Where to Start Your Digital Transformation: 20 Processes That Should Be Paper-Free

Simplicity is an undervalued commodity of modern business, and as seen through efforts to purge paper processes, simplicity has the potential to add real value to many organizations. Efforts to drive out paper are an essential foundation to creating a more simplified, user-friendly, and changeable enterprise, but these efforts must be supported by business technology, process, and leadership, which advocate the same. Most importantly, our mindset needs to change. Simplicity is often synonymous with lesser value. Often complex functionality is what attracts senior management interest and investment dollars to the cause; complex solutions take space at the head of board meetings, while simple solutions often only find room at the kids' table.

But complexity is not by virtue an asset; often, complexity is just a waste of time. As we move away from legacy mediums like paper and aging technology from the early millennium and take into account the expectations of the modern worker, a balance must be struck between functionality and usability. All secure, efficient, and successful enterprise processes aren’t complex—though they can be—but they can equally be simple, and often there is a unique added value to advocate for lighter and cleaner processes.

In addition, where full-scale ECM/DM systems were traditionally cost prohibitively for many organizations—particularly SMBs—simple enterprise solutions today are increasingly affordable, requiring a fraction of the investment while helping organizations quickly achieve digital transformation and respective ROI.

20 Processes Ripe for Paperless Transformation

1. Accounts Payable (invoice processing
2. Accounts Receivable (customer payments)
3. Customer on-boarding
4. Claims processing
5. Records management
6. Manufacturing
7. Logistics
8. Order fulfillment
9. HR (recruiting and applicant tracking)
10. HR (on-boarding, employee management, and off-boarding)
11. Contract management
12. Customer loyalty programs
13. Supply chain management
14. Legal
15. Technical documents
16. New account opening
17. Mortgage origination
18. Loan processing
19. Patient care administration
20. In-bound mail and forms

Where will you start your digital transformation? In what processes can you ditch the paper?