How much copier paper is currently
purchased each year? How much paper is bought from printers? How much of
this expenditure can be eliminated (83% of the average company’s paper
usage is for internal purposes)?
What does the organisation spend on
photocopying/printing? How much can be eliminated (over 90% of the
average company’s photocopying relates to internal documents)?
What do you spend on postage/couriers?
How much of this can be eliminated? A PriceWaterhouseCoopers survey
estimates that it costs 12p to get a single sheet of photocopied paper
onto the desk of a government official. For smaller organisations the
cost is likely to be far greater.
The same survey indicated that staff
spent 6% of their working time sorting information into file structures.
Their own structures are invariably unique and make efficient sharing of
information an impossibility. An IDC White Paper entitled ‘The High
Cost of Not Finding Information’ estimates that 35-50% of company
information is not centrally indexed and searchable. Other surveys put
this figure as high as 80%. The IDC White paper estimates that an
organisation employing 1000 knowledge workers wastes $2.5 million per
year due to an inability to locate and retrieve information.
Many organisations suffer from the
duplication of effort by employees because there is no mechanism to
share information. The same IDC White Paper estimates that the average
knowledge worker spends 33% of his/her time recreating existing
knowledge and just 10% of his/her time creating new knowledge. This
costs the organisation employing 1000 knowledge workers $5 million per
year.
Opportunity Cost
Without appropriate systems, poor access
to information has even more damaging consequences. Poor decision
making, frustration, lost sales due to the inability to provide
information to customers and time wasted interrupting colleagues to get
information are all hard to quantify. The IDC White Paper puts the cost
at $15 million for the organisation with 1000 workers.
Our experience suggests that clients
eliminate between 10-25% of all processing errors using EQMS. The
correct document is always used. The precise reduction tends to depend
on the volatility of the document set and the complexity of the
processes.
The system is built to maintain
compliance to recognised standards. The cost implications of losing
certification (infinitely more possible with a paper-based system) can
be terminal for many businesses.
Time is saved locating information and
acting upon it. Distribution of information is instantaneous.
Administration is straightforward and allows management to get on with
productive activity.
Information becomes far more accessible
to users and feedback is instantaneous via e-mail. One of our clients
experienced a 300% increase in change requests made by their staff.
Inaccurate, out of date documentation is replaced with information of
far superior quality with input at all levels.
Staff can find information quickly and
efficiently. A responsive two-way dialogue is encouraged by the
system. As more organisations provide staff with a connection to
the Internet, access to a wealth of useful information becomes possible.
However, abuse of the Internet is common and employees can spend a
massive amount of time surfing the net to find a piece of information
that has been accessed many times before by other members of the team.
Intranet-based systems can integrate with the Internet to control and
structure the delivery of such information so that it is placed in
context within an internal content and is easily located. Access to non-authorised
sites can also be restricted.
