyal to their beloved store, but in the long run, without a seamless end-to-end process and reasonable delivery system, this kind of sales is likely to fade. Customers will get tired of taking over the burden of unpreparedness. Solidarity with the brick-and-mortar stores works as long as the appropriate emotional state lasts. Once the ‘new normal’ is broadly accepted as such, customers will turn to stores that take away hasle and constraints from them.

Employees must be able to use, serve and maintain new digital processes and the company culture must be adjusted to the new way of working. Therefore, if getting rid of paper and go for digital transformation are very desirable goals, it isn’t that easy.

All this said,

Will 2021 be the “year of killing paper” ?

2021 may well be a year with more digital transformation projects, but many companies will start the new year battered by a severe and prolonged downturn. Those may not have the necessary resources for undertaking such a transformation and many executives will probably focus first on restoring some of the financial health before planning any major project.

There is never a good time for undertaking a (major) project. It will always collide with daily priorities. Yet the inability to change and transform soon enough will have fatal consequences in some cases, a warning to consider.

2021 may be the starting year for a bigger movement towards paperless processes, but this movement will extend beyond 2021. As for ‘killing paper’, this old material has proven resistant to many elimination attempts till yet.

In order for me to rub some salt into the wound, the fight should not only focus on eliminating paper from processes, but spreadsheets altogether! I leave you reflecting on this.

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About the author, Chris HOHMANN

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