Apr 22, 2019
It is estimated that the price of paper will soon rise by 25% as a result of the ongoing paper shortage around the world. Some governments have already started to reduce the length of their newspapers and university publishers are waiting months for orders of coated paper to print their academic works.
It is actually not a question of where, but who – paper manufacturers have been shutting their doors due to struggling profits and a change in the market. Many manufacturers have replaced coated paper and newsprint paper with packaging grade paper to serve the growing personal shipping market. E-commerce in the U.S. has grown by 57% since 2002, and this growth is expected to continue. As more and more people order online and products are shipped individually rather than in bulk, more paper is needed to wrap and protect these items.
While some paper producers are altering their products, others are closing down to financial difficulties. Recently, Georgia Pacific closed a paper production facility that was responsible for 7-8% of the U.S. communication paper inventory. Closures like these are becoming common, greatly reducing the paper supply in the country. Even as the demand grows, it can take years and a large financial investment to open a new paper production facility.
Even if you do not need thousands of sheets of paper a day, you'd be surprised how much the average person does use on a daily basis. The typical office worker uses 38 pieces of paper a day, or roughly a whole tree worth of paper every year. Even if your
office uses only basic paper products (not coated or newsprint), you will feel the increased costs associated with the shortage as the chemicals used to produce paper are also in short supply.
Until the paper shortage is resolved, businesses
will either have to pay more or print less which leads us into our answer; digital documents.
A document management solution can provide you with the tools to manage your paper files into a digital system, and help you decrease your reliance on paper moving forward. Managing paper documents costs your organization time and money; it takes an average of 9 minutes to find a document in a physical filing system, and a misplaced file costs $120 to replace. Our document scanning solution can get your documents out of file cabinets/offsite storage facilities and into a secure computer system that is easily accessible to your employees.
To further improve mobility and efficiency with your documents, we highly recommend implementing a day forward capture solution in your workplace. A simple scan of your documents allows you to digitally access, organize, edit, store, and share your content. Document scanning software will eliminate redundant paper files and time consuming data entry tasks by capturing the information in your documents.
Are you ready to reduce your organization's reliance on paper files? Find out how much paper your organization is really using by scheduling a demo with one of our experts.
