Going paperless: from vision to reality

Though going paper-free is often the starting point for a company’s digital transformation, far fewer organizations have taken advantage of newer automation and routing tools that could provide real operational gains. In fact, only 22% of organizations have moved to mostly paper-free processes.

Why go paperless? Aside from the tree-saving benefits, eliminated paper processes enables you to bring long-lasting value to your business while driving innovation. Moving to paper-free processes eliminates business expenditures on real estate simply for paper storage purposes (i.e. File Rooms) and allows you to retire fax machines and printers. It also reduces ongoing costs of purchasing paper and minimizes risks associated with hard-copy documents — including loss or damage to them.

This process not only provides cost savings, but it allows you to transform your organization on the spectrum of innovation:

• Transforms the way your employees work with your customers, partners, and colleagues
• Allows businesses to appeal to employees who are on-the-go or work remotely
• Allows you to move up the innovation curve by adopting digital processes for business units
• Provides executives with a new, more efficient way to work
• By enabling your knowledge workers to easily access the information you have available, they are more likely to succeed.

What you need to consider

Timeline

• When is the expected project completion date?
• What are the key project milestones?
• What are stakeholder expectations for phased execution of these milestones?
• Is the timeline contingent on any external factors?

Content Sources and Volume

• How much content do you expect to be scanned into Box?
• Where is this content located?
• Which departments will be consulted/affected?
• How should the documents be categorized?

Search: Is OCR or any metadata extraction a requirement?

Automation: How should automation vs. accuracy be balanced in categorizing documents?

Migration: Do you intend on having a user driven or IT driven migration?

Organization: Will there be a folder structure defined?

Change Management

• Do any of your users have a hard time adopting new technologies?
• How do your users like to learn (e.g onsite, virtual, videos, self-service tools)?
• Can you make business representatives available to act as power users and evangelists?

Support: Do you have Helpdesk resources that would be expected to support issues related to Box?

Case Study: HR File Room Migration for Large Multinational Organization

Objective:
The HR team of a large multinational organization needed to scan all their HR records into a document management system. They had specific requirements for adding metadata to these files, organizing it in Box, and managing permissions.

Process Overview:
Box worked alongside a digitization vendor and third party firm to help automate folder organization in Box once content was digitized. Box led the planning, discovery, application of permissioning once in Box, and led engaged training with the HR team to ensure that they were trained on their new business processes in Box.

Milestones:
Plan:

• Developed a project plan & timeline
• Worked with the HR team to identify their business needs
• Determine folder organization and permissions required in Box
• Determine their requirements to tag content with metadata
• Prepared for digitization
• HR team identified File Room documents that require digitization
• HR team organized documents in accordance with metadata classifications as required

Capture: Box & HR Team worked with a third party to execute the scanning of physical documents with associated metadata

Organize: transfer documents to designated structure & associate metadata in Box

• Establish ownership model for content & permissions in Box

Search & Share

• Translate prior business processes to Box
• Develop training to train your knowledge workers on their new digital business processes
• Create custom guides to ensure a smooth transition from existing to digital workflows

Outcome: Ingested 1 million files to Box within 3 months!