How green are your transactions?

Jayant Dwivedy, CEO, Empronc Solution

With newer technologies knocking on our doors, we still feel comfortable with using paper. The scale may be different but many organizations thrive on using paper, writing voluminous matter on paper, filling paper formats and printing / photocopying on paper. This is followed by sending paper documents across through couriers; and filing, storing and retrieving these paper documents!

It is a habit. We have been brought up using paper. In the interest of the environment, this habit is best broken. This article does not advocate a paperless world or paper less office but discusses a greener office environment and the resultant cost benefits. So if not a paper less office can we discuss a "LESS PAPER OFFICE”? That by itself will be a green achievement for the current business leaders.

World consumption of paper has grown four hundred percent in the last 40 years. Nearly 4 billion trees or 35% of the total trees cut around the world are used in paper industries. We cannot completely negate paper from our lives but as technology advances and people get more aware about the environment, things will start changing provided we use less paper and go digital whenever possible. A carefully selected combination of different simple technologies can deliver the desired results viz. online transactions using simple applications, high speed scanners and OCR (Optical Character recognition devices) etc.

There are simple calculations available today that can enable an organization to determine how "green” they are in terms of transactions? The use of paper (read cutting of trees) to do transactions, followed by the physical distribution of the printed copies or manually filled formats using different modes of transportation, severely impacts the environment. Cutting trees down or burning fuel, has a really nasty impact on the atmosphere.

To take a simpler example from our daily lives, a single standard newspaper adds 71g of carbon equivalent. The carbon impact of online delivery of a newspaper is 9.4g and can allow 10 hours of online reading to have the same carbon impact. This simple example establishes the clear advantage of online transactions vis-à-vis manual transactions. As the size of the computational devices and processors become smaller and processing speed significantly increase, each table is serviced by speeds that were not available to a spacecraft launching centre a few decades back! The data transmission services and their reliability, advancement of the web and the availability of IT skilled manpower are beginning to make the life of the average business leader a lot simpler.

Availability of information at the right time at the right place is vital for decision making. The same is equally important for meeting regulatory requirements and corporate governance requirements. Online transactions that capture data continuously, online checks and control and also collation under appropriate heads become absolutely necessary. As an example not being able to categorize spend at the requisition stage and also not validating the same with respect to limits, business requirements, policies etc. can leave an organization with voluminous data on spend that cannot be processes into information. This becomes a liability as neither the top management, finance or procurement can accurately map out budgets or forecast spends. Non availability of data leads to practices wherein "the experienced few” take the business calls and the entire process remains as an extension of historical "episodes”. This may well work fine in a steady business but in a dynamic environment and with ever changing business strategies it does not take long to find out that manual means of moving and compiling data can be detrimental to the business. Can a business leader aspire to put in place a system that makes the organization transparent, productive and green? Is there a straightforward way to achieve this?

In simple, how does a company plan to make the business green, transparent and productive? What follows are simple steps to get things right:

1. The project requires leadership at the top. It definitely needs the sponsorship of the CEO or CFO or Management Team. The process should be started with fact collection meetings. Asking the difficult questions and using a bit of external facilitation (to force the organization to think outside the box) accelerates the process. "What is not automated?” should be the area of focus in these meetings.
   
   

   Also, PARTIAL AUTOMATION creates big processing spikes and delays. These spikes make the operation complex, people dependant and take the organization away from being green.

   Check for: Bottom of the pyramid not integrated; movement of papers and documents; late hours and week end working; month end peak loads; large organization working with limited licenses etc.

2. The next step is the identification of areas that have big transactional load e.g. bill processing; ordering, employee reimbursements etc.
   
   A quick check then reveals where and how these transactions enter the Financial system. How many operations are manual before the financial system gets the first entry? Who are the people who do the manual operations? Where are they located? What manual formats do they use? How many people are involved in the whole process? What is the turn around time?
   
   Check for: Availability of data on average turnaround time of the transactions; where are the documents stored and how are they moved around; number of locations etc.
   
   
   
3. Follow this with, the identification of SIMPLE and COST EFFECTIVE technology solution to overcome the situation. Determine the cost and timelines (budget 3-4 months of effort).
   
   The pay back for these solutions is as quick as 6-9 months. The overall efficiency of the organization improves; the bottom of the pyramid gets integrated for transactions and also become accountable. The operation transitions from what was seemingly complex to a GREENER AND COMPLIANT environment.
   
   Check for: Available data on the last large computerization effort in the organization (if any) and the timelines; put them on the table (it may be surprising to many on how cost effectively the next level computerization can be achieved!)
   
   
4. The top down approach to communicate, share information on the GREENER approach is appreciated by one and all and is a good strategy to effect change. Thanks to the mass media propaganda on making the earth GREEN, there is a good support at all levels of management to appreciate the efforts made to make internal processes GREEN. The wider acceptance drives the change management process (driving changes under the banner of "productivity increase” was always a more difficult proposition as many in the industry will tell you!)
   
5. The GREENER transactions necessarily lead to lower overall costs, higher productivity and greater compliance. Automation of transactions should not be mistaken as ‘another ERP exercise”. Low cost automation of transactions is nothing short of innovation. It should be an ongoing exercise from time to time (the technology experts need to ensure a TOTAL integration is achieved and the overall roadmap is well understood). However, in all such cases the technology bit take a back seat by week 3 and the real essence (viz. smarter processes, lesser paper work, less tedious operations) remains.

The people become a happier lot. They emerge as WINNERS. Do we owe it to them?

Empronc Solutions through its flagship product BAZ has successfully automated millions of transactions across ten industry verticals eliminating the use of paper/ movement of paper at multiple points and has done its bit on making earth a GREENER place for the next generation. Join us in the efforts for a "LESS PAPER OFFICE” with happier employees!