Whatever happened to the paperless office? Do we still want it? Despite the PC and Internet revolution, businesses seem to be buried under more paper than ever.

Information 2.0 – scanning and digitizing your documents and backing them up, then discarding the paper copies, can have two highly desirable results. One, you can mitigate many document security and search concerns. Two, you can recover valuable filing space that becomes available for other uses.

The paperless office is making more sense, especially with office security concerns including account fraud and ID theft.

A document stored as an Adobe PDF can be secured twice. You can easily set up a scanner to save a file full of documents as PDFs. When a PDF is stored on a secured computer or hard drive, the first layer of security is a combination login ID and password on the actual computer. No one can gain access to the document without being able to log in to the computer.

Software solutions such as Adobe Acrobat 9 standard allow each PDF to be secured with a passcode, which prevents anyone without the access code from opening the document.

The other benefit of Information 2.0 – recovering valuable office real estate – also has far-reaching effects. By saving documents electronically and discarding the hard copies, offices can add square footage in areas where file cabinets previously monopolized floor space. Employee work spaces, meeting and break areas can be expanded.

The paperless office is here now. Scanning and saving documents electronically brings together two powerful benefits, enhanced security and space savings, in your Information 2.0 office.

Mark Lewis
Director of Marketing
Fujitsu Computer Products of America